Contents:

• Flight Attendant Displacements for CLT, DCA, and PIT
• Worker Relief Blocked Again - SUPPORT YOUR FELLOW FLIGHT ATTENDANTS
• AFA receives 98 percent of the valid ballots at Delta Air Lines
But Management Uses 9-11, Illegal Tactics to Interfere with Flight Attendants Historic Vote

The MEC has been informed that effective April 1, 2002 there will be flight attendant displacements. This is due to the reduction in staffing in CLT, DCA, and PIT bases.

 CLT - displaced 90
 DCA - displaced 43
 PIT - displaced 157

If you are an affected flight attendant, please refer to your Flight Attendant Agreement for your contractual rights.

The pertinent Section 5 - Moving Expenses, Section 18 - Filling of Vacancies, and Section 19 Reduction in Personnel. For your convenience, the Contract is available on-line at: http://afausairways.org/contract/index1.html

We urge you to read these sections and exercise your rights.

If you are displaced and have questions, please contact your Local Council. LEC Contacts

SUPPORT YOUR FELLOW FLIGHT ATTENDANTS BY CALLING YOUR US SENATOR or by
CLICKING ON THIS LINK: http://www.unionvoice.org/campaign/durbinui

The Senate came within three votes Jan.  29 of extending, expanding and improving unemployment benefits for laid-off workers as part of an economic stimulus package.  The 57 "yes" votes, including 10 from Republican senators, fell three votes short of the 60-vote super-majority needed because of Republican leaders parliamentary maneuvering.

The action come on an amendment to a stimulus bill offered last week by Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.).  In an effort to reach a compromise on a much-needed stimulus package, Daschle offered a slimmed-down version that would extend unemployment benefits, grant tax rebates to low-income families that did not qualify for last year's rebate and provide some tax breaks for business investment. The Daschle bill also included $5 billion in aid to state Medicaid programs to help state governments struggling with massive budget shortfalls.  It dropped a Republican-opposed subsidy to help laid-off workers pay for health care coverage and Democrat-opposed tax breaks aimed at businesses.

Sen.  Durbin s (D-Ill.) amendment would have granted additional weeks of unemployment benefits to those who have exhausted theirs, made more workers eligible to receive benefits and increased the benefit amounts.

Because of the close vote and the absence of three Democratic senators, Durbin is expected to revisit the amendment next week.  The Senate adjourned Jan.  29 without taking final action on the stimulus bill.

The latest U.S.  Department of Labor figures show the crucial need to extend unemployment benefits. In the third quarter of 2001, more than 750,000 workers exhausted their unemployment benefits without finding new jobs.  That's almost three times more than during the previous quarter and does not reflect the surge in layoffs that followed Sept. 11.

SUPPORT YOUR FELLOW FLIGHT ATTENDANTS BY phoning the United States Capitol switchboard at (202) 224-3121 and telling your US Senators that you support increased refief for unemplyed workers.

or CLICK ON THIS LINK: http://www.unionvoice.org/campaign/durbinui

Delta Air Lines Management Uses 9-11, Illegal Tactics to Interfere with Flight Attendants  Historic Vote AFA receives 98 percent of the valid ballots cast

WASHINGTON, DC -- Delta Air Lines management’s exploitation of the 9-11 tragedy as part of an illegal campaign to interfere with the flight attendants’ vote was decisive in discouraging enough flight attendants from voting in the largest ever union election in the airline industry.  With fewer than 50 percent of the eligible flight attendants returning their ballots, the National Mediation Board could not certify the Association of Flight Attendants, AFL-CIO, as the flight attendants' representative after the mail-in ballots were counted today.

Even though AFA received 98 percent of the valid ballots cast, AFA will not be certified as the bargaining representative for the Delta flight attendants under NMB rules.  Of the 19,033 eligible voters, a total of 5,609 ballots were returned.  5,520 votes were cast for AFA and 89 votes were cast for “other”. 

“In America, democratic elections are supposed to express the voice of the people,” said AFA International President Patricia Friend.  “In this election, the flight attendants’ voices were silenced by fear and intimidation.  Now the American government must act to punish Delta for violating the rights of its workers and silencing their voices.”

According to hundreds of flight attendant reports, Delta didn’t just discuss the effects of 9-11 on the airline, management used 9-11 to make flight attendants fear for their jobs if they voted for the union.   It is illegal to threaten workers with a loss of their job to intimidate them into not supporting a campaign to join a union.

Delta management engaged in various tactics to create an atmosphere of fear and intimidation, going so far as to tell the over 3,000 laid off flight attendants that they were not eligible to vote, to keep them from returning their ballots.  In fact, all laid off flight attendants were eligible to vote.

“Videos of our CEO played continuously in our crew rooms,” said Seattle-based flight attendant Mike Trau. “He kept repeating the threats 9-11 have placed on our airline and talking about our family atmosphere, then he’d instruct us to rip up our ballots.”  Not returning your ballot in an NMB election is a “no” vote.

On Sept. 12, Delta began conducting weekly conference calls that were censored so that pro-union flight attendants were not permitted to ask questions.  Other departments at Delta do not have these conference calls, only flight attendants.

Delta communications with flight attendants during the election period inextricably linked Delta’s survival to defeating the union effort. These communications included:

• Letters and videos from senior management to the homes of flight attendants implicitly threatening flight attendants with job loss if they unionized; 
• Supervisors illegally questioning AFA supporters asking, “How can you support a union at a time like this?”
• Management constantly referring to the job losses in the industry in the wake of 9-11 and falsely promoting Delta’s lay-off plans as better than those at unionized carriers.
• One-on-one meetings where supervisors would take aside flight attendants they identified as AFA supporters and grill them on their support for the union, in many cases saying that support was anti-Delta.

“While we were grieving for the loss of our co-workers on those planes on 9-11, Delta management used our fears and anxiety against us,” said Los Angeles-based flight attendant Lorraine York.  “Delta illegally interfered with our rights as American workers before the terrorist attacks.  But that paled in comparison to management’s exploitation of our national tragedy,” said Atlanta-based flight attendant John Jablonski.

A majority of Delta’s 19,000 flight attendants had signed representation cards by August 2001, when AFA filed a petition for an election with the NMB.   On September 6, 2001, AFA also filed hundreds of flight attendant affidavits with the NMB charging illegal interference – including intimidation, threats and surveillance -- by Delta management.

In October 2001, the NMB found that the flight attendant claims presented a prima facie case of illegal conduct against Delta (to view the NMB’s decision, visit www.afanet.org).  But rather than take action to charge Delta with illegal conduct and provide the flight attendants with an atmosphere free from intimidation when voting, the NMB held off further investigation and hearings on the charges until after the election. 

The NMB set the flight attendant election ballots to be mailed to flight attendants’ homes on Dec. 7, 2001.  Ballots for elections conducted under the auspices of the NMB are usually mailed from the NMB’s headquarters in Washington, DC.  But because of anthrax contamination fears, the NMB altered its process and had all ballots mailed and returned to Chicago, and extended the usual 30-day balloting process by 30 additional days.  Ballots were shipped in bulk to the NMB’s Washington, DC, office and counted today. 

The NMB will immediately begin a full-scale investigation into the charges of illegal conduct by Delta management.  If the NMB finds sufficient evidence that illegal interference occurred, it can set a new election, possibly changing the balloting procedures to make the balloting process less likely to be influenced by Delta’s illegal conduct.

With close to 20,000 flight attendants involved, the Delta vote was the largest private-sector union election in more than 30 years. Delta is the only major U.S. air carrier whose flight attendants do not have union representation.

Almost 50,000 flight attendants at 26 carriers have joined together to form AFA, the largest flight attendant union in the world.  Visit us @ www.afanet.org.