After Loss, Flight Attendants Challenge Delta’s Anti-Union Tactics, Both Old and New

This is a good update on the situation our brothers and sisters at Delta are struggling with as they try to win union representation.

By David Moberg

Nov. 10, 2010

Airline conducted 'largest anti-union campaign the nation has ever seen,' AFA president says

Rebounding from a narrow loss of a vote to represent 20,000 flight attendants at Delta Air Lines, the Association of Flight Attendants/Communications Workers of America (AFA/CWA) is preparing a challenge to the results and requesting that the election be re-run.                                      

In the protest to be filed on Nov. 23, the union accuses the airline of using a mix of old-school intimidation tactics and chilling new information-age surveillance to unlawfully interfere with workers’ decisions about whether to join a union.

The challenge is important in part because it could influence conditions for organizing at a time when many unions think recent rule changes might open up a wave of recruitment. The industry is 40 percent unionized, but offers many opportunities for new organizing. 

Last summer, the National Mediation Board (NMB), which administers the Railway Labor Act that governs airline labor relations, dropped the old union representation election rule that required a majority of all workers at a worksite to vote for a union for it to be recognized. They changed it to follow the standard set by the National Labor Relations Act, which grants recognition to a union when a majority of ballots are cast for a union.

In many cases, an overwhelming majority of airline workers have voted for a union, but because non-voters were counted as “no” votes, workers ended up with less than half of all employees and no union. That happened in 2008, when AFA won a hefty majority of the votes cast at Delta, just before it merged with Northwest Airlines to form the nation’s second largest airline (just behind United, following its acquisition of Continental).

But it got votes from only about 40 percent of all workers, partly because Delta–whose pilots are the only organized part of the workforce–ran a strong anti-union campaign, including discouraging voting. AFA also lost a drive at Delta in 2002.

Flight attendants at Delta were the first to vote under the new rules, but the union still lost when ballots were counted on Nov. 4, with 9,216 workers favoring a union (8,778 picking AFA) and 9,544 voting for no union.  “In the face of the largest anti-union campaign the nation has ever seen, Delta flight attendants came within 328 votes of getting a union,” AFA president Pat Friend said. Increasing the heartbreak, the vote also effectively eliminated the union former Northwest workers had formed decades ago.

Why defeat?

The union blamed an intimidating, overwhelming barrage of anti-union messages–starting with billboards in employee parking lots, continuing with aggressively anti-union supervisors, one-on-one meeting with managers, forced anti-union meetings, weekly robo-calls from CEO Richard Anderson (who said the union’s actions were “not Christian”), pop-up messages on  corporate computers, multiple slick mailings to homes, and much more. 

Unlike past elections, Delta harangued workers that “you must vote.” And managers made it clear the vote should be “no” to preserve Delta’s “direct” relationship between management–which permitted direct cuts in jobs, hours, pay and benefits when times were especially bad for airlines in the ‘90s–without bargaining by a “third party,” the union.

The turnout was an amazing 94 percent. AFA general counsel Ed Gilmartin says the union would have won with a 90 percent turnout. AFA already represented more than 7,000 Northwest flight attendants, 80 per cent of whom voted for a union, but its support among Delta flight attendants–who typically had little contact with more pro-union Northwest attendants–dropped slightly from two years ago. One startling coincidence–or indicator of either rigorous organizer diligence or some deeper problem with the voting: AFA’s vote tracking had identified 8,778 pro-AFA votes–precisely the number the NMB counted.

Did Delta simply out-organize the AFA? “I’d agree if you believe Delta followed the rules,” Gilmartin says, “but they didn’t.”

In its challenge to the election, AFA targets in particular the company’s encouragement of voting on Delta’s own computers, where employees sign on with special passwords. That made it possible for Delta to track who went to the NMB website to vote and to monitor how people voted, the union says.

Gilmartin says that without a full investigation the union has no evidence of how far surveillance might have gone, but employees’ recognition that managers might be able to see whether or how they voted is overwhelming in its own right. “At a minimum it was intimidation,” he says, “and at most they were tracking and conducting surveillance.”

Oddly enough, back when the old election rules were in place and Delta was trying to discourage voting, the company and its expert witness argued against the NMB allowing voting on its website or the union e-mailing a link to that website (both very unlikely to be open to surveillance, compared to company computers with unique employee passwords linked to comprehensive files).

Delta and its expert testified in 2009 about precisely the threat the union now identifies, according to an NMB summary:

Delta urges the Board to deny AFA's request to permit hyperlinks because of the “unacceptable risks that a hyperlink would pose to the security, integrity, and privacy of the balloting process in representation elections under the Railway Labor Act.” ....

Delta provided a declaration from an expert in computer technology and security, Christopher Racich. Racich identifies a number of security issues with allowing participants to post a hyperlink. “If a visitor to a website were to type in a password, or otherwise provide identifiable information, and then thereafter click on a hyperlink to the Board‟s website, it would be possible for the website operator to determine who had done so – matching the password to the activity.”

The union still supports Internet voting, but not through employer computers, especially when employees use distinct passwords.

Machinists union pushes to unionize another Delta force

It is not unusual for the NMB to call for new elections, for example, in the case of FedEx pilots, when there is evidence of employers “overwhelming” the election process and failing to provide the “laboratory conditions” the NMB requires. And now, despite heavy right-wing Republican pressure, the NMB with Obama appointments tilts more toward supporting worker rights than it did in the Bush years. But a test similar to the AFA challenge at Delta may occur before the Board even begins reviewing the flight attendants’ case.

Voting has just begun among three units of Delta workers: 14,000 ramp, baggage and other fleet service workers; 16,000 ticketing, gate, reservation and other public contact workers; and about 700 “stores” workers. The International Association of Machinists represents all three groups from Northwest. They make up slightly less than half the merged workforce, but historically unionized workers are largely separate from nonunion workers who had been at Delta.

In these elections, the NMB sends instructions by mail to each worker, who can use her two identification numbers to vote by telephone or the Internet. Delta once again is encouraging voting from company computer terminals, but the impact on the results may be less than with flight attendants, who are more likely to log on to company terminals at the start of each work day. But the security and surveillance issues remain.

Together, the Delta elections constitute one of the biggest private sector union representation votes in decades. It’s a challenge for the Machinists, who have not been an organizing powerhouse recently, but the union has campaigned from the bottom (face-to-face meetings of organizers and workers, workplace committees and social network mobilization) to the top (radio and TV advertising and union leader fly-arounds to key hub cities).

Delta is mounting the same kind of “aggressive anti-union campaign” against these workers as it did against pro-union flight attendants, says Machinist spokesperson Rick Sloan.”We’re seeing standard anti-union campaigning,” supplemented by Delta computer terminals where workers log on for their work.

Within the next year or so, the merger of United and Continental will lead to new elections involving the Machinists for ramp workers, public contact workers and flight attendants. But for ramp workers and attendants, different unions from the pre-merger airlines will square off. Organizing is also underway at other airlines, including American.

Despite the loss at Delta, the new NMB election rules are clearly more fair and provide an opening for more union successes (such as recently at Piedmont).  But as long as management has such a free hand, from disseminating an overwhelming message to creating the specter–perhaps the reality–of surveillance, union representation elections will be at best an uphill battle for workers and at worst a fraud distorted by economic coercion.

Flight Attendants Lose at Delta

More bad news.  Let's hope they get a re-vote.  Also, be sure to read to the end - there is good news here also.

Labor Notes by Jenny Brown, 11/4/10

Delta flight attendants in New York gathered in disbelief yesterday to hear the bad news about their month-long union election.

“Don’t slit your wrists, but we lost,” announced flight attendant Matthew Brown, reading from his phone as the returns were released by the National Mediation Board in Washington, D.C.

The vote was 9,216 for representation to 9,544 against, a 328-vote margin.

Slightly fewer than 20,000 flight attendants were eligible to vote. Of those, about 7,000 were members of the Association of Flight Attendants (AFA-CWA) at Northwest Airlines before the airline was merged into Delta in 2008. They had retained their previous contract after the merger took effect but stood to lose it if the union was voted down.

“As of midnight, our contract is null and void,” said a New York-based flight attendant who’d worked for Northwest. Northwest attendants worried aloud that their new status as at-will employees will mean firings of the most outspoken workers. “They’ll pick us off one by one,” said an angry activist. Managers at the former Northwest hub in Minneapolis told flight attendants to take off their AFA pins.

Brian Terrell, who worked for Northwest for 30 years, described the results as “frightening—this is the end of an era of job protections for us.” Northwest flight attendants have been unionized for 63 years.

But others who’d always worked for Delta also felt the loss sharply.

“I’ve been losing—I’ve experienced a 50 percent loss in compensation,” said Andrea Taylor, referring to the decline in pay and benefits at Delta over the last 15 years. She said the company won’t even tell her what her retirement benefit will be.

AFA activist Danny Valdez said a 5 percent raise this year brought him back to the pay scale of a five-year flight attendant—in 2002. He’s worked at Delta for 30 years.

Airline workers across the industry have faced concessions and employer bankruptcies over the last 15 years, intensifying after 9/11. Unions have been hard pressed to protect workers from longer hours, lower pay, and stingier benefits.

INTERFERENCE, BRIBES, INTIMIDATION

Union supporters expressed disbelief at the reported election turnout, which seemed high by any standard. Of 19,887 flight attendants eligible to vote, 18,760 did so, a turnout of 94 percent.

AFA charges that Delta managers urged flight attendants to vote from work computers in their staff rooms, meaning that votes could be tracked by the employer. The union also charged that its supporters were intimidated.

Valdez thought the high voter turnout was a product of management’s fear-based campaign. The union estimates Delta spent $40 million to fend off AFA.

Delta managers put forth a wall-to-wall anti-union message, Valdez said, “calling you at home, pulling you aside at work.” Piles of glossy mailers with misquotes and misinformation filled up mailboxes.

Delta CEO Richard Anderson played up a culture clash between Northwest’s Northern base and Delta’s Southern workforce, attacking AFA in one company-called meeting for being “un-Christian” and “immoral.” A DVD of the meeting was sent to every flight attendant, Valdez said.

Patricia Friend, AFA’s president, said the union will submit interference charges against Delta management for its “illegal and unfair methods to sway the vote.” The National Mediation Board can order a re-vote if it finds there was interference.

The NMB did order a re-vote in August for a small Delta unit, 91 flight simulator technicians. The board found that management had unduly influenced the election by promising raises.

According to the Machinists (IAM), the NMB described the timing of Delta’s raise announcement as “troubling” because it was made just as technicians started their union vote. The NMB also found that Delta tried to influence the technicians’ votes in one-on-one meetings with managers.

Delta also promised pay raises to flight attendants that coincided with the start of their vote.

In happier news, gate and ramp workers at Piedmont Airlines voted in the CWA today. According to the union, the margin of victory was nearly two to one, despite a high-pressure campaign run by a notorious union-busting firm. The union will represent 2,900 workers at Piedmont, a subsidiary of U.S. Airways.

In New York, pro-union flight attendants at Delta vowed to fight on, anticipating that the union will agitate for a re-vote. It would be the fourth since 2002, although only this month’s election was decided by a simple majority of votes cast.

Previous NMB rules, thrown out earlier this year after President Obama made a new appointment to the board, said a majority of all employees must vote in favor of the union—and that every abstainer is counted as a “no.”

While the union waits for the NMB to rule on management’s interference at Delta, those who had a contract will lose its protection.

“Unfortunately, now you’re going to find out what it’s like to work for Delta,” a pre-merger Delta flight attendant told a co-worker who had come from Northwest.

Following closely on the AFA vote, more than 30,000 ramp and cargo workers and customer service agents are voting on representation with the IAM. Results will be reported by early December.

Union Member Votes Save Democrats from Worse Disaster

By David Moberg 

Nov. 3.2010

In Tuesday’s “extremely disappointing” elections, AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka says, unions “were a firewall” against greater losses for the Democrats, including retention of’ the Senate.   

Indeed, union members once again supported labor-endorsed candidates–overwhelmingly Democrats–by 26 to 28 percentage points on average more than non-union voters (64-36 for House and 62-38 for Senate Democrats). In a few critical races, the union edge was even greater: In Nevada’s close Senate race, union members favored Democratic Senate majority leader Harry Reid by 69 to 29 percent over Tea Party candidate Sharron Angle–arguably providing him his victory, since non-union voters went slightly for Angle.

But the union margin was not as great as in the past two elections, says Guy Molyneux of Hart Research, which polled union members as well as the general electorate in 100 swing Congressional districts. Union members, he says, were susceptible to the same wave of discontent as the general public. (The media exit polls, which identify voters only as from a union household, not as members, showed stronger Republican support in some races than did the Hart poll.)

Union members also vary greatly in their political responses by demographic group. White women overall voted for Republican House candidates by 17 percent, but white union women favored Democrats by 36 percent. White non-college graduates–used by many pollsters as a proxy for white working class voters–favored Republicans by 27 percent, and even union members who had not graduated from college only split their vote 50-50 between the two parties. Even worse, white non-college educated men picked Republicans 67 to 33 percent.

Unions, which spent well over $200 million on this election cycle but were swamped by corporate cash, claim their political mobilization is effective as a result of multiple, issue-oriented educational contacts with members, who trust their unions.

But after many years of observation, I’m still struck by how superficial most of the contacts still are, even though they have improved. Unions will have to give much higher priority to political education if they hope to compensate for loss, or at best slow growth, of membership and to overcome the miseducation of so many non-college white men.

The Hart survey found high dissatisfaction with the economy, and 70 percent of the swing district voters who were very dissatisfied (56 percent of voters) voted Republican. Yet only 35 percent of voters think Republicans have a clear economic plan–close to the 30 percent who think Democrats do.

Most voters knew little about Republican plans, but rejected many of their key ideas by majorities of 62 to 85 percent (for example, 63 percent against tax cuts for earners of $250,000, 62 percent against social security privatization, 75 percent against reducing or eliminating the minimum wage).

Yet by equally lopsided majorities the same voters–a majority of whom cast a ballot for Republicans–supported labor union and Democratic job-creation proposals, such as investing in schools, roads and energy systems, tax credits for new U.S. jobs, and extending unemployment benefits.

“Working people think there wasn’t enough done to help average people, not that there was over-reach,” Trumka said. “They wanted results, and they didn’t see them.” Hart’s survey underscores the point: 43 percent of voters thought Obama helped banks too much, compared to 34 percent who thought Democrats imposed too many regulations.

Despite the unfavorable returns, organized labor will continue to fight for the same agenda as before the election, Trumka said: “Our agenda is jobs, jobs, jobs and more jobs.

What's Next?

Today’s a day to be honest.

Yesterday’s election results are deeply disappointing to the millions of voters who supported working family candidates this year. Voters in this election were angry, and for good reason. They’ve felt the pain of economic collapse. And they’ve paid for it with their jobs, their homes and often their hope. Many working people knew in their gut that Washington insiders did too much to help Wall Street and the banks, and not enough to help average people.

But this election was not a mandate for an anti-worker agenda. Voters in swing congressional districts overwhelmingly reject privatizing Social Security and raising the Social Security retirement age, they oppose tax cuts for the top 2 percent who make more than $250,000 a year, they reject abolishing the Department of Education and they oppose reducing or eliminating the minimum wage.

Now that Republicans will be in control of the House of Representatives, their leaders have to step up to the plate. If they keep saying “no,” we’ll make sure voters know exactly who failed them on jobs and fixing the economy in 2012.

Click here to watch my brief video outlining our next steps.

President Obama inherited two wars and an economy teetering on the brink of a second Great Depression. He took immediate steps to avert catastrophe. Years from now, we’ll look back and see these two years as the most eventful for working families in 40 years.

But the economy is still a mess, and we have difficult work ahead. It’s up to us to force these new members of Congress to move bold initiatives to fix our economy and put America back to work—or force them to pay the price for inaction in 2012.

Watch my video, and get involved.

America’s labor movement fought tirelessly for working families until the last polls closed on the West Coast Tuesday. I’m proud that I can count on you to jump into the fight for working families all over again, starting right now. With your help, we’ll work harder than ever to build an economy that works for everyone.

In solidarity,

Richard Trumka
President, AFL-CIO

P.S. We expect critical legislative battles to take place in the coming weeks and months, with as little as 24 hours’ notice. We’ll need to alert you right away. Once you’ve watched my video, be sure to sign up for occasional, timely text messages. Just text NOW to 225568. (Message and data rates may apply.)

Unionbusting Firm Likens Organizers to Terrorists

This article sheds some light on how the Jimmy John's workers lost their representation election.  If the general public understood that workers face intimidation, coercion and even firing during a union representation election, EFCA couldn't have been spun to sound like a nefarious plot to subvert democracy.  Did you get those crazy giant post cards from the Missouri Republican State Committee?  Like the "Robbin" Carnahan piece that said, "Robin Carnahan supports big labor's Card Check plan that would take away a worker's right to a secret ballot when deciding whether to join a labor union.  IT IS ESTIMATED THAT THE CARD CHECK SCHEME CARNAHAN SUPPORTS WOULD KILL 600,000 JOBS ACROSS AMERICA."    The voters who took the time to read the post card don't know the reality of union elections.  They probably imagine that a union election is similar to elections for state office(no intimidation or fear of losing their job).  They will never know unless the labor movement gets serious about organizing.

LRI's tactical continuum, modeled after the U.S. military's approach to defeating insurgents in Iraq. The "boom" is a union organizing drive.   (Image courtesy Labor Relations Institute, Inc., 2010)

Working In These Times

by Lindsay Beyerstein

The Labor Relations Institute helps keep workplaces 'left of boom"

Unionbusting is a multimillion dollar industry that has grown significantly since the 1970s. At least two-thirds of employers hire anti-union consultants to counter organizing drives.

According to economist John Logan, the unionbusting industry has evolved over the past few decades to focus on preventing organizing before it starts. Unionbusting is as old as unions. However, according to Logan, a new generation of consultants are "actively and aggressively creating that demand by encouraging management to fear the allegedly catastrophic consequences of unionization."

The Oklahoma-based Labor Relations Institute has taken fear-based marketing to new heights. LRI was reportedly hired to defeat an Industrial Workers of the World organizing drive at ten Jimmy John's sandwich shops in Minneapolis. One LRI white paper entiled "Left of Boom" likens union organizers to IED-planting Iraqi insurgents

The 2010 paper, available for free on LRI's website, argues that preventing unionization is a lot like defeating an insurgency. The report drives the point home with a photo of a military vehicle engulfed in flames. In Iraq, so-called "Left of Boom" (LOB) tactics are aimed at preventing insurgents from setting IEDs by identifying and disrupting the networks of influence that link bomb-makers to bomb setters.

"The military monitors, arrests, interrogates, and then turns over any members of the network to the Iraqi or Afghani governments for criminal prosecution," the paper explains. So-called Right of Boom" (ROB) tactics are steps taken to respond to an IED attack after it occurs.

The high-pressure marketing message is that your company should hire LRItoday to stamp out the slightest murmur of labor unrest. If you wait for the "boom"—the union organizing drive—it may already be too late, according to the paper. LRI claims that the very survival of your company may hinge upon keeping the union out. The paper asserts that organizing campaigns are often harmful to the physical and emotional health of workers and may even spark violence.

So, what's a terrified boss to do? Luckily, LRI is here to help. The first step is systematic surveillance and data gathering. The Institute's LOB tactics include surveys and structured interviews to identify dissatisfied employees and map out networks of influence within the workplace. ROB tactics include various "pushback" strategies to counter an organizing campaign in progress. 

According to yet another white paper, employees can be scientifically "segmented" into one of five "buckets," which correspond to one of five smily faces, depending on how positively they feel about the company. LRI claims that segmenting the workforce is a key step in preventing labor unrest.

As part of its suite of LOB services, LRI offers two kinds of unionbusting training for managers and supervisors: active interval training, and trip wire training.

"The active interval training is designed to teach supervisors how not to be a jerk," according to the paper. It's a self-paced online course.

Trip Wire training purportedly teaches supervisors to recognize "the often subtle behavioral signs of union organizing" so that they can trigger a "silent alarm button," according to another white paper on the LRI website entitled "Is There a Target on My Back?":

Here’s an example. Suppose a union meeting occurs one night, run according to typical organizer playbook. They are asked to do various things by the organizer – they are often told to keep things quiet and are encouraged to assume the worst about their management team. The employees who attended will behave differently the next day. If supervisors are properly trained to pay attention when “something doesn’t feel right” about how employees are behaving, we have created the tripwire.

The white paper doesn't specify what those subtle signs are. It's probably very expensive to find out.

If you want to get really far out on the left edge of the spectrum, you can hire a "fake union organizer" aka "Mystery Shopper" from LRI to attempt to infiltrate your company and identify vulnerabilities. The fake union organizer will contact your employees by phone and in the workplace and report back to you.

"The Shopper may also talk to people in the community – at bars or stores near the facility – to see what people say about the company, just like a union organizer would (the consultant is careful never to ask an employee what they think about unions)," according to the white paper. The faux organizer will gague how easy it is for an outsider to infiltrate the employee parking lot and the break room. The fake union organizer will even "determine how easy it is to get into the dumpsters, and what they might find in the trash that they could use in an organizing campaign."