"You Can Only Take So Much of These Assaults"

CWA Activists Win FAA Reauthorization and Keep Democratic Union Election Standard

Weeks of activism by CWA and AFA-CWA members across the country stopped House Republicans from forcing a second shutdown of the Federal Aviation Administration.

This summer, the failure of Congress to pass FAA funding forced the agency to shut down and put 4,000 employees and nearly 100,000 workers on airport projects nationwide out of work.

House Republicans were trying to force the repeal of a National Mediation Board rule allowing for fair, democratic union elections for airline workers. In the past, workers who didn’t vote were counted as “no” votes. The NMB changed the rule in 2010 so that only the votes cast would be counted, the standard that applies to all other American elections.

Activists won an extension of FAA funding into January with the democratic standard for union elections in place.

“You can only take so much of these assaults on union members,” said CWA Local 6222 member Robert Mahle, a 30-year veteran with AT&T. Mahle and activists served notice on Rep. John Mica (R-Fla.), the House Republican leader responsible for the attack on airline workers’ rights.

“I’m a firm believer that an injury to one is an injury to all. Wherever we work as union members — in telecom, the airlines, or state government — we have to stick together now because all of us are under attack.”

CWA members took the attack on airline workers and the FAA personally. They demonstrated outside Mica’s Florida offices, the Jacksonville and Orlando airports and a fundraiser for Mica in Houston.

CWA Local 3106 member Floyd Carroll: “What we accomplished really fired me up. We had members of the clergy and local elected state officials join us, and they brought the issue home for the community by speaking about the negative impact a shutdown would have on jobs and the local economy.”

The threat of another FAA shutdown and the harshness of the attack on workers’ rights pushed some CWAers to get active for the first time, Carroll said. “They understood that we can’t remain apathetic any longer.”

Jo Seeley, a 15-year flight attendant at US Airways talked to passengers at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport. “Many had no idea that the FAA shutdown was a fight over the fate of democratic election rules for airline workers. When I explained the process, many of them were shocked when they learned that we could be defeated in our election by people who didn’t even bother to vote.”