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OUR
FIGHT
Our Commitment
As organizing employees, we commit to creating a space where every worker has the ability and right to speak up and help shape the future of their jobs. We believe in a bottom-up, rank-and-file leadership planted in self-determination.
Delta ramp, cargo and tower agents are seeking to unionize under the IAM
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The IAM, which stands for the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, was founded in 1888 and is one of the oldest unions in the United States. With nearly 600,000 active and retired members, the IAM is one of the largest and most diverse labor unions in North America. They represent the most airline workers of any union in the industry. IAM members demand respect and dignity in the workplace. Together, they have been able to bargain for increased job security, higher wages, and improved benefits.
Know Your Rights
As employees of a company that provides national travel and commerce, we must organize under the law laid out by the Railway Labor Act (RLA). Under it, there are a few unique challenges with the largest being that to trigger a union election, we need 50%+1 of all ramp/tower/cargo agents across the country to sign an Authorization Card, also known as an A-Card. The card is neither a commitment to a yes or no vote, simply a statement of belief that we deserve to vote and decide our future for ourselves.
The RLA protects the following rights to self-organize:
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​​The right to join the union and to ask others to join the union
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The right to attend union meetings and to ask others to attend union meetings
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​The right to wear a union pin on the job
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The right to hand out union leaflets on the employee’s own time in break rooms
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The right to encourage others to support the union, so long as such efforts do not interfere with work
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The right to discuss the union during work
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The right to engage in organizing activities in break rooms, parking lots, and other non-work areas
To protect these rights, the RLA makes the following interference conduct by management unlawful:
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Polling or surveilling employee organizing activities, like if an employee signed an Authorization Card
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Terminating/disciplining or threatening to terminate/discipline employees for supporting the union
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Forming or encouraging employees to join employee committees during the organizing drive or using existing employee committees to engage in anti-union efforts.
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Conveying inaccurate or misleading information about union elections or preventing employees from participating in an election
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Soliciting or accepting authorizations or ballots from employees
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Promising to give employees promotions, raises, or other benefits in exchange for voting against the union or threatening to discontinue existing benefits, pay, or position because employees support the union
"Make it Work"
Delta has long claimed that through an open-door policy, their direct relationship moves faster than any union committee ever could. Ask the average ramp worker and they will tell you that Delta’s open-door policy is much more of a broken-door policy. Issues raised fall on deaf ears where change is dependent on indifferent managers whose only motivation is to hit performance metrics that increase their year-end bonus.
Stations have seen a 25% reduction in full-time schedules along with an increase in daily flights stretching an already strained workforce. Frequently, forced overtime is put in place for workers who have less than 40-hour schedules, essentially denying them the overtime rates they deserve. Others are operating with equipment older than many employees and require “tricks” to start or shift into gear. Even things as simple as hydration stations have been deemed by some station management to be too expensive.
Our bodies are breaking because of fundamental failure in leadership to care for the workers who provide industry-leading performance and industry-leading profits.
We are demanding not only a voice but a voice with the power and ability to create change. With a union, we would have safety committees made up of employees to decide our policies and procedures, not office workers who’ve never stepped foot onto the ramp. We would have the power to demand updated and safe equipment. There would also be the ability to help create our work schedules to ensure there is appropriate coverage for all hours of the operation and still keep the outside lives of the workers in mind.
Union Busting
Under the leadership of Ed Bastian, Delta Air Lines has been enacting an aggressive anti-union campaign. They have flown managers in from every station to receive training in union-busting tactics taught by consultant firms and anti-union law firms like Ford Harrison. Decisions like these are born out of greed and a desire to extract every last cent they can out of the workers.
Managers distribute misleading anti-union literature while destroying pro-union information fundamentally denying workers the ability to make an informed choice. In the literature, they will leave out other airline’s payscales, or manipulate numbers to make them fit their agenda. Who could ever forget the tone-deaf videogame flier that landed Delta in public hot water comparing union dues to a new videogame system?
There is intimidation to remove union pins despite a legally protected right to wear them. This is done against the law and makes those managers susceptible to fines and jail time for interference. This is laid out in the Railway Labor Act.
Captive audience meetings are common occurrences with newly hired employees filled with threats and warnings even in states where they are illegal. They will make claims that Delta doesn’t compete with Southwest so we cannot compare our payscales. Vague threats suggest the loss of flight benefits despite every major contract at other airlines having them written in and safeguarded. This includes unionized Delta workers in Canada! And they falsely say that profit sharing could be lost with a union.
Also in those meetings seeds of distrust are being planted towards organizing workers. We are called bad for morale or pointed out to be avoided entirely. This is extremely dangerous in an environment that demands efficient communication, teamwork, and trust.
They even go so far as calling the police on organizing employees even when those employees have permits and are well within their rights. Don’t believe us? Listen for yourself. (Listen to the audio file below).
Actions
Across America
Our organizing drive is filled with energetic workers, aided by a network of supporters, who believe in using their voice not only on the shop floor but also out in public. They host rallies, informational pickets, and handbill passengers, as well as attend other labor events in showings of solidarity with our brothers and sisters in labor.
While not every event and action gains press coverage, there is a great sampling of stories from across the country. You will find newspaper articles, radio interviews, podcasts, and local television here.