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: , , , , , , , ,

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.

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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: , , , , , , , , , ,

Letter Carriers’ food drive restocks local food shelves

May 12, 2018 by

Blong Moua, a Letter Carrier at Eastern Heights Post Office in Oakdale, unloads his truck on Stamp Out Hunger day 2018.

Stamp Out Hunger is the nation’s largest one-day food drive, and it’s powered by union members.

Letter Carriers across the country collected non-perishable food along their routes today for delivery to local food pantries. The carriers’ union, the National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC), organizes the food drive each year.

Other unions co-sponsor the event, including the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) and the AFL-CIO.

For St. Paul-based UFCW Local 1189, it’s a natural partnership. UFCW members work in many of the grocery stores where people shop for their food donations. That includes Cub Foods, where Second Harvest Heartland sets up collection centers on Stamp Out Hunger day.

Local 1189 volunteers adopted collection sites in Oakdale and Cottage Grove this year, helping Letter Carriers unload their trucks and packing donations into semi-trailers.

“It’s kind of fun,” Local 1189 member Dennis McMahon, who works at Cub Foods in White Bear Lake, said as he unloaded mail trucks in Oakdale. Volunteering for the third time, he said the event offers a chance to “get together with some people you don’t see as much as you’d like to,” as well as support a good cause.

South St. Paul carrier David Schimerowski has never missed a Stamp Out Hunger Saturday in 21 years as a Letter Carrier.
Machinists Local 1833 retirees Tom Hoppenstedt and Mary Sansom unload food at Neighbors Inc. in South St. Paul, which brought in 24,458 pounds on Stamp Out Hunger day 2018.
UFCW Local 1189 volunteers in Oakdale include (L to R) James Westin, Manzoor Wangnoo, Diana Tastad-Damer, Abraham Wangnoo, President Jennifer Christensen, Dennis McMahon and Zendaya Adkins.

Stamp Out Hunger is in its 26th year. In 2017, Letter Carriers collected 75 million pounds of food nationwide.

South St. Paul carrier David Schimerowski, a member of NALC Branch 28, said donations along his route were about the same as in previous years.

Schimerowski, in his 21st year as a Letter Carrier, has never missed a Stamp Out Hunger Saturday.

“It usually adds about an hour and a half to my route,” he said. “But I like it.”

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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: , , , , , ,

Machinists OK contracts with United Airlines

October 29, 2013 by

International_Association_Of_Machinists_and_Aerospace_Workers_logo1Members of the International Association of Machinists voted yesterday to approve new, nationwide collective bargaining agreements with United Airlines covering employees in the airline’s fleet service, passenger-service and storekeeper workgroups.

The agreements cover more than 28,000 workers at United, Continental and subsidiary airlines, including 158 members of Machinists Local 1833 who work at the Minneapolis–St. Paul International Airport. The contracts go into effect Nov. 1 and, because contracts under the Railway Labor Act do not expire, become amendable Jan. 1, 2017.

Union members voted down tentative agreements with United in April. In negotiations since then, workers agreed to concessions related to vacation benefits in exchange for increased pension contributions and wage improvements.

Members will receive payments for those wage increases retroactive to January 2010, when their previous contract with United became amendable, Local 1833 President A.J. Lindell said. For most Local 1833 members, those retroactive payments will be between $6,000 and $10,000.

“That’s nothing to shake a stick at,” he said. “Overall, I think people were satisfied with the agreements.”

The union also succeeded in beating back United’s plan to outsource more customer-service jobs to non-union, low-wage contractors, which drew protest at MSP earlier this year.

The tentative agreement voted down by members in April would have enabled United to resume outsourcing jobs after the contract becomes amendable in 2017. The contracts approved by Machinists this week push that date back to Jan. 15, 2018 – and include a “poison pill” as incentive for the company not to drag out negotiations, Lindell said.

“If there is no agreement, everybody would get a 3 percent raise on that date,” he said.

Above-wing employees – customer-service, ticket and gate agents – in Local 1833 approved their agreement with 90 percent voting “yes.” Local 1833’s below-wing employees – mostly baggage handlers – approved their agreement with 60 percent voting “yes.”

The contracts received “yes” votes from about 70 percent of voting Machinists nationwide.

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

Machinists picket United Airlines for outsourcing middle class jobs

August 27, 2013 by
Machinists Local 1833 members picketing outside Terminal 1 today include (L to R) Derrick Bollea, A.J. Lindell and Greg Durand.

Machinists Local 1833 members picketing outside Terminal 1 today include (L to R) Derrick Bollea, A.J. Lindell and Greg Durand.

United Airlines’ union employees greeted travelers approaching Minneapolis – St. Paul International Airport today, raising public awareness of the airline’s plan to outsource more customer-service jobs to non-union, low-wage contractors – a plan that could impact jobs based in the Twin Cities.

At its peak, the daylong informational picket line outside Terminal 1 drew 25 members of International Association of Machinists Local 1833. Holding “Outsourcing Is Wrong” signs, they attracted horn honks and waves of support from passing drivers.

United laid off about 240 Machinists union members earlier this year, shifting their work to low-cost vendors – like subcontractors – at six U.S. airports where the airline has a minimal presence.

Another round of outsourcing is in the works, union members say, and it is likely to hit airports where United employs between 50 and 150 workers. The Machinists represent about 200 MSP-based United workers.

“We’re within that realm,” Local 1833 President A.J. Lindell said of the next round of layoffs. “If it happens, all these good-paying, middle-class jobs are gone. United replaces them with minimum-wage work and minimal customer service.”

Similar actions have taken place at airports across the country this summer – including one today at O’Hare International Airport in Chicago, a hub of operations for United.

The MSP action, Lindell said, was the first staged at one of United’s “line stations,” or non-hub operations.

“We think good corporate profits come from good middle-class jobs,” Lindell said. “United made $469 million in the second quarter alone last year. “Their financial justification for outsourcing 200 jobs is that it will save them $1 million annually. It seems a bit unnecessary, to say the least.”

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