CWA Wins Piedmont Election, Challenges Delta Loss

CWA pulled off a major organizing victory on November 4th,  when gate and ramp agents at the US Airways subsidiary Piedmont Airlines voted 1,170 to 638 in favor of joining the Communications Workers of America (story here). Some 3,000 Piedmont workers in total will gain union representation with CWA.  The victory demonstrated the overwhelming support for unions among airline workers, which represent a majority of their workforce—50,000 in AFA-CWA alone.

District One played a huge role in the national campaign, with local union organizers collaborating closely with District Organizing Coordinators Tim Dubnau and Erin Mahoney.  Thanks to an active rank and file organizing committee, a huge “yes” vote turned out at airports across the northeast and helped deliver a decisive victory for union representation. Piedmont workers are eager to begin negotiating for a first contract that they hope will address the poverty wages, unaffordable health benefits, and utter lack of job security that currently defines their working conditions.

Unfortunately, the results weren’t as positive a day earlier, when a massive anti-union campaign by Delta Airlines left the union 328 votes short of victory in the vote on union representation by 22,000 Delta flight attendants.  It was the largest private-sector union election since 1941 (story here). 

The election was made necessary by the merger between Delta, which had been non-union, and Northwest, where 7,200 former Northwest flight attendants had AFA representation. CWA has already filed charges at the National Mediation Board, which oversees airline labor relations, seeking to overturn the election on the grounds that Delta’s intimidation campaign made a fair election impossible.

Delta management did all they could to scare their employees into voting “No.” Their anti-union campaign was based on massive, widespread and systematic fear and intimidation of its own employees. The union has documented dozens and dozens of instances where the company threatened pro-union employees and spread misinformation about the union. At one point, the CEO of Delta even accused the union of being “un-Christian.”

In a November 3rd press release, AFA announced, “We are extremely disappointed that once again, Delta management overwhelmed flight attendants with heavy handed intimidation and coercion of voters. They stopped at nothing to keep Delta flight attendants from gaining a voice and advancing their profession.” 

The Delta loss is a setback, but it’s important to take the right lesson and move forward. The loss reflected Delta’s heavy-handed anti-union tactics, and should therefore be treated not as a defeat but also as a call to further action.

CWA will continue the fight to win representation for the employees of Delta, the world’s second-largest airline, and to win back the union for Northwest union members left out in the cold. As Piedmont agents demonstrated on Thursday (along with many thousands more at Delta the day before), airline workers across this country want a voice and the right to bargain for fair working conditions. Challenging the illegitimate loss at Delta is just the next step on this path, and CWA will continue the fight for bargaining rights for all airline workers.