Delta Airlines conducted 'largest anti-union campaign the nation has ever seen'

[marmar]

from In These Times:




After Loss, Flight Attendants Challenge Delta’s Anti-Union Tactics, Both Old and New

Wednesday
10 Nov 10
11:46 pm

By David Moberg


Airline conducted 'largest anti-union campaign the nation has ever seen,' AFA president says

Rebounding from a narrow loss of a vote to represent 20,000 flight attendants at Delta Air Lines, the Association of Flight Attendants/Communications Workers of America (AFA/CWA) is preparing a challenge to the results and requesting that the election be re-run.

In the protest to be filed on Nov. 23, the union accuses the airline of using a mix of old-school intimidation tactics and chilling new information-age surveillance to unlawfully interfere with workers’ decisions about whether to join a union.

The challenge is important in part because it could influence conditions for organizing at a time when many unions think recent rule changes might open up a wave of recruitment. The industry is 40 percent unionized, but offers many opportunities for new organizing.

Last summer, the National Mediation Board (NMB), which administers the Railway Labor Act that governs airline labor relations, dropped the old union representation election rule that required a majority of all workers at a worksite to vote for a union for it to be recognized. They changed it to follow the standard set by the National Labor Relations Act, which grants recognition to a union when a majority of ballots are cast for a union. ...........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.inthesetimes.com/working/entry/6658/after_loss_flight_attendants_challenge_deltas_anti-union_tactics_both_/