aislehopper:
First, I agree with you 100% on the point about being "civil".
What I think Luke is alarmed with is the issue of "employer" funding and assistance with the anti-union advocates. He is right to be concerned with this, as it is 'unlawful' in the United States for employers to financially contribute to potential voters. It amounts to coersion -- but unfortunately, it happens all the time.
No matter how you slice it, workers have the deck stacked against them. For example, Delta has much deeper pockets than we have (collectively) as an organization. They have access to 100% of Delta FAs. Workers that want to organize have to work tirelessly to try to obtain contact information -- this is even harder for FAs, where we live all over the world and don't work in the same place at the same time.
Also, Delta has the services of very experienced Union Busting lawfirms like Ford & Harrison on their side. Heck, Mike Campbell comes directly from that firm (in fact, I think he was a co-founder, if I'm not mistaken).
I don't mean to sound condescending when I say this, but I think it warrants mentioning...
Unlike most Delta FAs, people like myself have sat across the table from Ford & Harrison in negotiations. Likewise, I sat across the table from Richard Anderson for several years when I was the President of our NW union. These men are not "evil" people -- but they are definately all cut from the same Harvard/Yale Business School cloth. They care about two primary things; PROFIT and pushing forward their BUSINESS PLAN. It seems to me that most FAs don't really understand how these guys work....so I'm gonna share with you my personal experience...
Whether we are talking about Ford/Harrison, Richard Anderson or the Air Transport Association, these men all have an agenda and ideas they want introduced into our industry. For example, a few years ago, it was "lost time". Immediately, we saw them show up at the bargaining table with these "new" ideas about PPT or "Performance Development" or any number of other clever titles. When you peal away the layers, they are amount to the same thing. MORE SCRUTINY for sick calls, LESS SAFETY NETS for FAs and the end results are "LESS SICK TIME" and more FAs going to work ill. Mission Accomplished - $$$ Also, there was the grand idea that FAs can offer all kinds of NEW choices in the cabin (yippee for our passengers, right?). What it really amounted to, was a desire to ELIMINATE jobs in catering and shift the "assembly" work to FAs. Mission Accomplished - $$$. Another great idea introduced at NWA 2 years ago, was "cultural" needs of transatlantic / transpacific flights...but what it really meant was outsourcing 75% of our jobs to low-cost workers in India and China and elsewhere. (fortunately, AFA stopped that on Capitol Hill). Now, I know there are a many Delta FAs that don't want to hear these things - and they desperately want to blindly trust that somehow this isn't really going on behind closed doors at your airline. But sadly, it is. And, I have no doubt that there current scheme is to defeat you in your organizing campaign - THEN use that defeat to pit you against a merged FA group (like NWA) and then have full clearance to introduce some of their new ideas (that have been stopped elsewhere) at the largest non-union FA group in the country. If their plan works, we can expect to see the flood gates open on outsourcing and other issues that will effectively reduce the group to 25% of its former size. Now, I know some will say -- well, THEN we can organize to stop it, right? WRONG ! That was the lessen that AMFA at NWA learned the hard way. Once NWA reduced the group to a small enough number, it didn't matter what they wanted to do to try to stop NWA from outsourcing their jobs. They had already done it. And, they were small enough to replace the entire work force.
So, there you have. My predictions...in black and white. Again, it's not to say these are evil people - they are simply doing what most corporate leaders in the US are doing - trying to save a buck. But, unfortunately, if there is no resistance -- there will be many that pay the price.
Danny
