Posted on May - 10 - 2010
Delta, FedEx among companies seeking to block union-related rule change
An industry group that includes FedEx and Delta promised a legal challenge Monday to a new federal rule making it easier for their workers to unionize.
Steven Senne/Associated Press files
At Delta, which opposes the new rule, representation votes are near for tens of thousands of Delta employees.
Photo by Jim Weber
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Although FedEx pilots, who are a small number of FedEx Express workers, are represented by the Air Line Pilots Association, unions have yet to make progress representing ground support workers and drivers.
Air Transport Association officials said they would go to court in the next few days to block the National Mediation Board from putting the rule into effect.
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But representatives of airline and railroad workers hailed the change as applying basic democratic principles to elections sanctioned by the Railway Labor Act.
“The way the flight attendants look at it, it makes it a truly democratic vote,” said Shawn Fivecoat, an Association of Flight Attendants official who represents about 325 Memphis-based former Northwest Airlines attendants who now work for Delta.
The rule change has major implications for Memphis because of the economic importance of FedEx and Delta.
FedEx pilots, a small percentage of FedEx Express employees, are represented by the Air Line Pilots Association, but unions haven’t made inroads in the ranks of ground support workers and drivers.
The NMB change would reverse 75 years of counting nonvoting workers as being against unionization.
“It’s an arcane, archaic rule, and we commend the NMB for doing this,” said Fivecoat. “The reality is nowhere else in the nation does your vote count without participating.”
In a rule change published in the Federal Register on Monday, workers could gain union representation if a simple majority, 50 percent plus one, of those voting approve the measure. The rule is supposed to take effect in 30 days, but Air Transport Association officials intend to stop that from happening.
Spokesman David Castelveter said the association will take the NMB to task both on the rule change and how it was accomplished.
“We don’t think the NMB has the authority to change the election process,” he said. “We think the process they followed was legally deficient.”
Two board members with ties to airline worker groups voted the rule change in over the objections of the board’s chairwoman.
The challenge is a matter of some urgency, because union supporters are poised to seek representation votes for tens of thousands of Delta employees.
The 2008 merger of Delta and Northwest combined a largely nonunion work force (Delta) with a heavily unionized group (Northwest).
Fivecoat said union rules have prevented premerger Northwest and Delta attendants from working together on flights, leaving work force integration one of the last unresolved issues of the merger.
FedEx and Delta were among 11 association member airlines supporting legal action against the NMB.
FedEx spokesman Maury Lane said, “We support the industry association’s position in opposition to this rule change.”
Five member airlines with heavy union representation, including UPS, won’t take part in the litigation but didn’t oppose the action, Castelveter said.
–Wayne Risher: 529-2874
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