Ufau - United Flight Attendant Union

[unity]

Union dispute lingers
Federal agency may have to settle American flight attendants' vote


11:25 PM CDT on Wednesday, May 12, 2004

By ERIC TORBENSON / The Dallas Morning News


Political infighting within the union representing American Airlines Inc.'s flight attendants could require federal intervention to settle, according to sources close to the union's top leaders.

The conflict surrounds a controversial election in March in which John Ward won re-election as president of the 25,000-member Association of Professional Flight Attendants by 5 votes.

Two months later, the results – confirmed in a recount – are still being contested.

Flight attendants are already feeling pressure from the airline, which told them in a letter last month that customers don't like their service on key Northeast routes.

The uncertainty and turmoil don't help American executives as they try to improve their relationship with employees.

The latest showdown took place Tuesday, when an executive committee at the union considered a motion that would have overturned the election results.

The motion concerned the eligibility of 16 ballots that weren't counted, said a source who supports Mr. Ward and sources who supported opponent Tommie Hutto-Blake.

The friction has been fueled by the other election results: three officers aligned with Ms. Hutto-Blake defeated candidates aligned with Mr. Ward, creating a split board.

Of the ballots in question, 11 weren't eligible because of membership requirements, and five weren't eligible because dues weren't paid.

The union's executive committee looked into those ballots and determined they should have been counted.

Most of the ineligible ballots in question came from American's St. Louis base, which overwhelmingly voted for Ms. Hutto-Blake.

If counted, the narrow election result would probably be overturned.

Mr. Ward wasn't available for comment Wednesday, as he and other flight attendant union leaders lobbied in Washington, D.C., for better self-defense training programs for their members.

The union's executive committee never voted on the resolution on the 16 ballots Tuesday.

Two committee members backing Mr. Ward left the meeting, preventing a quorum. The executive committee is set to resume business May 18.

The election outcome is likely to head to the Department of Labor, which can hear complaints from candidates who aren't able to resolve their issues with the union, said Diana Petterson, a spokeswoman for the agency.

The agency can force a new election through a court order, or it can find that the election was legal and certify the results, she said. That process could take many months.

American officials have said their new approach to working with labor can succeed regardless of the personalities involved. Mr. Ward has been a skeptic of the effort made by chief executive Gerard Arpey to reach out to employees and union heads in the wake of the carrier's painful restructuring last spring.

The flight attendants gave up $340 million last year in wages, benefits and work rules to help keep the carrier solvent. Their current contract becomes amendable in 2006.

E-mail etorbenson@dallasnews.com

Tony
proud 17yr afa member

 

[Bear96]

Shouldn't that be on the AA board?

 

[Fly]

Independent unions take wing


Dissatisfaction with long-established labor unions at U.S. airlines has given rise to a growing movement of groups unaffiliated with the AFL-CIO winning the right to represent workers

By Robert Manor
Tribune staff reporter

May 23, 2004

New and independent unions are making inroads in the airline industry, using promises of democracy and dignity to win workers away from big national labor organizations.

The most successful of the upstart raiders is the Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association, which has come from nowhere to represent more than 20,000 mechanics at United, Northwest and six other airlines. The association, like other independent unions, does not belong to the AFL-CIO.

Most of the mechanics broke from the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, a large and long-established union that is affiliated with the AFL-CIO.

Other incumbent airline unions, many in place for decades, are being challenged. The new unions have won or are mounting representation efforts at about a dozen airlines.

Activists in the independent unions give varying reasons for breaking with the established unions.

Some resent sharing dues with a national union. Others argue they can negotiate better wages and benefits as an independent and retain more money in local coffers. Some want respect; others want a more democratic organization.

Still, some experts contend it may be a huge mistake for workers to abandon the AFL-CIO.

"Occupational unionism doesn't work in an economy where corporations are getting larger," said Kate Bronfenbrenner, director of labor education research at Cornell University. If anything, unions must align with other unions for support and political activity, Bronfenbrenner said.

Some workers are suspicious of independent unions, the Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association in particular, that refuse to consider concessions to troubled airlines. That doctrine is sometimes referred to as "full pay to the last day."

"That's completely irresponsible," said Matthew Porter, a Transport Workers Union member at American Airlines' Ft. Worth facility. "The basic goal of any union is to preserve as many jobs at as high a pay as you can negotiate."

Neil Bernstein, a professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis and a labor arbitrator, believes that the success enjoyed by the upstarts will be short-lived. "They do well for a while, then people get unhappy with them, and they lose favor."

But, for now at least, the independents seem to be gathering strength.

For example, Timothy Nelson, interim director of the newly founded Allied Ground Workers, is starting a membership drive at Elk Grove Township-based United Airlines, hoping to win representation of baggage handlers and others now represented by the International Association of Machinists.

"The main inspiration is to empower the workers through democracy," said Nelson, of Park Ridge.

Meanwhile, the United Flight Attendant Union wants to replace the Association of Flight Attendants at United.

Eric Julien, a spokesman for the challengers, said the Association of Flight Attendants, which represents 46,000 members at 26 airlines, is simply too big to fully serve the interests of workers at United.

"Once they grow so large, they become inefficient," Julien said.

The Association of Flight Attendants is well aware that it has competition at a time when the airline industry is forcing worker concessions.

"It is not surprising that some feel this is a time to break away from AFA," the union's leadership said in a statement. "It's much easier to talk about rejecting our union than it is to work for changes in this depressed environment."

Among the more successful independent unions is the Professional Flight Attendants Association, which represents more than 10,000 flight attendants at Northwest Airlines.

After more than 20 years as members of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, the Northwest flight attendants established their union in June 2003. Why?

Greater involvement

"It was democracy and more membership involvement in the running of their union," said Guy Meek, president of the flight attendants association. "The dues money that the union receives stays strictly in the local, just for Northwest flight attendants."

And at Teamster conferences "they always said the local was run by fags and hags, and they would boo us and hiss us," said Meek.

Bob Krabbe, a Northwest flight attendant, said "at the 2001 convention, [the delegates] passed a non-discrimination clause, including sexual orientation," Krabbe said. "Within minutes, someone called one of our delegates a faggot."

Both men said that attitude helped push them into creating their own union.

Officials with the Teamsters union declined to comment.

Some in the AFL-CIO believe that Kevin McCormick, a New Hampshire businessman, fabricates unions to make money.

His company, McCormick Advisory Group, provides help to independent unions in the airline industry.

With his assistance, the Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association has gone from representing no one in the late 1980s to representing thousands of mechanics at eight airlines.

The association is trying to take, or has taken, members away from the International Association of Machinists, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and the Transport Workers Union.

In a highly unusual practice, the Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association outsources its administrative functions, such as dues collection, to McCormick.

McCormick often negotiates on behalf of machinists. Sometimes he signs their contracts.

"It's a for-profit organization that controls a labor union," said Joe Tiberi, a spokesman for the International Association of Machinists. "Even though they have not been elected by anyone, they take part in negotiations and sign agreements."

McCormick doesn't have a traditional labor background.

In the mid-1980s, he helped raise the hull of the 18th Century British warship HMS DeBraak, nearly 190 years after it sank in Delaware Bay in May 1798. The vessel did not contain the gold treasure McCormick had hoped for.

He went on to found a business managing the business affairs of real estate associations, along the way winning the Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association as a client.

"They are trying to say Kevin McCormick is making $800,000 a year," McCormick said, responding to critics. He acknowledged getting that amount from the mechanics association but said much of it covers expenses.

McCormick has his own criticism of his detractors.

"People come to me," he said. "I don't solicit clients.

"Obviously, these people don't feel their current unions are working for them."

Lawyer of choice

If some in the AFL-CIO don't like McCormick, they also don't much like New York state lawyer Lee Seham. He and his firm, Seham, Seham, Meltz & Peterson, are the lawyers of choice for independent airline unions.

Besides the Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association and the Professional Flight Attendants Association, Seham represents unions attempting to win representation of the pilots at America West Airlines and American Airlines and the flight attendants at United.

Seham said that if established unions lose members to his clients, they have no one but themselves to blame.

"The independent unions, in my experience, are more militant, more aggressive, more democratic than their AFL-CIO counterparts," Seham said.

Seham, though, must sometimes explain an odd inconsistency. How is it that his law firm, founded by his father, Martin Seham, sometimes represents independent labor unions and other times represents airlines?

Martin Seham was legal counsel for El Al Israel Airlines when it was hit by a strike by the International Association of Machinists in the mid-1980s. El Al hired strikebreakers.

Lee Seham acknowledges that his firm represents Varig Brazilian Airlines, but he said his firm lost most of its airline clients in 1994, when lawyers who represented them left.

"We have shifted our practice until it is overwhelmingly a union practice," Seham said.

The International Association of Machinists conducted a close examination of Seham's legal practice and concluded it "would appear to present a serious conflict of interest."

In any case, Seham's legal practice has flourished by serving independent unions. A decade ago, four lawyers worked at Seham. Now it has 13 lawyers and three paralegals.

"Our firm has grown," Seham said.

Whether independent unions represent the wave of the future or a temporary phenomenon depends on whom you talk to.

Outsourcing administrative tasks to companies like McCormick Advisory Group may have a permanent place in the labor movement, said Peter Rachleff, professor of history at Macalester College in St. Paul.

"It's kind of slimming down bureaucracy," Rachleff said. "Conversely, it is enabling the union to focus on shop floor representation, which most unions don't do very well anymore."

- - - Independent airline unions

- Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association Founded: 1962 Represents about 20,000 mechanics at eight airlines, including Southwest, Northwest and United, which switched in 2003

- United Flight Attendant Union Founded: 2003 Seeking to replace the Association of Flight Attendants at United. AFA is the largest flight attendant union in the world

- Professional Flight Attendants Association Founded: 2003 Includes more than 10,000 Northwest Airlines flight attendants, who had been represented by the Teamsters

- Allied Ground Workers Fledgling group hopes to represent baggage handlers and others at United, US Airways and American Airlines

Sources: The unions and news reports

Copyright © 2004, Chicago Tribune