AFA-CWA: GOP Trying to Turn Airline Workers' Victory into Defeat

Embattled state workers aren't the only ones fighting for their rights today, AFA-CWA says airline workers are at risk, too, as U.S. House Republicans try to kill the National Mediation Board's new, fair and democratic rules for union elections.

A majority of Republicans support a provision in the FAA reauthorization bill that would return the airline workers' elections to the prior system, which strongly favored management by counting any worker who didn't cast a ballot as a "no" vote. By suppressing the vote through fear and intimidation, airline management made it extremely difficult for unions to prevail.

The bill is awaiting action by the full House after an effort to strip the provision failed in the Transportation Committee by one vote, 30-29. Several Republicans joined Democrats in fighting for the airline workers and trying to save the NMB rules. They were Reps. Candice Miller of Michigan, Frank LoBiondo of New Jersey and Tim Johnson of Illinois.

"There is no excuse to treat an election as anything other than an election," said former Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, who joined AFA-CWA President Veda Shook on a media conference call Tuesday. In her role ensuring fair elections in Ohio, Brunner said, "We would never have certified the results of an election operated in such a manner."

The new, democratic rules, "are consistent with how every other election is conducted in America," said former NLRB attorney Anne Lofaso, who spent 10 years arguing workers' cases before the United States Courts of Appeal.

Shook said she is hopeful that public support will persuade Congress "to stop these efforts to shred worker democracy in the airlines. It's not time to turn back the clock to a system that favored management efforts to suppress voter turnout."

Prior to the call, Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), who chairs the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, told union leaders that he would "vigorously oppose any effort to include these dangerous provisions in the FAA Reauthorization Act conference report." But he warned that the anti-union bill "is only the beginning" of what is certain to be a prolonged attack on unions and working families.

"I think we'll see a lot of amendments this year, probably on every bill we consider, that will chip away at the basic rights and protections that help middle-class working families get by," Harkin said.