United sought the mechanics' concessions as part of an overall package of $5.2 billion in wage and benefit cuts from employees over five and a half years.
Northwest also said it would require $1.1 billion in wage and benefit cuts from its unions if it were to avoid a trip to bankruptcy court.
Last month, Delta warned that it could seek bankruptcy protection unless it was able to lower its costs and win wage and benefit cuts from its pilots' union.
In addition to pressuring G.M., Delphi seeks sweeping wage and health benefit cuts from the union, including an end to medical benefits for retirees who are eligible for Medicare.
However, its operating costs, not including fuel, remain higher than those of its competitors, particularly American Airlines, which won wage and benefit cuts from its unions last year by threatening to file for bankruptcy protection.
Bowen reiterated Labor's opposition to family tax benefit cuts from the 2014 budget, which the Coalition has linked to its proposed extra spending on childcare in the 2015 budget.
The wage and benefit cuts from the unions go into effect on May 1. "It's my hope that today represents a new opportunity for American Airlines and its employees," John Ward, president of the Association of Professional Flight Attendants, said yesterday in a news conference in company headquarters in Fort Worth.
Though United -- a subsidiary of UAL -- has been in Chapter 11 bankruptcy since December 2002, it has been operating normally; until now it has made good on all its mandatory pension contributions, even as it negotiated other wage and benefit cuts from its unions.
Or to sign another petition opposing benefit cuts from the Campaign for America's Future, click here.
And to make things worse, the companies then demand wage and benefit cuts from the workers who are still here, claiming that "globalization" means they now have to compete with workers with no rights, so they must accept less.
