Labor & Employment Law

Delta Flight Attendants: We?ve Lost that Family Feeling

By James Parks

At the Delta Airlines website, CEO Richard Anderson boasts that the company is “firmly committed to our environment, safety and social responsibility.”

But some long-time Delta employees say the carrier has forgotten its repsonibilities to its workers.

Marianne Bricksler is among them. Bricksler, who has worked for Delta for 23 years, says:

The company has had five different CEOs since I started working here. The falsehood that they would take care of us [is true] just as long as they?re here. We have to take them at their word and I don?t think I can take them for their word [anymore].

In a new video from the Flight Attendants-CWA (AFA-CWA), workers say Delta’s once-happy, caring family is now very dysfunctional. They blame on the revolving door in the executive suite and  profits-at-all-costs business policies for the breakup of the family.

Delta flight attendants with up to 40 years of service describe how thrilled they are that they now have a chance to restore a lost sense of family by voting for  AFA-CWA.  They talk about how managers and executives only pay lip service to the idea of caring about workers. Toni Weinfurtner began flying with Delta 21 years ago.

When I was hired in 1989, senior management came up through the ranks just like the rest of us. They had a loyalty to the company because they built it and wanted to see it do well. It was a Delta family. It’s a totally different culture now.

When Delta and Northwest Airlines merged in 2008, more than 7,000 Northwest AFA-CWA members lost their collective bargaining rights and the 20,000 flight attendants at Delta were in the midst of a long battle to win a voice at work.

Delta management mounted a massive anti-union campaign, including harassment, videotaping and threatening union activists, says the union. Two weeks ago, the National Mediation Board (NMB) granted AFA-CWA?s request to declare that the merger created a single transportation system. As a result, the flight attendants at the merged carrier will have their first opportunity to vote for a union under new, more democratic rules. An election date has not been set.

 ”Finally our voice will be heard and fully respected under strong democratic procedures, the same way that other elections are decided in our country,”  Weinfurtner says.

 We are excited for the opportunity to negotiate an industry-leading contract and continue to work alongside management in building a world class airline. Delta and Northwest flight attendants have waited a long time for this day and are eager to move forward.

For more on the Delta flight attendants, click here.

Full post as published by AFL-CIO NOW BLOG on August 31, 2010 (boomark / email).