Flying this holiday season?
Look for the union label
Do you fly airlines where the work-
ers have union representation, or air-
lines that have kept unions out? To help
you know which is which, the North-
west Labor Press consulted company
annual reports and data from the the
U.S. Department of Transportation’s
Bureau of Transportation Statistics, and
contacted airline unions. The findings:
U.S. airlines range from 85 percent
unionized US Airways to totally
nonunion JetBlue.
It’s been a wild ride for airline in-
dustry workers since the Airline Dereg-
ulation Act of 1978. Passed over the ob-
jection of airline unions, that legislation
got rid of fare and route regulation, and
began an era of fierce competition, with
wave upon wave of mergers and bank-
ruptcies, a gradual disappearance of
passenger perks, and continual pressure
on workers. In the decades since it
passed, PanAm, Republic, and North-
west were absorbed by Delta; Conti-
nental by United; TWA by American;
and America West merged into US Air-
ways. Today, those four surviving
“legacy” companies, plus Southwest,
JetBlue, and Alaska control over 80 per-
cent of the U.S. market.
Every one of the legacy carriers —
airlines that existed before deregulation
— has filed for bankruptcy at one point
since then, and some more than once.
And when they do, management uses
bankruptcy law as a bludgeon to modify
union contracts.
Here are some employee relations
highlights from the Top 7 airlines, start-
ing with the largest:
Southwest, headquartered in Dallas,
PAGE 4
became the biggest U.S. airline by “rev-
enue passenger miles,” after acquiring
AirTran in 2011. It also has the best re-
lationship with its unions, and the high-
est customer satisfaction ratings.
Delta, headquartered in Atlanta, has
fought employee efforts to unionize for
decades. When it absorbed heavily-
unionized Northwest Airlines in 2010,
those 17,000 workers lost their unions.
And Delta is having a big impact on
conditions at other companies: More
than other airlines, Delta relies on re-
gional airlines as subcontractors on
smaller flights to smaller cities, and it
has used its market clout to drive down
costs and wages, in the same way that
WalMart does with its suppliers.
United Airlines, headquartered in
Chicago, was in bankruptcy from 2002
to 2005, during which it negotiated con-
cessions from its unions. It’s a major
outsourcer, too, both of maintenance
work, and of routes: Many flights sold
by United are operated by subcontrac-
tors. This year United completed a
merger with Continental.
American Airlines, headquartered
in Ft. Worth, is the airline villain of the
moment. On Oct. 3, it lost a year-long
court battle to prevent 10,000 ticket
agents from unionizing with Commu-
nications Workers of America. CWA
supporters have begun leafleting air-
ports to alert customers about rampant
outsourcing. American filed for bank-
ruptcy last November despite billions in
cash reserves, and its plans in bank-
ruptcy are to cut 13,000 employees, out-
source maintenance, terminate all of its
pension plans, and end retiree medical
coverage. This is after American’s
unions agreed to major concessions in
2003 to keep the company out of bank-
ruptcy. This time around, the unions
have said no, but American is asking a
judge to order contract changes. Pilots
are fighting back with record numbers
of sick-ins and “working to rule” — in-
stead of helping the airline limp along,
they’re writing up every equipment fail-
ure. American has been in discussions
NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
about a merger with US Airways.
US Airways, headquartered in
Tempe, Arizona, just swallowed Amer-
ica West, and now is making a bid to
take over much-larger American Air-
lines. Its flight attendants rejected a ten-
tative agreement and were scheduled to
hold a strike authorization vote Oct. 31
(after this issue went to press.)
JetBlue, a low-cost carrier head-
quartered in New York City, is all non-
union and determined to stay that way,
defying an active campaign by Trans-
port Workers Union to unionize flight
attendants. JetBlue enters into five-year
“agreements” with individual employ-
ees, in which it unilaterally commits to
“just cause” discipline and protection
against layoffs.
Alaska Airlines, headquartered in
Seattle, began as a regional carrier in the
Pacific Northwest. Now it’s the seventh
largest airline nationally. It has rela-
tively good relations with its unions,
though new hires no longer get to enroll
in the company’s defined-benefit pen-
sion plan.
One other consideration for union
members — and especially for Machin-
ist union members who work at Boeing
— may be whether the airline operates
using aircraft manufactured domesti-
cally by Boeing. It turns out the most
highly unionized airlines also are those
with the highest use of domestically
produced aircraft, while the least union-
ized major carrier — JetBlue — flies no
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NOVEMBER 2, 2012