Fighting Back: Fight on to Strengthen Airline Workers' Rights

Like the National Labor Relations Act, the labor law covering airline and railroad workers, the Railway Labor Act (RLA), is dated and ineffective in protecting workers' organizing and bargaining rights, say CWA flight attendants and passenger service agents.

The 80-year old law presents a major hurdle for airline workers who want a union. To successfully organize, they must gain the votes of a majority (50 percent plus one) of all workers who are eligible to vote. In traditional NLRA union elections for other private sector workers, a majority of the votes cast determines the outcome. Under the RLA, the ballot only has a "Yes" choice, but the number of workers who don't return ballots are counted as "No" votes.

"If the same rules applied to U.S. citizens during elections," explained Pat Friend, AFA-CWA President, "we would never be able to elect candidates for office." Turnout among eligible voters in the U.S. has been as low as 33 percent in congressional elections and 49 percent in presidential elections.

The RLA also handicaps airline workers before the election when building union support. Unlike workers covered by the NLRA, airline workers do not automatically get access to eligible co-workers' addresses after winning the right to hold an election. This strongly favors management, which has unlimited access to employees' mailing addresses. And employers take full advantage of it during their anti-union campaigns.

As a result, it often takes airline workers several elections before getting a union. For CWA's passenger service and reservation agents at US Airways, it took two elections. A major factor in the workers' victory the second time around was the fact that the workers were granted access to employees' address list — an unusual step that was granted because of improper management tactics in the first election.

Renegotiating a union contract is also more difficult under the RLA. Contracts in the airlines do not expire but rather have "amendable" dates, so long delays in bargaining are common, often taking two, three or more years to renegotiate. Contracts basically continue in force until workers are able to get management to agree to a new contract. Airlines take full advantage of this and drag their feet.

Ordinarily, workers use the threat of a strike to exert pressure on a recalcitrant management, but airline workers' ability to exercise the ultimate "self-help" tactic is severely restricted. Under the RLA, airline workers cannot strike until they exhaust a cumbersome series of negotiation and mediation procedures. They are not free to strike unless they are released from the mediation process by the National Mediation Board. The President of the United States can also step in to enjoin workers from exercising their right to strike.

Recently, airline workers' right to even exercise their already limited right to strike was thrown into uncertainty. In August, a court barred AFA-CWA flight attendants at Northwest Airlines from striking even after the company imposed new working conditions on the workers. The flight attendants twice voted to reject concessionary bargaining proposals. AFA-CWA is appealing the court's decision.

Effectively challenging management's increasing use of intimidation has also become problematic. When Delta flight attendants campaigned for AFA-CWA representation in 2000, the airline used mandatory company meetings and established in-house "employee" committees as a means to pressure or coerce workers into voting against a union. AFA-CWA challenged the actions as violations, but the agency overseeing the RLA, the National Mediation Board, found that the company's actions constituted "free speech" and were thereby permissible.

"We need a strong and enforceable labor law to bring airline workers' organizing and bargaining rights up to date with the 21st century," Friend stated. "The airlines are effectively using the law's weaknesses to prevent employees from either organizing or bargaining a new contract. The RLA should work for both labor and management, yet today, it heavily favors management."