Flight Attendants Union Defeated at Delta
A five-year campaign to unionize flight attendants at Delta Air Lines Inc. ended in defeat after a ballot count Friday. But organizers demanded a new election, claiming the company illegally interfered with the vote.
The National Mediation Board, which monitored the campaign, will investigate the allegations, board spokesman Daniel Rainey said. Pre-election complaints by the union were found to have some merit, but a full investigation was postponed until after the vote count, he said.
Of Delta’s 19,033 flight attendants, 5,520 voted to be represented by the Assn. of Flight Attendants. Votes were cast by 5,609. Ballots that were not returned were counted as “no” votes.
Delta spokesman Anthony Black said he expected the results to be upheld and said the union’s accusations “are completely without merit,” but he declined to address specific allegations.
In a statement, Delta Chairman and Chief Executive Leo F. Mullin said the nation’s third-largest air carrier “deeply appreciates the confidence implicit in these election results, which reaffirm the strong relationship between our company and our employees.”
Atlanta-based Delta, the nation’s third-largest carrier, is one of the least unionized of the major U.S. airlines.
Lorraine York, a Delta flight attendant based in Los Angeles who supported the union, said posters in employee lounges across the country urged attendants to “Give a Rip” by destroying their ballots, she said. She said supervisors exploited job insecurities in the industry after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and equated a pro-union vote with disloyalty.
Black rejected that complaint, but said flight attendants may have appreciated the flexibility Delta had as a nonunion company in dealing with post-Sept. 11 financial troubles in the industry. While most major airlines announced massive layoffs in the weeks following the terror attacks, he said, Delta offered voluntary leaves, job-sharing and other alternatives.
This week, the airline posted a fourth-quarter loss of $486 million, or $3.97 a diluted share, after excluding one-time items such as the cash Delta received as its portion of the industry’s federal bailout. Delta, like most major carriers, posted a loss for 2001.
Delta shares fell 29 cents to close at $31.31 on the New York Stock Exchange.
The union also claimed Delta wrongly told about 3,000 flight attendants on unpaid leave that they were ineligible to vote. Union spokeswoman Dawn Deeks said Delta spent about $2.5 million on anti-union consultants.
She said the union will ask the mediation board to order a new election in which only mailed responses are counted.
The Assn. of Flight Attendants, which represents 50,000 flight attendants at 26 carriers, began funding an organizing drive at Delta in the fall of 1997. Three years later, after gathering signatures from more than half the flight attendants, the union petitioned for an election with the mediation board.
