ALPA’s Moak, AFT’s Johnson and SMWIA’s Nigro Named to AFL-CIO Executive Council
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The AFL-CIO Executive Council welcomed three new members today: Airline Pilots (ALPA) President Capt. Lee Moak, Lorretta Johnson, executive vice president of AFT and Sheet Metal Workers (SMWIA) President Joseph Nigro. The Council also honored three retiring members at its annual August meeting, held this year at the National Labor College (NLC) in Silver Spring, Md.
Johnson chairs the AFT Paraprofessionals and School-Related Personnel program and policy council and started her career in 1966 as a teacher’s aide at a Baltimore elementary school. She served as president of the Baltimore Teachers Union’s paraprofessional chapter for 35 years.
Moak joined ALPA in 1988 and is a former Marine Corps fighter pilot and Delta Airlines B-767 300 ER captain. A 22-year veteran at Delta, he served three terms as the chairman of the Delta Master Executive Council (MEC), which represents the more than 12,000 Delta pilots. He was elected ALPA President in October.
Nigro comes to the Council after being elected SMWIA president July 1. He served his apprenticeship from 1969 until 1973 in Boston and held several offices in SMWIA Local 17 before beginning his tenure on the international level as assistant to the president in 1999. He was elected SMWIA secretary-treasurer in 2006.
Recently retired SMWIA President Michael Sullivan, former ALPA President Capt. John Prater, and AFT Vice President Laura Rico are retiring from the Council.
Sullivan, who led the SMWIA since 1999, “has gained a well-deserved reputation as both a progressive firebrand and an organizational problem-solver,” the Council said in a statement.
Workers Across Nation Choose a Voice with AFL-CIO Unions
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County workers, professional employees, bakery workers, airborne pilots and “ghost” pilots and sheriff’s deputies are among the latest workers to choose a voice at work with AFL-CIO unions.
In Utah, more than 400 Salt Lake County workers won a union voice with AFSCME Local 1004. The 408 county employees—skilled trades, maintenance and service workers—could vote for union representation only after AFSCME fought and won passage of a county collective bargaining ordinance last year.
John Farrer, a Highway Department worker, says:
This is definitely a positive thing for workers, and that’s why they voted it in. With all that’s happened, the wage cuts, benefits going down and insurance going up, we need a strong union voice to represent the interests of working families.
Hundreds in Airline Industry Gain a Union Voice on the Job
More than 400 flight attendants and 170 pilots now have strong union voices after voting to join the Flight Attendants-CWA( AFA-CWA) and the Air Line Pilots (ALPA) in three elections, recently certified by the National Mediation Board (NMB).
In the latest victory for airline workers, the 300 flight attendants at Compass Airlines voted 2-to-1 for AFA-CWA representation. Compass flight attendant Catriona Bagley, temporary president of the Compass local, says she and fellow flight attendants
look forward to negotiating a contract that will provide security, as well as advance our careers. As AFA-CWA members, we will have a voice at the bargaining table and work alongside management in creating a leading regional airline contract that recognizes our role as safety professionals.
Social Media: New Tools Aid in Organizing
They’re tweeting in Northern California about the Employee Free Choice Act, sharing about health care reform on Facebook in Montana and posting organizing messages on My Space for workers in York, Pa.
Across the country, union members are using the new social media to mobilize workers and share information.
Steve Selby, an Electrical Workers (IBEW) organizer in York, Pa., knows the value of social media. He urgently needed to reach 300 workers at a local Comcast office. Rather than standing outside the office and handing out a flier with different information each day, Selby taught himself how to set up a MySpace account. He handed out one flier directing workers to his MySpace page, where he shared information the workers needed to know.
Montana College Faculty All Union, and More Organizing News
All faculty in public colleges and universities in Montana now are union members after the faculty at Montana State University-Bozeman voted yesterday to join the Montana Education Association-Montana Federation of Teachers (MEA-MFT), the state affiliate of the AFT and the National Education Association.
MEA-MFT President Eric Feaver says:
All Montana public college and university faculty are now MEA-MFT. No exceptions. This could well be a unique event among public state colleges and universities across the nation. All of us here at MEA-MFT are excited and proud of our new members.
Pilots, Controllers Must Be Part of New Air Safety System Development
The nation’s crowded skies—with about 50,000 flights a day—will become even more jam-packed with as many as 150,000 flights every 24 hours by 2025, making it critical for a whole new air traffic control system to be put into place.
But the controllers who staff the towers and tracking facilities and the pilots in the cockpits must play a major role in developing and implementing the new space-based air traffic control system—known as NextGen—that will replace today’s out-of-date technology, leaders from the National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA) and Air Line Pilots (ALPA) told congressional committees.
History on Air
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Last month, when first officer Stephanie Grant of Atlantic Southeast Airlines got the call to replace the co-pilot scheduled to crew Flight No. 5202 from Atlanta to Nashville, she didn’t realize she and the rest of the crew were about to make history.
But Grant, along with Capt. Rachelle Jones, both members of the Airline Pilots (ALPA), and flight attendants Diana Galloway and Robin Rogers, both members of AFA-CWA, became the first all-female, all African American crew to operate a commercial flight. Coincidentally, it happened during Black History Month.
Grant told Atlanta’s WXIA TV:
When I got to the cockpit and I saw Rachelle–we just met a few weeks prior–I was just ecstatic when I saw her in there.
At first, Rogers said:
We did not realize the historic ramifications of it. We were just like, OK, this is going to be fun.
But, Jones, a former Delta Airlines customer service agent and one of just 10 African American women airline captains in the country, recalled thinking:
This could be a first, so let’s be on our P’s and Q’s.
Galloway said the thrill of working together put:
a little more pep in our step. I think we were just so proud.
As a youngster and even into adulthood, Jones said, she never thought about a career as a pilot. It wasn’t until a friend’s suggestion several years ago that she decided she wanted fly.
Growing up, I’d never seen anyone who looks like me who flew airplanes.
Grant, whose aviation career took off in the Army, said while “fate” may have put the four women together on the same flight:
For everyone who will look at us as role models or aspire to be what we are today, they need to know that it took hard work and dedication to get here.
Capt. David Nieuwenhuis, chairman of ALPA’s Master Executive Council at Atlantic Southeast, said:
I am especially proud that this historic flight happened to take place on Atlantic Southeast. This professional flight crew sets a great example for young women, showing they can achieve their goals and dreams in the aviation sector.
A tip of the hat to our friends at ALPA for alerting us to the story. For more on African Americans and women in aviation, visit the Organization of Black Airline Pilots (OBAP) and Women in Aviation International (WAI).
