In a scenario seafarers' unions are familiar with, Norwegian Air International wants to become a "flag of convenience" air carrier into the US, by getting a flight certificate from Ireland, hiring flight crews from Thailand and covering them with Singapore's labour laws - or lack thereof - all at rock-bottom rates that would drive other carriers out of business and other airline workers out of jobs.

"Flag of convenience" cargo ships chartered in nations such as Panama underpay - or don't pay - their crews, work them under impossible and unsafe conditions and, when they run out of money, often abandon the crews in ports.

Their cheapness also drove most of the maritime trade out of US flagging, because the firms don't want to meet US labour laws, wage laws, worker compensation laws and safety and health laws. Only 2 per cent of the cargo carriers docking at US ports are US-flagged. Many of those US carriers, however, are unionised.

Norwegian Air wants to fly on the cheap and pay on the cheap in the US. Its website advertises one-way fares from London's Gatwick Airport to almost anywhere in Europe for between £30 and £40. The site says Norwegian Air wants to fly to Florida, New York City and Oakland.

But to be an "airline of convenience," Norwegian Air needs US government permission to land here, and that's where the AFL-CIO transportation trades department (TTD) comes in.

TTD and its member unions are lobbying the Federal Aviation Administration to deny US landing rights to Norwegian Air, department president Ed Wytkind said in an interview during the AFL-CIO executive council meeting last month. The lobbying began more than six months ago.

And earlier in February, TTD and other airline and transportation unions in the US and Europe met in Oslo to carry the campaign to the base of the rogue airline, and to formulate a united strategy to stop it.

"We're focused like a laser beam on its violations of existing law and agreements, including an open skies pact between the US and the European Union," Wytkind said.

"This could be a really significant tipping point" in the airline industry if the Obama administration and the European Union OK Norwegian Air's plans, Wytkind added.

Approval of Norwegian Air's application "would open the floodgates for them to scour the globe for the cheapest labour and the most favourable laws."

Other carriers would then have to match Norwegian Air, and workers would suffer as a result.

TTD has picked up three heavyweight allies - the three big US airlines, United, Delta and American.

"The last thing Delta wants to do is pay its flight attendants $500 a month. That'll distort the marketplace," Wytkind said.

The three air carriers have also filed formal protests against Norwegian Air's application to enter the US.

The fight over Norwegian Air also has larger implications for US workers, because the Democratic Obama administration is negotiating a so-called "free trade" treaty with the European Union, one of five such pending pacts.

A federal law to implement the US-EU pact is possible only if Congress gives President Barack Obama fast-track trade promotion authority, with virtually no safeguards for worker rights.

Fast-track would bar congressional changes, limit debate and require only one up-or-down vote in each house. The labour movement strongly opposes it.

The EU in general has much stronger worker rights than the US "and we very vigorously fought for human rights and labour standards [in the open skies pact] and against letting firms use the benefits of that agreement to erode labour standards on both sides of the Atlantic," Wytkind said.

"This Norwegian Air case clearly does," and thus is a warning shot about EU enforcement - or non-enforcement - of its own labour standards, he warned.

This article appeared at peoplesworld.org.