Delta Flight Attendants Fall Short, but Campaign Continues

CWA members and staff joined with AFA-CWA and Delta flight attendants in phone banks to help get out the vote in the Delta flight attendants' election. Pictured are volunteers at CWA's Washington, D.C. headquarters.

Delta Airlines flight attendants' fight for union representation fell short this week in the May 28 ballot count at the National Mediation Board, but management's campaign of voter suppression and intimidation has not extinguished the workers' continuing desire to get a union.

The flight attendants are looking forward to another union election after the airline's probable merger with Northwest Airlines, according to AFA-CWA President Patricia Friend. "Delta flight attendants took the next big step toward gaining a voice and a union contract," said Friend adding: "A larger portion of the Delta workforce than ever before voted for union representation. Those supporters, combined with strong union support at Northwest, will clearly be enough for the flight attendants to win union representation after the merger with Northwest is finalized," she stated.

The campaign was run by the Delta flight attendants, who built a grassroots, nationwide organizing committee of a 1,000 activists who passed out literature and talked one on one with their coworkers about their need for a union in troubled times. It was the largest organizing election in the private sector to be held in years.

During the month-long election vote, which began in April, CWA members pitched in to support the flight attendants, with phone banks set up at local union halls in Atlanta, Dallas, and St. Lake City, in district offices in Los Angeles and New York City, as well as at CWA's Washington, D.C. headquarters.  AFA-CWA and CWA staffers and members helped the Delta organizers make thousands of calls.

The vote count showed that 5,306 of the 13,382 eligible flight attendants voted for AFA-CWA representation in the election, but Delta management launched a coordinated voter suppression campaign to encourage workers not to exercise their right to vote. From the moment AFA-CWA filed for an election in February, managers plastered crew rooms with posters urging flight attendants to throw out their official voting information before even bothering to read about their rights and voting online. "Give a Rip, Don't Click, Don't Vote," they said. Union activists have charged that supervisors also exerted pressure on them to discontinue their union support and prevented workers from exercising their right to post pro-union materials in crew lounges.

AFA-CWA plans to file formal interference charges with the NMB because of the company's tactics and for other irregularities. Included on the eligibility list were long-term furloughed flight attendants, some who had accepted early retirements, and even one deceased worker.

The law governing airline union elections makes organizing a union particularly difficult because it counts workers who choose not to vote in elections as votes against a union. To organize, 50 percent plus one of all eligible airline workers must vote in an election, so Delta pulled out all stops to get workers not to vote. Nearly 40 percent of the unit voted in the election.

CWA President Larry Cohen praised the Delta flight attendants for showing "tremendous courage" in the face of management's anti-union campaign. "Amidst an atmosphere of intimidation, Delta flight attendants showed tremendous courage in standing up in the face of the many obstacles that management hurled in their path. They built a tremendous organizing network despite the airline's best efforts to quash dissent," stated Cohen. "Eventually, they will prevail in their struggle for a voice at the bargaining table."