Does unionizing have “risks” for airline employees?

The following was taken from another online blog, it offers some information on the subject. I chose to post it on my blog for you all to read...


Does unionizing have “risks” for airline employees?
Thursday, March 27th, 2008

The Association of Flight Attendants (AFA-CWA) is currently in a representation election seeking to organize the flight attendants of Delta Airlines. An earlier effort failed some six years ago (note: that was prior to the round of bankruptcy labor arbitrage engaged in by Delta and other airlines.)
Delta is again pursuing an anti-union campaign to convince its flight attendants that there are “risks” associated with unionizing (read an article on Delta’s campaign here). It argues, for example, that its unionized pilots were also subject to furlough several years ago. Presumably the point being that their unionized status was “no protection.” (Ironically, the Delta pilots agreed to waive furlough protection prior to Delta’s bankruptcy in an effort to help their carrier avoid bankruptcy. No good deed goes unpunished.) Delta also argues that it provides better pay and profit-sharing to its employees.
So is Delta right?
Unsurprisingly, the answer is emphatically “no.”
Delta has long been known in the industry for a paying a wage premium to its flight attendants in order to stave off unionization while it imposes less favorable work rules than FAs enjoy at other carriers. (Of course, since Delta’s run through bankruptcy, it no longer pays higher FA rates than the average of other major carriers. But it still has the less favorable work rules.) The truth is, it was the leveraging effect of unionized flight attendant groups at other carriers that drove up pay rates at Delta in the past. But Delta FAs did not have the work rules and job protection enjoyed by flight attendants at other carriers.
That latter point is important. Delta flight attendants are “at will” employees and subject to discharge for any or no reason at all. They do not enjoy the protection of a just cause discharge requirement as do unionized flight attendants. In other words, a Delta FA could come to work one day and be out the door with no recourse to an independent decisionmaker.
Further, Delta FAs have no protection for their position or seniority except what management wants to give them. If you have no contract, you have no enforceable seniority right. If the Company wants to slot in a new FA ahead of you with more favorable bidding they can do it.
And nonunion FAs have no enforceable say in their rates of pay, rules or working conditions. The most dramatic example of this was the recent Delta bankruptcy. Delta’s unionized pilots were able to compel bargaining by their employer and ultimately a dispute resolution process in order to determine the structure of concessions from the pilots. The flight attendants, mechanics and other nonunion employees simply woke up one morning to a 25% pay cut and other reductions forced on them by management without any say.
Even Delta’s furlough example is bogus. Delta’s unionized pilots have established furlough rules in their contract that give them rights to exercise in the event of a furlough. Its nonunion employees are subject to furlough however the Company wants to do it. The difference is between having objective and established rules everyone knows in advance versus rules imposed on you by management that suit the Company’s convenience.
The most specious argument made by Delta is its so-called “direct relationship” with its nonunion employees. That is a load of bull. What the airline really means is being nonunion gives it a relationship where it directly and completely controls it flight attendants without any obligation to bargain in good faith or adhere to agreements. It is a relationship that allows unilateral and arbitrary management control over employees.
Like many other airline unions, AFA Master Executive Councils are made up of the flight attendants at the airline in question. A Delta AFA MEC would be run by Delta flight attendants. It would be Delta flight attendants (assisted by the Union) dealing with Delta management. Hmm, that sounds like a direct relationship to me.
The difference is that a collective bargaining relationship between an employer and its employees under the Railway Labor Act is a mutual relationship that imposes obligations on management as well as the employees. Delta would have to bargain and administer a collective bargaining agreement in good faith, not by unilateral action. The Delta FAs would have an established and enforceable contractual relationship that the FAs together (and each FA individually) could require the Company to follow.
Nonunion employees are subject to unilateral, even arbitrary, management action. Unionized employees have the ability to require good faith and fair adherence to agreed contractual terms, freely negotiated with their employer. That’s the difference and its a big one.
Oh, there is risk entailed in the upcoming AFA union vote at Delta. But the risk is only that the FAs might fall victim to this empty Company propaganda and deprive themselves of an equal and enforceable say in their working conditions. I wager, after all the upheaval in the airline industry, including at Delta, that the Delta FAs will recognize they should vote to have a voice in their jobs that can make a real difference for them by organizing themselves under the AFA.