Solidarity in the skies: In St. Paul, Delta workers rally together for a union

February 3, 2025 by

MSP-based Delta flight attendants Jarrod Anderson and Becca Mertes sing “Solidarity Forever” with AFA-CWA President Sara Nelson (R).

One of the largest organizing drives in the country got a boost in St. Paul last month, as Delta Air Lines flight attendants and ramp, cargo and tower workers pushed closer to a union election at the world’s most profitable carrier.

Supporters spilled out of a crowded union hall at the St. Paul Labor Center on Jan. 25 during a fiery rally organized by two unions, the Machinists (IAM) and the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA. Together, they are working to organize a combined 48,000 Delta workers.

Speakers included elected officials, union leaders, community allies and Delta workers, who said their campaign is gaining ground despite fierce pushback – and alleged union-busting – from management.

Rob Lavigne, a baggage handler with 14 years of experience at the airline, called Delta’s attempts to intimidate its own workers shameful, noting that 80% of workers in the airline industry – including Delta’s own pilots – enjoy the security of a union contract.

“Delta, you made $4.6 billion,” Lavigne said, a reference to the company’s 2023 earnings. “You can afford to make us the industry leaders the way that we made you the industry leaders.”

In addition to locking down pay raises and union benefits, many Delta workers at the rally said they hope to bargain for better work rules and procedures, especially around absences.

Right now, Delta’s sick-time policy is that it doesn’t have a sick-time policy, according to both flight attendants and ramp workers who attended the rally.

“It’s a gray area right now because it’s up to your manager’s discretion how many times you can call out before being penalized,” Minneapolis-based flight attendant Hunter Lipinski said. “I’ve known people who have provided a doctor’s note and have still been penalized.”

“I’ve watched a good amount of favoritism over the years,” baggage handler Pat Gores, a nine-year Delta veteran, said. “It’s like, if you’re an old drinking buddy of your manager’s, you’re OK? No way, I want fairness and equal treatment for all workers.”

Adding insult to injury, Delta is part of an industry group bankrolling a lawsuit to prevent Minnesota-based employees from accessing benefits under the state’s new earned sick and safe time law. The company joined nine other airlines in a lawsuit seeking an exemption from the law in December.

Another gray area that Delta flight attendants hope to clarify in a union contract is scheduling. Becca Mertes, who works out of Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, said Delta flight attendants lag behind their peers at other carriers when it comes to compensation when cancelations and delays wreak havoc on their work schedules.

Delta management can extend a flight attendant’s one-day shift by multiple days, Mertes said, “and all you brought with was a pair of underwear.” It’s particularly difficult for flight attendants with children or pets.

Delta flight attendants and ramp, cargo and tower workers rallied with community supporters, including U.S. Rep. Betty McCollum, at the St. Paul Labor Center on Jan. 25.

“That can happen at any other airline too, but in two and a half years at WestJet Airlines, I never got worked into my days off, not once,” she said. “It’s happened several times at Delta, too many to count.”

Community supporters at the rally, including U.S. Rep. Betty McCollum, who represents Minnesota’s 4th Congressional District, praised workers in the room for joining together to improve conditions at Delta – and across the airline industry.

McCollum told union supporters that her mother once worked as a flight attendant, before the airline moved her to the ticket counter when she announced she was getting married. Even that job was no longer an option after she got pregnant, McCollum said.

“I fly two times a week, and I always feel safe in a Delta plane,” she said. “I see you. I see my mother in you when you walk down the aisle… You deserve respect and fair compensation for the work you do.”

McCollum said she brings that message into her frequent meetings with Delta lobbyists in Washington, D.C., too.

Mertes, Lavigne and other Delta workers active in the organizing drives said they hope to vote on union representation by the summer. For that to happen, the unions will need to demonstrate to the National Mediation Board that they have collected signed authorization cards from a majority of eligible workers.

In a quirk of federal labor law, the cards expire after one year, which creates an administrative headache for organizers.

“For two and a half years we’ve been at this, and I believe if union cards were good for two years, I wouldn’t be speaking here today,” Lavigne said. “We would have had a union on the property last May.”

Workers like Lipinski left the rally feeling more confident that day would come.

“Seeing all this support, it gives the feeling of, ‘we can do this,’” Lipinski said. “It’s our turn to have a seat at the table.”

– Michael Moore, UA editor

Filed Under: Organizing, Union Events Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Unions call out Delta for ‘unethical and illegal anti-union activities’

June 12, 2024 by

Union supporters rallied near Delta’s employee parking lot, near Terminal 2 at MSP International Airport. The Machinists union, which is supporting the union effort among ramp workers at the airline, organized the event.

BLOOMINGTON – Delta Air Lines is the only major U.S. carrier with a mostly non-union workforce, but baggage handlers, flight attendants and mechanics at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport are looking to change that.

Delta employees based at MSP are leading a nationwide campaign to bring together over 50,000 frontline workers into three unions: the Machinists (IAM), the Flight Attendants (AFA-CWA) and the Teamsters.

MSP is among Delta’s operational hubs, and it has been a hotbed of union support since the “Organize and Fly Together” campaign began in November 2022.

During a rally with the Machinists union near Terminal 2 last month, MSP-based baggage workers projected that 80% of eligible employees at their job site would sign union cards before year’s end.

Some local union activists, like cargo lead Miles Dousette, are even traveling on their own time to other airports, where they join organizing rallies and go door to door to ask fellow Delta workers to sign union cards.

“It’s a cause we all believe in, we all want to be a part of,” Dousette said. “And we know we can win.”

Management, Delta workers say, has responded to the organizing drive with a relentless union-busting campaign, cracking down on pro-union speech and flooding the workplace with disinformation. Nabil Kablaoui, a Delta ramp agent, said he feels like supervisors are trying to intimidate workers at MSP.

“They’ve stood behind workers who are talking about a union,” Kablaoui said. “I’ve seen a manager take pro-union fliers out of people’s hands or out of their bags on tables in our break room, where we should have free movement.

“They might not seem large, but especially to new workers, who are maybe a little nervous about these things, that’s going to scare them off from their legal right to a union.”

Leaders of the three international unions behind the organizing drive accuse Delta of crossing the line – both legally and ethically – in trying to remain mostly union free. “Delta has consistently and unabashedly violated our federally protected right to organize,” read a flier handed out during the rally May 29.

The allegations have drawn attention from several members of Congress, including Rep. Angie Craig of Minnesota’s 5th Congressional District.

In a March 2024 letter, Craig urged Delta CEO Ed Bastian to enter into a neutrality agreement with unions that would prohibit managers from engaging in “pre-election activities that influence workers’ freedom to form a union” – activities that could run afoul of federal labor laws.

“Unfortunately, I have heard from my constituents regarding Delta’s history of deploying union-busting tactics, including distributing anti-union literature … and hosting an anti-union website citing ‘unions’ empty promises,’” Craig wrote. “These actions are hostile to workers’ rights, and I urge you to commit to implementing a neutrality agreement with regard to these union organizing efforts.”

Although workers at the Machinists rally were skeptical that Delta would commit to remaining neutral, the facts, they said, are on their side.

Delta is the most profitable airline in the U.S., but many working groups lag their peers at other domestic carriers in pay and benefits. The one group that doesn’t? Members of the Air Line Pilots Association International union.

“Delta makes 40% of the industry’s profits, but we are not the highest paid, we do not have the most vacation time and our health care plan has changed three times in three years,” baggage handler Pat Gores said. “That is unacceptable for industry leaders. Our pilots are the best paid in the industry, and do you know why? Because they have a union contract.”

“We’re not out here asking for the whole pie, just a whole piece,” Dousette added. “We’re tired of fighting for the crust. We just want our fair share.”

– Michael Moore, Union Advocate editor

Filed Under: Organizing, Union Events Tagged With: , , , , , ,

MSP flight attendants from multiple carriers rally together on worldwide day of action

February 14, 2024 by

Flight attendants marched Feb. 13 during a solidarity action at MSP’s Terminal 1.

An estimated 100,000 U.S.-based flight attendants are working under expired union contracts, and their collective frustration boiled over yesterday at Minneapolis-St. Paul and dozens of other airports worldwide.

American Airlines, Southwest, United and Sun Country flight attendants – all working under expired contracts – marched outside Terminal 1 during the Flight Attendant Day of Action rally at MSP Airport. Employees of Delta Air Lines and its regional carrier Endeavor Air joined the rally too.

“The industry is hurting right now as far as flight attendants go and their wages,” American Airlines flight attendant Todd Smiertelmy said. “We’re all looking for our money. Give it to us.”

U.S. carriers have largely returned to profitability since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the airline industry anticipates serving a record number of travelers in 2024.

Flight attendants have seen the increased interest in travel firsthand, United flight attendant Brittany Kaiser said, but they also have seen “more issues that are arising constantly in flight or, mostly, during boarding, which is the time when we’re not getting paid.”

United expects its flight attendants at the gate well before a scheduled departure to prepare the cabin for flight. But like most other airlines, the carrier does not consider flight attendants to be on the clock until the cabin door closes.

“We’re helping get people to their seats, get the bags up and make sure the bags are correct; we’re prepping for the flight, counting meals, double checking to make sure we have all our supplies, setting up for the flight,” Kaiser said. “We’re not paid for any of it, but we’re required to do it.”

Getting paid for boarding the airplane is among the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA’s top priorities in bargaining a new contract covering 25,000 United flight attendants like Kaiser, who is based in Houston, but the process has been slow moving. Their last contract expired in 2021.

It’s been five years without a contract – or wage scale increase – for Smiertelmy and other members of the Association of Professional Flight Attendants, the union at American Airlines. And flight attendants at MSP-based Sun Country, members of Teamsters Local 120, saw their last union contract expire in 2014.

“It really hurts morale, I can tell you that,” Smiertelmy said, adding that talks with American have long since reached a “stalemate.”

The two sides are in federal mediation, but the union has a pending request before the National Mediation Board – its second in the last two years – to be released into a 30-day “cooling off period,” after which they could legally go on strike under the Railway Labor Act. Smiertelmy, who lives in Minneapolis but is based out of Chicago’s O’Hare Airport, was among several flight attendants carrying “Ready to Strike” signs at the MSP rally.

“We don’t want to strike,” Smiertelmy said. “We want the company to sit down and have serious talks with us and just share a piece of the pie.”

Local 120 and Sun Country entered mediation in December and have a second session scheduled next week. In bargaining last year, the airline’s “final offer” was rejected by 96% of union members who participated in the vote.

Even flight attendants with a current union contract said their airlines aren’t doing enough to make the job sustainable, particularly for new hires. Endeavor’s Trina Johnson, a local executive council president of AFA-CWA, said her union is trying to bargain a letter of agreement with the Delta subsidiary that would improve working conditions for its 1,400 flight attendants.

“Regional flight attendants live at poverty level,” Johnson said. “Most of them have a very difficult time in the first five years that they fly trying to pay rent and buy food and even commute to their bases.”

Their unions may bring different issues and priorities to the bargaining table, Sun Country’s Tanya Devito said, but flight attendants share a common demand for more respect for the work that they do.

“It is invigorating to have all of these flight attendants coming together, but it’s also very sad because it says that (airlines) are not taking us seriously, that everybody is waiting for a contract,” she said. “It says they don’t value us.”

– Michael Moore, Union Advocate editor

Filed Under: Labor Voices, Organizing, Union Events Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Union solidarity key to Delta workers’ organizing campaign

April 19, 2023 by

Sara Nelson, president of the AFA-CWA, led a rally with leaders of the Teamsters and Machinists at the St. Paul Labor Center.

The largest private-sector union organizing campaign in the world came to St. Paul last weekend, as three unions seeking to bring together 45,000 Delta Air Lines ramp workers, mechanics and flight attendants rallied their supporters at the Labor Center.

The April 15 event drew international union leaders from the Association of Flight Attendants (AFA-CWA), the Machinists (IAM) and the Teamsters, as well as pro-union Delta workers from Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport and Delta outposts in New York, Atlanta and Detroit.

Delta pilots are unionized, but the remaining 80% of its workforce is not. Delta is the only U.S.-based mainline carrier where flight attendants, fleet service workers and mechanics are not represented by a union – for now.

“It is high time that we put a contract in the back pocket of every single Delta Air Lines worker,” said AFA-CWA President Sara Nelson, whose speech drew a thunderous ovation from more than 150 people inside the union hall.

Nelson’s union has supported organizing campaigns at Delta before, as have the Machinists and Teamsters. Sometimes those campaigns overlapped.

But last November the three unions announced an agreement to coordinate their efforts under the “Organize and Fly Together” campaign, with the Machinists supporting Delta fleet workers, the Teamsters supporting mechanics and AFA-CWA supporting flight attendants.

Teamsters Local 120 President Tom Erickson (R) and the Machinists’ Richie Johnsen praised the coordinated union campaign to support Delta workers.

Teamsters Local 120 President Tom Erickson, who serves on International President Sean O’Brien’s Executive Board, said he believes a coordinated campaign – in any industry – offers workers a better chance of making collective gains.

“Coordinated bargaining is not a novel idea,” Erickson said. “Finally, we’re waking up as unions across the company. This coalition should have happened a long time ago. It’s what we used to do back in the 40s and 50s and 60s, and now we’re going to do it again.”

Nelson led the crowd in chanting “I’ve got your back!” as the rally drew to a close.

“We have a lot of differences, and that is what makes us strong,” Nelson said. “But what we have in common is what brings us together. We all need to take care of our families. We all need access to health care. We all need a dignified retirement. We all need to take care of ourselves and our families when we are sick, especially when we get sick on the job.”

Delta is turning massive profits, and its executives are pocketing more of those gains than at other, more unionized airlines. CEO Ed Bastian’s pay was 26% higher last year than his peers.

Delta’s wages are competitive with other large carriers, Machinists Air Transport Territory General Vice President Richie Johnsen said, but it’s only because the airline knows that falling behind would add fuel to workers’ organizing drive.

“We carry that; the union members at other airlines carry that in bargaining,” Johnsen said. “We create that standard, but at Delta it’s a shell that doesn’t offer all the other things that those of us who have a contract enjoy. And that time is done.”

What would a union contract mean for Delta workers?

Nelson said the AFA-CWA contract at United Airlines is worth $100 million more annually than Delta flight attendants’ total compensation, including wages and benefits. The union contract also protects workers from arbitrary firings, establishes safety protocols and gives workers a say in work rules and conditions.

An MSP-based Delta cargo employee, who attended the rally but asked not to be identified for fear of retaliation, said safety standards plummeted after Delta absorbed Northwest Airlines, which was heavily unionized, in 2008.

“When we had a union, they would actually train people to do things safely rather than be forced to work unsafe at Delta,” said the employee, who has 32 years of experience in the cargo department. “We get a lot more pressure now to just get the work done rather than to do it right.”

The safety net for workers who are injured on the job, he said, also disappeared after Delta took over.

“I’ve seen guys get hurt, and they’re forced to leave because they can’t do the work anymore,” he said. “With the union, guys would get rehab for their injuries, or there was a part of the contract where they would … put you into a different job. Now, there’s no such thing.

“They don’t care about us. We’re a number.”

Filed Under: Organizing, Union Events Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

MSP workers unite to support health care campaign, Delta union drive

December 8, 2022 by

Brahim Kone of SEIU Local 26 leads a rally outside MSP Terminal 2.

Airport workers marched and rallied for health care and union rights outside Terminal 2 in Bloomington today. The action was among dozens staged by airport workers and their unions fighting for safe and stable jobs across the country.

In Minnesota, workers at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport used the day of action to advance their campaign for affordable health care.

Dawit Meles, who works for airline caterer LSG Sky Chefs, said he picks up overtime shifts to cover the cost of his individual insurance plan. A more affordable option, he said, would give him more time to spend with his family.

“For my single insurance I pay over $300 a month,” he said. “My wife and kids get their insurance through the state because I can’t afford the (family) insurance LSG Sky Chefs offers.”

Meles’ union, UNITE HERE Local 17, and other unions representing airport workers are pushing the Metropolitan Airports Commission (MAC) to amend the ordinance it passed three years ago increasing MSP’s minimum wage, adding an “hourly health and wellness benefit” to the minimum compensation airport contractors must offer their employees.

State Rep. Kaela Berg, a member of the Flight Attendants union, offers solidarity to workers at the rally.

Earlier this year, unions surveyed nearly 300 MSP service workers from 17 different employers and found that, among workers who had health insurance, just 15.2% reported getting coverage through their employers.

“We know that essential airport workers – often Black, Brown and immigrant workers – make this airport the award-winning airport that it is,” SEIU Local 26 Secretary-Treasurer Brahim Kone said. “But too often to make ends meet they have to struggle, and that’s not right. It’s time for those in power to stand up and do what is right for these workers.”

A MAC commissioner who attended the rally sounded receptive to the idea.

“We will look to this coalition for guidance and support as we move forward to try to solve health care and other issues that are important,” Commissioner Rich Ginsberg said, “because it’s the workers that make the airport work.”

The coalition of airport unions behind the rally also included the Teamsters, the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, and the Machinists – three unions that recently announced a coordinated campaign to support workers attempting to unionize Delta Air Lines.

Delta is turning massive profits, and executives like CEO Ed Bastian, whose pay was 26% higher last year than his peers’, are reaping the benefits. But rank-and-file workers like Miles Dousette, who works for Delta Cargo at MSP Airport, are working two jobs to make ends meet.

“We need a union now,” Delta Cargo worker Miles Dousette tells airport workers at the rally.

“There’s no work-life balance,” said Dousette, in his third year with the company. “They say we’re a family. They say they want this to be a career. Then why don’t we get career wages?”

Dousette said workers in his department earn $18 per hour for their first three years, followed by modest annual increases that top out after the 10th year.

“Delta likes to brag about profit sharing, but I worked six days a week for 10 months straight, and I got the same check as everyone else,” Dousette said.

He told workers at the rally that the company is plagued by understaffing, outdated warehouse equipment and executives who turn a deaf ear to workers’ concerns.

“The scheduling is atrocious, and when we ask management to do something about it, we always hear, ‘we can’t’ or ‘we’re working on it,’” he said. “We need a union now.”

Filed Under: Organizing, Politics Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Northwest Airlines museum gets parting gift from union retirees

May 5, 2021 by

Mary Sansom presents Bruce Kitt with a check for the airline retirees club’s remaining funds, made out to the Northwest Airlines History Center.

Local airline retirees placed their social club into retirement last month, but not before donating the organization’s remaining funds to a museum preserving of the history of Minneapolis-St. Paul’s longtime union carrier, Northwest Airlines.

Founded in 1976, the Machinists Airline Local 1833 Retired Members Social Club met for the final time April 15 in Bloomington. As the last order of business before gaveling into permanent adjournment, Club President Mary Sansom presented Bruce Kitt, executive director of the Northwest Airlines History Center, with a check made out to the Twin Cities museum.

“Recognizing the history that we’ve all shared and have all been a part of, literally, this is bittersweet,” Kitt told some 30 club members gathered for the final meeting. “But on behalf of the museum, I do thank each and every one of you because each and every one of you are represented in this museum – your history, your names, your faces and your accomplishments.”

The social club, affiliated with Machinists Local Lodge 1833, made the difficult decision to fold as a result of dwindling participation, Sansom said.

The local represents airline workers based at MSP, once a hub of operations for heavily unionized Northwest. But Northwest folded into non-union Delta Air Lines as part of a merger announced in 2008, and Local Lodge 1833’s membership cratered.

“Our ability and resources to enlist new members for the retiree club was gone,” Sansom said. “With our current members growing older, unable to move around as easily as they used to or moving out of state to a warmer climate or passing away, the membership has steadily been going down.

“The remaining members decided it was time to ‘retire’ the social club.”

Local Lodge 1833’s membership peaked at over 10,000 airline workers and retirees in 1988, two years after Northwest merged with Republic Airlines. Most members were Northwest employees, as the airline was headquartered in Eagan.

Local Lodge 1833 represented mechanics, stock clerks, cleaners, flight-kitchen workers, equipment-service and plant-protection workers, and the merger with Republic brought bus drivers, reservation and ticket agents and clerical and office workers into the fold. (Northwest mechanics voted to leave the Machinists union in 2000.)

After their final order of business – transferring their accounts to the museum – retirees took the opportunity to share memories of working at “the Red Tail,” as Northwest was familiarly known in the airline industry.

But it doesn’t have to be the last opportunity for reflection, Kitt said, noting that the Northwest Airlines History Center museum is open to visitors four days a week at the Crowne Plaza Aire MSP Hotel in Bloomington.

“I like to say it’s the only place you can still get a Red Tail fix that Delta can’t touch,” Kitt said.

About the history center 

The Northwest Airlines History Center is dedicated to preserving and presenting the history of all 12 airlines that are part of Northwest’s corporate legacy. Learn more at northwestairlineshistory.org.

The museum is open from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thursday through Saturday on the third floor of the Crone Plaza Aire MSP hotel, 3 Appletree Square, Bloomington. Admission is free.

The history center also maintains a vast archive of Northwest Airlines history at Flying Cloud Airport in Eden Prairie. Access is by appointment only.

Filed Under: Community Tagged With: , , , , ,

Union solidarity drives fight for $15 at MSP Airport

January 22, 2020 by

Ahmed Abdul Aziz, a member of Teamsters Local 120 who works for a rental-car agency, speaks before the Metropolitan Airports Commission in favor of a $15 minimum wage.

They may work different jobs or carry different union cards, but workers at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport are fighting together to raise MSP’s minimum wage to $15.

And their solidarity is paying off.

The Metropolitan Airports Commission, which oversees operations at MSP Airport, is advancing an ordinance that would raise the minimum wage in three increments, reaching $15 per hour by July 1, 2022. That’s the same date ordinances in St. Paul and Minneapolis tick up to $15 for large employers.

At a final public hearing on the draft ordinance yesterday, commissioners listened to testimony from airport workers who stand to benefit, including members of the Service Employees International Union, Teamsters Local 120 and UNITE HERE Local 17.

Obang Okelo, a Local 17 member who works for airline caterer LSG Sky Chefs, told commissioners the raise would help him finally afford health insurance. For Michael Schofield, who works in an airport bookstore, the raise would mean more time to spend with his family.

“I work full time for Delaware North, but I have to have a second job because, like many, I have a family to support,” Schofield said, adding that he sees his co-workers at the bookstore clock out after an eight-hour shift, only to clock back in for work at another airport job. “They’re essentially working 16-hour days,” he said.

Obang Okelo tells commissioners raising the minimum wage would help him afford health insurance.

SEIU Local 26 member Glen Brown, a wheelchair attendant at MSP, said it’s not right that airport workers get poverty wages while corporations making money off the airport earn record profits. For most of the five years he’s worked at MSP, Brown told commissioners, his hourly pay has been under $11.

“I make this amount despite seeing the news stories about airlines making billions in profits,” Brown said. “I make this much despite seeing news stories about MSP Airport being one of the best in the country since 2016. I make this despite seeing airline CEO’s like Ed Bastian at Delta making $6,300 an hour.

“That just doesn’t sound fair to me.”

Several community supporters at the hearing agreed.

“It’s not right that we have a world-class airport … and depend on poverty wages in order to provide that service,” House Majority Leader Ryan Winkler, a DFLer from Golden Valley, said.

Mary Sansom, a retired member of Machinists Local Lodge 1833, urged commissioners to put themselves in airport workers’ shoes.

“These are not easy jobs, and minimum wage is not sufficient,” said Sansom, who worked at MSP for 47 years. “And if anyone in this room believes that surviving on minimum wage is OK, then I challenge you to do it.”

Fortunately, the MAC appears to be taking workers’ concerns seriously.

Last August, the MAC unveiled an initial draft of the wage ordinance. It included language workers oppose, including a lower wage floor for tipped workers, known as the “tip penalty,” and exemptions for employers with collective bargaining agreements.

Misrak Anbese (R), an SEIU Local 26 member and longtime airport employee, appears before the MAC with Local 26 Presdident Iris Altamirano.

A month later, airport unions turned out hundreds of members and supporters to a public hearing on the proposal. Over 50 testified, and all spoke in support of a $15 minimum wage for all MSP workers, with no carve-outs or exemptions.

That’s exactly what they got just two weeks later, when the MAC revised its draft ordinance. Now, union organizers anticipate a vote in February or March.

Airport workers got more good news earlier this month, when the MAC released results from a survey of airport employers. Over 80% of those who responded anticipated the wage hike would not affect their ability to do business at MSP, and nearly 90% said the change would not impact the number of workers or total hours on their payrolls.

At the public hearing Tuesday, a handful of airport concessionaires disputed the survey results. They echoed now-familiar warnings about job cuts and business closings heard during debates over the minimum wage in Minneapolis and St. Paul in recent years.

But Wade Luneberg, Local 17’s recording secretary, said airport employers will lose experienced workers to neighboring cities if their wages fail to keep pace. And the airport, which has been showered with awards for its efficiency and service in recent years, has an interest making sure that doesn’t happen.

“These workers are the first and last impression for the flying public, and literally care for the public,” Luneberg told commissioners. “They work in a secure environment that isn’t easy to get to – or into. They keep challenging schedules, balancing multiple jobs and family commitments. They’ve made a commitment to this facility, and they’ve made a life here at MSP.

“Airport workers deserve $15.”

Filed Under: Organizing, Politics Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

MSP catering workers protest on busy travel day

November 26, 2019 by

Airline catering workers, members of UNITE HERE Local 17, lead a protest at MSP Airport.

While Delta rakes in billions in profits, many workers who cater the airline’s flights out of Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport can’t afford health insurance.

Faisal Abdallah, who has worked nearly 11 years for Delta caterer LSG Sky Chefs, is among them.

“If I get sick, I take pills and go back to work,” the Fridley resident said during a union rally at MSP today. “I don’t have a choice. I can’t afford the insurance even though I work two other jobs. I don’t know know what I would do if I got seriously sick.”

MSP is one of 17 airports across the country where unionized catering workers, members of UNITE HERE, are leading demonstrations during Thanksgiving week, raising awareness of their ongoing campaign for fair contracts with two major employers in the industry, Sky Chefs and Gate Gourmet.

UNITE HERE represents some 20,000 airline catering workers nationwide, including 488 members of Twin Cities-based Local 17. They are pushing for higher wages – nearly half of MSP catering workers earn less than $15 an hour, according to the union – and more affordable health care options.

And they want airlines like Delta to support their cause.

As they marched from the sidewalk across the street from Terminal 1 to a mezzanine overlooking MSP’s main ticketing area, about 200 workers and supporters directed many of their chants at Delta, calling the carrier “cheap and mean.”

Several travelers applauded the protest and joined in the chants.

“I serve Delta flights every day at work,” Abdallah said. “Delta makes billions in profit, but I have to work three jobs just to pay my bills. I often work over 80 hours per week at my jobs, and I barely get to sleep.”

The demonstration was the second at MSP Airport since Sky Chefs workers voted to authorize a strike in June. Among Local 17 members, 99.7% of Sky Chefs workers who participated in the vote supported a strike, according to the union.

The contract, covering roughly 11,000 workers, became amendable under the Railway Labor Act (RLA) in December 2018. Federally mediated talks have been ongoing for months, but a strike can’t take place unless the National Mediation Board, which administers the RLA, declares an impasse and releases the two sides from negotiations.

A nationwide strike could impact services on board American, Delta and United airlines.

Filed Under: Organizing, Union Events Tagged With: , , , , ,

Delta touts ‘direct relationship,’ but workers eye strength in numbers

April 17, 2018 by

Delta workers cheer during a union rally at the St. Paul Labor Center earlier this month.

One of the largest union organizing drives in the world touched down in St. Paul earlier this month, as baggage handlers and flight attendants rallied for a voice on the job at Delta Air Lines.

Although the two groups, which include a combined 40,000 workers, are organizing separately, both have enlisted the support of the International Association of Machinists. The union represents more than 100,000 airline workers.

Union supporters at airports across the country are collecting signed authorization cards from their Delta co-workers, hoping to trigger elections with the National Mediation Board soon.

“This will happen by the end of the year,” Machinists District Lodge 142 President Dave Supplee told Delta workers at the April 4 rally. “If each one of you who have signed a card can get one more person to sign a card, we’re there. That’s all we need.”

Organizers estimate some 3,000 Minnesotans would be eligible to vote if both flight attendants and baggage handlers file for elections. Since acquiring Northwest Airlines a decade ago, Atlanta-based Delta has maintained a strong presence at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.

But the company also has maintained its record of union avoidance.

Many workers at the rally began their careers with a union contract at Northwest. Bob Cannatelli, a Boston-based flight attendant, drew loud cheers when he talked about “getting back what we lost” when Delta took over.

It won’t happen overnight, Cannatelli acknowledged. “But what will happen the moment we certify is a seat at the table, a voice, mutual respect, just cause – no more at will – and defined discipline that will prevent the favoritism that we all see so much,” he said.

Rep. Betty McCollum shows the pro-union luggage tag she uses whenever she flies Delta.

The rally drew a standing-room-only crowd to the St. Paul Labor Center, but Delta workers weren’t the only ones in attendance. Elected officials, members of other unions and retirees rallied in solidarity.

Rose Roach, executive director of the Minnesota Nurses Association, noted the similarity between concerns Delta workers are raising in their organizing drive – like sufficient and safe staffing – and the challenges MNA nurses face in hospitals and clinics across the state.

“Well what do you know?” Roach laughed. “And that’s thanks to an enemy that we share: corporate greed.”

Delta “would cease to exist if not for you,” Roach added. “I am confident that Delta would run just fine without that CEO – not so much without the flight attendants and baggage handlers.”

Rep. Betty McCollum, a DFLer from Minnesota’s 4th Congressional District, held up a luggage tag with the Machinists logo on it and said she attaches it to her bag each time she flies back and forth from Washington.

Delta’s lobbyists approach her regularly, McCollum added, and she reminds them each time that she supports its workers’ freedom to a fair process in deciding whether or not to unionize.

Delta failed to live up to those standards, unions allege, in a series of narrow workplace elections after the 2008 merger.

In the fall of 2010, flight attendants voted 51 percent to 49 percent against union representation with the Communications Workers of America. Baggage handlers and passenger service representatives rejected Machinists representation by similarly narrow margins.

Both the CWA and Machinists accused Delta of running an illegal campaign to intimidate and harass its employees into voting “no” – bribing workers, monitoring them with surveillance and meddling in the secret-ballot process.

Workers at the rally warned that the company will use the same playbook this time around.

Dan McCurdy, a 21-year employee at MSP Airport, said Delta workers already face a barrage of messages celebrating the company’s “direct relationship” with its employees. “Delta’s trying to label us as outsiders, as a third party,” the ramp worker said. “That’s far from what we are. The people who I see in here tonight are the people I see every single day at work.”

Filed Under: Organizing, Union Events Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Drawing closer to union elections, Delta workers plan April 4 rally

March 19, 2018 by

Delta Air Lines is the world’s second-largest carrier and a highly profitable corporation, but its 40,000 baggage handlers and flight attendants do not have a union on the job. Not yet, anyway.

Both groups of Delta employees are organizing with the International Association of Machinists, and the union plans an April 4 rally in St. Paul to show labor and community support for the workers’ organizing drive.

“Delta uses all their friends and allies to defeat unions,” former Delta baggage handler and longtime union activist Kip Hedges said. “We must do the same to win union representation.”

Delta, headquartered in the anti-union South, has a shameful track record of union avoidance going back 80 years. After acquiring Twin Cities-based Northwest Airlines in 2008, Delta management won a series of narrow workplace elections that shed the company of most collective bargaining agreements.

In the fall of 2010, flight attendants voted 51 percent to 49 percent against union representation with the Communications Workers of America. Baggage handlers and passenger service representatives rejected Machinists representation by similarly narrow margins.

Both the CWA and Machinists accused Delta of running an illegal campaign to intimidate and harass its employees into voting “no” – bribing workers, monitoring them with surveillance and meddling in the secret-ballot process. Just weeks before voting began, Delta distributed “bonuses” to non-union staff – a final nail in the coffin for the union drive.

Hedges said the company is up to its old tricks again.

“Workers face a Delta management team that is entrenched in its opposition to unionization and proud of their 80-year record as a non-union carrier,” he said. “Delta regularly tries to narrow the ability of rank and file organizers to reach their coworkers through intimidation and rules that flirt with the edge of federal law.”

Still, Hedges reported a “sharp uptick” in the number of Delta workers signing union cards, a trend driven by “ever-harsher working conditions.” And despite record returns, Delta scaled back its profit-sharing initiative last year, frustrating workers even more.

Organizers hope to file for organizing elections with the National Mediation Board in 2018.

The April 4 rally will feature speakers, food and music beginning at 6:30 p.m. at the St. Paul Labor Center, 353 W. 7th St. Doors will open at 6 p.m.

Filed Under: Organizing, Union Events Tagged With: , , , , , ,
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