Airline Workers Demand Place at Table in Northwest-Delta Merger

[Omaha Steve]

http://blog.aflcio.org/2008/04/25/airline-workers-demand-place-at-table-in-northwest-delta-merger/

by James Parks, Apr 25, 2008

For the past several years, flight attendants, pilots and other airline workers have sacrificed pay, benefits and working conditions through a long series of bankruptcies, restructurings, mergers, layoffs and threatened liquidations. And on Thursday, airline unions told Congress workers must have a voice at the table when the biggest merger in the industry is being discussed.

The proposed merger between Delta and Northwest Airlines would create the nation’s largest carrier. But without key protections, the workers at both companies could suffer, and they urged Congress to send a strong message to the carriers that the merger cannot be an excuse to bust unions or abrogate contracts.

Veda Shook, vice president of the Flight Attendants-CWA (AFA-CWA), pointed out that the merger is taking place at the same time as Delta’s 13,500 flight attendants are voting on whether to join AFA-CWA. The union already represents the Northwest flight attendants. Given Delta management’s history of anti-union behavior, she called on the airline to remain neutral in the election and asked Congress to monitor the airline’s behavior. She said the company has already hired an anti-union consultant to help thwart the workers’ desire for a union.


Flight Attendants-CWA Vice President Veda Shook testifies before a House committee on the Delta-Northwest merger.


Shook reminded the Task Force on Competition Policy and Antitrust Laws of the House Judiciary Committee that bargaining rights are vital for airline employees to be able to negotiate over the impact of the proposed merger.

In the context of this merger, the company’s anti-union tactics take on added urgency; the merger should not be permitted to become a vehicle for union-busting. There are virtually no protections for airline workers in a merger, and little attention has been paid to the extreme upheaval that mergers create for the thousands of airline employees who find themselves unemployed, whose lives are disrupted, or whose work may be outsourced. The only protection employees have today is through their individual unions and collective bargaining agreements, but there is little to no protection for nonunion airline employees.

FULL story at link.

[Cleita]

1. I was watching the hearing with Conyers yesterday on and off.

The main thing I got from it was that the spokespeople for the two airlines involved are lying through their teeth. They made the point that only high level execs would be losing their jobs not the workers. I'm sure they would have an easier time selling me the Brooklyn Bridge than this statement as fact. The union leaders testifying proved in my mind that this is nothing more than a union busting merger.

Northwest has no unions except the pilot's union. If they merged, most likely the poorer paid non-union workers would be kept on rather than the union workers. This would greatly reduce the power of the unions for those workers. Everything else they claimed like better service, etc. doesn't prove out because Northwest did it all before promising better services if their employees made sacrifices and those promises never happened.