DELTA Air Lines Inc would find it easier to block union drives after its merger with Northwest Airlines Corp under a United States labor agency's proposal, a flight attendants group has said.

The National Mediation Board plan would bar one organizing tactic, submitting signature cards in favor of representation, and leave elections as the only option, Pat Friend, president of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, said last Friday.

"It looks very suspicious that they are doing it now because they are going to help Delta destroy collective bargaining rights," Friend said of the NMB in an interview with Bloomberg News.

The board is taking comments on its proposal as labor groups prepare to organize Delta, the third-largest US carrier, once it buys Northwest later this year.

Northwest's major work groups are all in unions while only pilots are represented at Delta, the least-unionized major US airline.

The NMB, a Washington-based federal agency that helps resolve labor disputes, has never let workers use cards alone to gain union membership unless management backs the effort, Chairman Read Van de Water said in an interview last week.

The proposal "is merely stating the practice of the agency for the past 20 years," Van de Water said. "The board has never let authorization cards be used for anything other than an election without carrier agreement."

Barrier to rights

Delta has no comment on the NMB plan, spokeswoman Betsy Talton said in an e-mail. Delta's all-stock acquisition of Minnesota-based Northwest, which was announced on April 14, will create the world's largest airline.

Attendants at Atlanta-based Delta fell short in May in their second election in six years to join Friend's union. Only 40 percent of the 13,380 eligible attendants voted, and the turnout needed for certification was 50 percent plus one.

Northwest has about 8,500 attendants who are represented by the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA.

A second mediation board move also will stunt organizing, said Ed Wytkind, president of the AFL-CIO's transport trades department. He cited the NMB plan to require that a union would need to represent "more than a substantial majority" of the combined work group in a merger to extend that status to non-union employees.

"This is a gift to the airline industry, and it's designed to make it much more difficult for workers to retain their collective-bargaining rights," Wytkind said in an interview.

Van de Water said the changes aren't prompted by Delta-Northwest and the "substantial majority" language wouldn't affect that tie-up.