Another FAA Shutdown Looming over Rep. Mica’s, Delta’s Union-Busting Scheme
 |
||||
|
||||
If a funding agreement isn’t reached by Sept. 16, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) faces another shutdown like the one Republicans forced in July. That shutdown cost 4,000 FAA workers and 70,000 construction workers two weeks’ pay, halted important airport safety improvements and cost taxpayers some $400 million. It ended Aug. 5 with a temporary FAA reauthorization.
But another shutdown just might happen if Republicans like Rep. John Mica (R-Fla.) continue to carry Delta Air Lines’ baggage by backing a provision in the long-term House FAA funding bill—supported by Delta—to take away democratic union election rights for aviation and rail workers. Flight Attendants-CWA (AFA-CWA) President Veda Shook says Mica is:
acting as Delta Air Lines’ pawn by advancing a union-busting provision and threatening another shutdown of the FAA. Mica’s contempt for workers and the 75,000 people who were out of work due to the partial shutdown of the FAA is feeding Delta’s grossly funded union-busting scheme.
AFA-CWA unions are stepping up the pressure on Mica, his Republican colleagues and Delta—and you can join in. Click here to sign a petition to Delta telling the airline it’s time to cease its support for the “entirely undemocratic” union election provision that would count workers who don’t participate in a union election as “No” votes.
Flight Attendants to Challenge Delta Vote
The Flight Attendants-CWA (AFA-CWA) plan to challenge the vote announced today in which flight attendants at Delta Air Lines and Northwest Airlines rejected union representation by a margin of fewer than 300 votes out of a total of more than 18,000 ballots cast.
In a statement, AFA-CWA President Patricia Friend said:
In the next few days, we will be submitting interference charges against Delta management for their illegal and unfair methods to sway the vote. We will ask the National Mediation Board to defend the Delta flight attendants’ right to an election free of interference.
As in past campaigns, Delta ran an anti-union drive with fear and misinformation as the focus. Delta’s 2008 merger with Northwest brought in some 7,000 attendants who are already union members.
This was the first election run under the National Mediation Board’s new democratic election rules that allow a majority of votes cast to decide the outcome. Under the old rules, if you did not vote, it was counted as a “No.”
‘America Is One Nation and We Signify that Nation’
 |
|
Karen Bright got on a bus a little after midnight in Syracuse, N.Y., and rolled down the East Coast for seven hours because she had a message she wanted to deliver to America.
Standing in front of the Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall as tens of thousands of union members and our allies in the human rights, faith and workers’ rights communities began filling up the wide banks of the Reflecting Pool, Bright said:
“It’s important that we make jobs the priority in this country and not all of the other issues that are dividing us. I think that’s the one issue that’s important to all of us.”
On an absolutely gorgeous fall afternoon Bright, a member of CSEA/AFSCME Local 1000, and all of the nearly 200,000-strong crowd at the One Nation Working Together march and rally, were a living example of what one sign seen throughout the crowd said.
“We March for Hope, Not Hate!”
Speaking to the crowd that spread from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial to the World War II Memorial, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka surveyed the vast crowd of women, men, people of color and white, gay and straight, all ages and creeds and ethnicities, and told marchers that
“America is here today. America is One Nation and we signify that nation.”
Behind the voices of fear and hatred that have risen to dominate out national conversation are the forces of
“greed, the moneyed powers that put us in the economic mess we’re in today. And we’ve got a lot of work to do to repair the damage that greed did to our country.
Confessed Union Buster Shares Trade Secrets with Delta Flight Attendants
The late Martin Jay Levitt spent 19 years “on the dark side,” running 250 union-busting campaigns for corporations around the country. He was good at it, too, losing a mere five.
In this video, “Confessions of a Union Buster,” Levitt share his experience, trade secrets and tips with Delta Air Lines’ more than 20,000 flight attendants who will begin voting Sept. 29 on forming a union with the Flight Attendants-CWA (AFA-CWA). The video was produced by Delta AFA using excerpts from Levitt’s seminars and book of the same name.
Two of the main gospels of any anti-union campaign, says Levitt, are misinformation and fear.
A union buster without the atmosphere or climate of fear is like working without one leg and one arm. Fear is essential. Fear is like caviar, lobster and filet mignon to a union buster. Along with breaking the law, the element and emotion of fear is vital.
Airlines Fight Fair Election Rules
Several of the nation’s major airlines–including Delta–are mounting a huge legal battle against a new federal regulation that makes union elections for air and rail workers more fair and democratic.
The Air Transport Association and 10 of the airline industry group’s members filed suit in federal district court to block the National Mediation Board’s (NMB) May 10 ruling that says air and rail union elections must be decided by a majority of votes cast.
An election that is decided by the majority of those who vote may sound like an obvious and common sense way to decide an election. But for years, the deck was stacked against aviation or rail workers in union representation elections, because they are covered by the Railway Labor Act (RLA). Until the NMB ruling, every worker who did not cast a vote in a representation election was automatically counted as a “No” vote. Read the rest of this entry »
Delta Flight Attendants Release ‘OUR Song’ Video
Delta flight attendants are spreading the message about their effort to form a union with the Flight Attendants-CWA via their own music video. “OUR Song,” which stands for Opportunity, Unity, Respect, was written and recorded by Jarrod Anderson, a Delta flight attendant, based in Minneapolis. AFA-CWA then put the song into a video (left).
Delta flight attendants currently are waiting for the National Mediation Board’s (NMB’s) decision on changes in the way union representation elections are held in the air and rail industries. Now, 50 percent of the workers plus one must vote for an election to be valid. The NMB is considering changing the rule to a simple majority of whomever votes.
The song describes the legacy the flight attendants want to leave Delta: dignity and respect in the workplace through union membership.
Click here to learn more about the Delta flight attendants’ campaign to join a union.
Tropicana’s New Owners Get Chance to Treat Workers Fairly, and More Bargaining News
Will the new owners at Atlantic City’s Tropicana casino reverse the previous owner’s anti-worker practices? Get this and more updates here from the “Bargaining Digest Weekly.” The AFL-CIO Collective Bargaining Department delivers daily, bargaining-related news and research resources to more than 1,100 subscribers. Union leaders can register for this service through our website, Bargaining@Work.
NEGOTIATIONS
UAW, Tropicana: Members of the UAW at Atlantic City casinos stated that new management at Tropicana has the opportunity for a 180-degree turnaround from past illegal practices and should begin fair negotiations for a first labor agreement.
“It’s hard to believe that a company run by a judge would break the law, but that’s what the National Labor Relations Board is telling us,” said Eric Knuttel, who has been a dealer at Tropicana for 27 years. Tropicana has been administered under a conservatorship by former New Jersey Supreme Court Justice Gary Stein since December 2007, after previous owners lost their license to operate the casino.
