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: , , , , , ,

Sun Country flight attendants demand wages, work rules to match industry peers

January 17, 2024 by

Sun Country flight attendants, members of Teamsters Local 120, held informational picketing Jan. 10 at MSP Airport.

Nearly five years into their campaign for a new union contract, flight attendants at Minnesota-based Sun Country Airlines are still fighting for their fair share of the company’s growing profits.

Members of Teamsters Local 120, which represents about 600 flight attendants at Sun Country, held informational picketing Jan. 10 outside Terminal 2 at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, showing support for their bargaining team just weeks after its first round of mediation with the airline.

The two sides, who began their most recent round of contract talks in 2019, filed jointly for assistance from a federal mediator after flight attendants voted overwhelmingly to reject a “best and final” offer from Sun Country last May, with 96% of participating union members voting “no.”

Union negotiator and veteran flight attendant Tanya Devito said her union introduced “realistic” proposals during the first mediated session that would establish pay and work rules on par with flight attendants at Frontier, Allegiant and other airlines comparable to Sun Country.

“They can do with it what they want, but this group is not going to accept anything less than that,” Devito said. “We would rather have shot for the moon, but we didn’t. We put in realistic expectations that we need in order to get a (tentative agreement) voted in.”

Specifically, Sun Country flight attendants are looking to advance through their wage scale faster in a new contract.

Devito, who has 32 years of experience with the airline, is still two years shy of Sun Country’s top wage rate. Meanwhile, flight attendants at Allegiant Air reach top scale in 12 years. At Spirit Airlines it takes 13.

“We’re losing good people,” said Elaine Rishovd, a flight attendant and chief steward for Local 120. “Many junior flight attendants, they maybe last a year or two before they’re gone. They can’t live on the salary they pay here. They could be three or four years into the scale here, and within a year or two they’re going to be beyond that someplace else.”

Additionally, Local 120 members want contract language that will lower the cap on “duty hours” they can be required to work during a shift. Currently, Sun Country can schedule flight attendants to travel up to 22 hours on a shift, but that doesn’t mean they’re earning wages the entire time.

“We check in one hour before flight to do our pre-checks while passengers get on, and we’re not getting paid,” Rishovd said. “Maybe there’s a weather or a mechanical delay. We do not get paid until that door closes. On the other end, when the door opens, we don’t get paid anymore. There are so many hours when we are on duty but we’re not getting paid.”

Sometimes Sun Country flight attendants will work four flights in shift that lasts 14 duty hours – and collect just six hours’ worth of wages, said 27-year-veteran flight attendant LaNeia Huberty.

“Those days are really hard, really rough,” Huberty said. “And technically, we’re there for safety. You don’t want your flight crew exhausted. We need to be sharp.”

The so-called “hometown airline” can afford to do better by its flight attendants, too, Huberty and other members of the bargaining team said.

Sun Country has grown steadily since emerging from the pandemic travel disruption and reported record profits in 2023 – thanks, in part, to sacrifices made by its flight attendants, who estimate that they saved the company $4 million by taking voluntary, unpaid leaves after the 2020 outbreak.

“We’ve always put ourselves last, always thought about the company and if it’s doing good or bad,” Huberty said. “We want Sun Country to be here and grow, but we want to be compensated. It’s time for us to get paid.”

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

In nod to organizing efforts, Dayton appoints AirServ worker to MAC

February 16, 2015 by
Airport workers and their supporters march outside Terminal 1 at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport during a week of action targeting low-wage employers.

Airport workers and their supporters marched outside Terminal 1 at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, where organizing efforts have focused on raising wages.

Low-wage workers at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport now have a voice on the airport’s governing body, thanks to Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton.

Last week Dayton filled two vacancies on the Metropolitan Airports Commission, which owns MSP and six smaller airports in the Metro. One of Dayton’s appointees, Ibrahim Mohamed, works as a cart driver for AirServ, a subcontractor that handles passenger services for Delta Air Lines. He earns the state’s minimum wage, $8 per hour.

Mohamed, a Rosemount resident who has worked at MSP Airport for 11 years, is the first Somali-American to serve on the MAC.

Dayton’ other appointee, Dixie Hoard, is a former Northwest and Delta flight attendant from Thief River Falls. Hoard and Mohamed will participate in their first MAC meeting tomorrow.

Mohamed has been active in efforts to improve AirServ workers’ wages and working conditions by organizing a union, a campaign supported by Local 26 of the Service Employees International Union. SEIU Local 26 announced Mohamed’s appointment in a press release today.

“I am excited to bring the voices of the people that I speak to on a daily basis to the MAC,” Mohamed said via the press release. “In my current position as a cart driver, I speak with hundreds of elderly and disabled passengers each day. I hear about their time in MSP and am the first line of response to help.

“I am excited about this opportunity to serve and to be a leader in connecting new communities to the important work of the Metropolitan Airports Commission.”

In addition to working as a cart driver, Mohamed has served as a baggage runner, ticket verifier and in lavatory and water services. His range of experience, he said, will allow him to serve the residents of his district and be a voice for the workers on the front lines.

“I will work to make sure that workers at the airport are part of the conversations at the MAC, because when workers have fair pay, decent benefits and a reliable schedule, we are able to provide world-class service to passengers,” Mohamed said. “I will continue to stand together with my fellow co-workers as we fight for dignity and respect for all workers at MSP, and will always fight to make sure the needs and concerns of workers and passengers are part of all decisions made by the MAC.”

MSP Airport has been a hotbed of organizing activity in recent months. SEIU Local 26’s organizing campaign is operating in concert with a campaign to raise the airport’s minimum wage to $15 per hour. And more than 20,000 flight attendants at Delta, which uses MSP as a hub for its operations, are poised to vote soon on whether to join the International Association of Machinists.

Local 26 President Javier Morillo said Mohamed will be a strong advocate for workers in his new role.

“We applaud Governor Dayton for insisting that a worker be represented on the MAC, and appointing a great candidate like Ibrahim Mohamed,” Morillo said. “I am excited to see Ibrahim continue the work he has always done fighting to make the MSP airport the best airport it can possibly be for both employees and passengers.”

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

Delta absorbed Northwest – and their union. But MSP flight attendants didn’t stop fighting

January 26, 2015 by
MSP-based Delta flight attendants gear up to vote “yes” to joining the IAM during a meet-and-greet event in Bloomington last month.

MSP-based Delta flight attendants gear up to vote “yes” to joining the IAM during a meet-and-greet event in Bloomington last month.

For many of the 1,800 Delta flight attendants based at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, the upcoming vote to form a union is about more than wages, benefits and work rules. It’s about getting back what they lost after Delta’s merger with MSP-based Northwest Airlines four years ago.

“I’ve lived with a contract and without a contract now,” said Tammy Rustad, a flight attendant from St. Paul with 19 years experience at Delta and Northwest. “For me, I prefer things in black and white.”

Rustad is not alone. At a “meet-and-greet” event hosted in Bloomington last week by the International Association of Machinists, the union vying to represent flight attendants, Rustad and other veterans of Northwest talked about what losing their union meant – and what they stand to gain in the upcoming election.

‘A lot of tears’

Robert Clark remembered hearing the announcement four years ago, in the wake of Delta’s acquisition of Northwest, that flight attendants at the newly organized company had voted to reject union representation. Northwest workers had been members of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA.

“There were a lot of tears; people were very sad,” Clark said. “I was sad, but it really touched me seeing how many lives it actually affected.”

Clark, who lives in Eagan, has worked as a flight attendant out of MSP for the last 15 years. It’s a career path that would have fizzled early, he said, if it weren’t for his union.

After a passenger filed a complaint based on Clark’s sexual orientation, his employer moved to fire Clark. “The company just wanted to take this person’s word,” he said. “But the union was like, ‘This letter should have gone in the trash.’”

Tammy Rustad, a flight attendant from St. Paul, and Robert Clark, flight attendant from Eagan, attended the IAM meet-and-greet last week.

Tammy Rustad, a flight attendant from St. Paul, and Robert Clark, a flight attendant from Eagan, attended the IAM meet-and-greet last week.

Negotiating for safety

Burnsville resident Laurie Gandrud, a 20-year veteran flight attendant, was quick to itemize flight attendants’ losses in the transition from union Northwest to non-union Delta, from safety provisions and grievance procedures to retiree health insurance and pensions.

In particular, Gandrud hopes regaining a union contract will lead to protections against long workdays on short rest, situations that put safety at risk, she said. “I’m looking forward to safety and health improvements,” she said. “I’m very passionate about getting back what we had and what we lost.”

Gandrud’s passion and enthusiasm is reflective of the grassroots organizing effort, begun just over two years ago. One flight attendant at a time, union activists collected signatures on 12,000 cards – from 60 percent of all Delta flight attendants – asking the National Mediation Board to conduct an organizing election.

Rustad, who was part of a delegation that delivered the 12,000 cards to the NMB in Washington D.C., called the organizing effort a “large accomplishment,” especially given that flight attendants don’t share a common worksite. “These are people most of us have never met or seen face to face,” she said.

Industry leader, or industry standard?

Flight attendants at the meet-and-greet reported that anti-union mailings already have begun arriving in their mailboxes, as Delta attempts to discourage the organizing campaign.

But Angie Brewer, a 25-year veteran of Delta, said the co-workers she talks to are not likely to change course. Most Delta flight attendants, Brewer said, see disparities between their wages, benefits and work rules and those of flight attendants at other airlines – and they look to collective bargaining as the equalizer.

“We’re the No. 1 airline, and I believe that,” Brewer said. “We outrank all the other airlines in terms of passenger service and customer satisfaction. We have been turning huge annual profits.

“But as flight attendants, we have been told our work rules, wages and benefits are ‘industry standard.’ I believe we should lead the industry too.”

Clark agreed: “If it wasn’t for us, the company wouldn’t be making all this money,” he said. “We’re the face of Delta. We’re the ones face-to-face with the passengers. It’s important they share that by pay and benefits across the board, otherwise it’s a slap in the face.”

Union wave at Delta?

Other workers at Delta – notably the pilots, who enjoy better work rules and sick leave than flight attendants – have used collective bargaining to improve their working conditions, and Rustad anticipates the flight attendants’ vote will be the first in a wave of union victories at the Atlanta-based carrier.

“When we do win the vote, I expect Delta will be at the negotiating table, ready to go,” Rustad said.

“Delta keeps telling us we’re the world’s best employees,” she added. “I’d love to be compensated and treated as such.”

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