NWAFA

MEC Blast Email received this morning ....

24 NOVEMBER 2008

AFA FILES LAWSUIT OVER DELTA’S UNLAWFUL CONDUCT

AFA filed suit Friday in federal court in Washington D.C., charging Delta Air Lines with unlawful interference with its flight attendants’ right to elect a representative free of Company interference and coercion.

In its suit, AFA asks the Court to prohibit Delta from unilaterally implementing a seniority integration process before the flight attendants even have an opportunity to vote for Union representation. Delta’s premature actions are designed to undermine AFA and deny its flight attendants the benefit of the Union’s internal “date of hire” seniority integration process that will guarantee every flight attendant his/her current bidding seniority.

Under federal law, an election for the combined Northwest and Delta flight attendants cannot take place until the National Mediation Board finds that Delta is a single carrier with respect to combined flight attendant workgroups. Once that determination is made, AFA will file for an election that will give all 21,000 flight attendants the opportunity to elect AFA as their collective bargaining agent. If AFA is elected, then the Union’s “date of hire” integration procedures shall prevail, ensuring all flight attendants their current bidding seniority.

AFA will vigorously pursue this litigation to guarantee that all NWA/Delta flight attendants will keep their current seniority.

Stay strong, keep united.

ADLFO

I read this as AFA will vigorously pursue this litigation so they can still be relevant.

Stay strong and keep united for what? Worse benefits? What is your take on this post?

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showp...&postcount=142

johdhj

Please feel free to correct this outsider's POV, but I think union representation is only needed if the workers are mistreated. From what I can understand (i.e. what I read on this and Delta's forum), Delta employees seem to be pretty happy without union representation... And being unionized seems to follow with inherent distrust of management (only significant exception being Southwest)

And with ADLFO's post above, I can't imagine why NWA FA's would want to unionize. Please clarify for me?

hazelrah

One word - seniority. There is not much more important than seniority.

As I understand it, Delta can not merge the work groups until a seniority integration agreement is achieved. NW FAs have their union to negotiate for them, Delta FAs have Delta management because Delta FAs have no union.

Stucturally, this is not good because it immediately sets up a us-against- them scenario. Truly, management doesn't per se care about seniority, why should they? As long as they have established rules that ensure sufficient quantities of trained staff, management could give a diddly about seniority.

It's the employees that care about seniority. The law says that seniority integration will be conducted in a fair and equitable manner, regardless of whether a work -group is unionized. As I mentioned because the Delta FAs have no representation, this sets the stage for the unfortunate scenario of Delta management versus NW FAs.

In this rare instance Delta management might prefer to step aside and let the employees sort it out (like the pilots both of whom have union representation), but they can't.

goaliemn

I don't understand how its unlawful. If the company wants to try to work out seniority integration, develop a plan, and impliment it after a vote, why is this a problem?

Everyone is at the meeting, and the integration would occur as planned no matter the vote outcome on the union.

motytrah

The problem with that argument is the Union was denied the right to negotiate a contract. It was forced on them by the bankruptcy judge. I don't know how you can say the union was at fault when they were told they could not take any work action and could not negotiate.

As far as the DL goes, NW couldn't complete the merger until DL specifically bound itself to the AFA contract. There's a whole section on merging which I'm assuming the AFA says DL is out of compliance with. In the end the court will decide, but I would guess DL is gambling that they can keep this running around in court until the vote comes up.

I guess I'm not surprised with how DL is playing this. Post merger only 30% of the DL FAs would have to vote for the union to make 50% + 1 vote. There's a lot to be gained with some gamesmanship.

The real losers are the PAX who'll get caught in the middle of two irritated work forces.

ClipperDelta

Actually, DL management is doing exactly that and letting the non-union employees elect representatives to the bargaining table. Committees of elected representatives from DL's FAs, res agents, mechanics, airport cust service employees, etc., (all non-union) will be doing the negotiating with NW union representatives; it won't be DL management doing the talking.

http://www.ajc.com/search/content/pr...id=inform_artr

As stated in the article,

"...Delta flight attendants, airport customer service employees, mechanics and reservations agents each have formed committees by election or by drawing from an employee council group, and have held their first meetings...."

jfulcher

Face it. YOU LOST your push to force a union on DL FAs. You will lose again with one Delta. The union would have done nothing positive for the airline's customers and done nothing but pad the pockets of union executives and people like you.

SamOF

Yes. Assuming NWAFA is a NWA F/A, it will pad the pockets of people like him.

That's exactly the point, along with keeping him healthy.

Study some early 20th century US labor history, especially in bigger cities that more closely resemble the modern economy, and you'll see what workers' rights can be without unions.

raehl311

Gotta love incompetent Union management.

To survive, the union needs to win the vote of Delta employees.

The only way the union can 'enhance' the seniority of the NW FA's is by taking from the Delta FA's.

Suing to take seniority from Delta employees to give to NW's doesn't seem like a good way to get Delta votes.

motytrah

How exactly are they taking seniority away? Usually these are done by hire dates which are fairly universal. Is there something unfair about that? Do DL FAs deserve special treatment because they are the acquiring airline?

indufan

Are you assuming that EVERY NW FA would vote for the union?

motytrah

The number assumes the last NW tally as reported by one of the DTW papers. Exact percentages are subject to change depending on the size of the respective workforces when the vote finally happens. For instance, if the economy is tanking and DL decides it needs to reduce head count in traditional NW bases, that could change the votes needed.

WN has unions and things are just fine, I don't know why DL has such a hard time with it.

3Cforme

The choice of language of an AFA press release doesn't make the behavior unlawful; that will be determined in court.

MikeMpls

Perhaps because DL's front-line people already do so well without any (pilots excepted). Why ruin it just to amuse the disenchanted from NW?