Transport Workers Solidarity Committee

The Friendly Skies? Airline pilots work conditions and public safety
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRDUAx9ew04
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The Friendly Skies? Airline pilots work conditions and public safety
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thericksmithshow | August 31, 2010
Rick talks to MEC Chairman Chuck Martinak about the state of the airline industry since deregulation, working conditions, and the union's contract negotiations. The Rick Smith Show Where Working People Come to Talk
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American Mechanics Shoot Down Tentative Agreement, Move Closer to Strike

http://www.bnet.com/blog/airline-business/american-mechanics-shoot-down-tentative-agreement-move-closer-to-strike/2206
American Mechanics Shoot Down Tentative Agreement, Move Closer to Strike
By Brett Snyder | August 27, 2010Comments

The apparent labor peace atAmerican Airlines (AMR) is looking more like a temporary blip. In the latest development,American’s mechanics and stores clerks have handily defeated “tentative” contract terms presented by their union leaders, making a strike vote highly likely — even though the feds would most likely put the kibosh on any actual work stoppage.

Airline labor relationships are incredibly messy thanks to the governing Railway Labor Act. This law effectively means that airline (and rail) labor contracts never expire. They just become amendable, so there’s no urgency. Management and labor generally poke along at negotiations for years. In most cases, a tentative agreement will, at some point, be presented to the membership for a vote. If it fails, negotiations continue for a while longer until the sides declare an impasse and workers go on strike. The president can legally bar a strike, and with airlines growing larger and larger, it’s doubtful that the Obama administration would allow one at any of the big guys.

A toast to Steven Slater
http://socialistworker.org/2010/08/17/toast-to-steven-slater
A toast to Steven Slater
Danny Lucia wonders what the JetBlue flight attendant has planned for an encore.
August 17, 2010

Steven Slater

TODAY, WE raise a glass to Steven Slater, the JetBlue flight attendant who gave a vicarious thrill to workers across Great Recession America.

Steven, when the light dinged on in your head that you were now free to tell off that rude passenger, pop open the emergency exit and just slip-slide away, you did more than fulfill your own long-held fantasy.

Thanks to you, Steven, flight attendants are walking those narrow aisles today with a swagger, and air travelers are making eye contact with them to let them know "you won't have any trouble from me."

You taught America that our working-class heroes can be gay--badass gay at that. You escaped from the airport, raced home and jumped into bed with your boyfriend, which is how the police found you. That is ridiculously cool.

You've showed us that solidarity via Facebook can force media wiseasses to take their narrative (New York Daily News Day 1: "Planely Nuts") and shove it (New York Daily News Day 2: "Hero to Working Stiffs.")

BAA, Union Avert U.K. Airports Strike

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704868604575433864209199710.html

BUSINESSAUGUST 16, 2010, 5:57 P.M. ET
BAA, Union Avert U.K. Airports Strike

Associated Press

LONDON—Strikes that could have closed Britain's major airports during peak vacation season were averted Monday after a full day of talks between the country's airports operator, BAA Ltd., and the Unite union.

Officials from BAA and the union emerged Monday evening from a meeting brokered by the U.K. government's conciliation service to announce the agreement. Unite's national secretary, Brendan Gold, said it was "a settlement which we're prepared to recommend to our members."

The details of the agreement weren't revealed. They are to be presented Tuesday to union members, who must now vote on the offer.

The two sides had been locked in a dispute over pay.

"It's been challenging," said conciliation service spokesman Peter Harwood. "The parties wouldn't have been here if it was a straightforward matter."

BAA, which is owned by Spain's Grupo Ferrovial SA, had said it would have to shut down its six airports—including Heathrow, Stansted and Edinburgh—if the walkout went ahead because the striking workers would have included security staff, engineers and firefighters.

Fed-Up Flight Attendant for Jet Blue Lets Curses Fly, Then Makes Sliding Exit
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/10/nyregion/10attendant.html?_r=2&src=tptw
Fed-Up Flight Attendant Makes Sliding Exit
By ANDY NEWMAN and RAY RIVERA
Published: August 9, 2010
It has been a long time since flight attendant was a glamorous job title. The hours are long. Passengers with feelings of entitlement bump up against new no-frills policies. Babies scream. Security precautions grate but must be enforced. Airlines demand lightning-quick turnarounds, so attendants herd passengers and collect trash with the grim speed of an Indy pit crew. Everyone, it seems, is in a bad mood.

S
Yana Paskova for The New York Times
The home of Steven Slater, a JetBlue attendant, in Belle Harbor, Queens. He was arrested there after using a plane’s chute.
On Monday, on the tarmac at Kennedy International Airport, a JetBlue attendant named Steven Slater decided he had had enough, the authorities said.

After a dispute with a passenger who stood to fetch luggage too soon on a full flight just in from Pittsburgh, Mr. Slater, 38 and a career flight attendant, got on the public-address intercom and let loose a string of invective.

Rejection of BA offer sparks fresh strike fears
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/97c78ae6-93fb-11df-83ad-00144feab49a.html?ftcamp=rss
Rejection of BA offer sparks fresh strike fears
By Brian Groom, Business and Employment Editor
Published: July 20 2010 14:40 | Last updated: July 20 2010 14:40
British Airways cabin crew have rejected by two-to-one the airline’s final offer aimed at resolving their long-running dispute, raising the possibility of further strikes this autumn.

Members of the Unite union voted by 3,419 to 1,686 against the offer in a consultative ballot, dashing hopes of an end to the clash over cost savings, travel concessions and disciplinary issues.

Unite, which represents about 11,000 of BA’s 13,400 cabin crew, had balloted its members without any recommendation on whether to accept the proposed deal. Union officials were meeting cabin crew representatives on Tuesday afternoon to consider their next step.

Cabin crew have already walked out for 22 days in two separate rounds of stoppages since March, costing loss-making BA an estimated £150m in a dispute that began more than a year ago.

One of the options Unite will consider is to hold another ballot on further strikes, which could take place from September.

Anti-Zionist Trade Unionists Delay El Al Flight In Athens For Two Hours

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/anti-israel-protesters-delay-el-al-flight-in-athens-1.301921

Anti-Israel protesters delay El Al flight in Athens
Members of Communist-backed labor union say they blocked five El Al
counters for two hours to protest Gaza siege.
By Zohar Blumenkrantz and The Associated Press

An Israel-bound flight was delayed for about two hours at Athens
International Airport Wednesday after protesters against the blockade of Gaza blocked
check-incounters, airport officials said.

Members of a Communist-backed labor union said they blocked five El Al
airline counters for two hours to protest the Israeli blockade of Gaza and the Jewish
state's oppressive policies.

"This was an action taken in solidarity with the Palestinian people and their
effort to establish a Palestinian state," union spokesman Giorgos Pontikos
told the AP. He said police were present at the protest but did not intervene.

An El Al spokesman said in response to the incident that airline "considers
flight safety and the safety of its passengers as its foremost values and
willnot compromise those in any way," saying that "at no time were the passengers in

Two Unions Launch Major Organizing Drives at Delta Air Lines
http://workinprogress.firedoglake.com/2010/07/02/two-unions-launch-major-organizing-drives-at-delta-air-lines/
Two Unions Launch Major Organizing Drives at Delta Air Lines
By: laborite57 Friday July 2, 2010 3:26 pm

There has been a lot of grumbling in labor circles that Obama hasn’t done enough for the unions that supported him so strongly in the 2008 election, but you are not likely to hear much of that in the inner circles of two airline unions that launched major organizing campaigns on Thursday. The unions anticipate that these campaigns may bring some 25,000 Delta Air Line workers into the union fold.

Two labor organizations — the Association of Flight Attendants and the International Association of Machinists — filed the paperwork July 1 with the National Mediation Board to set in motion union elections among Delta’s cabin crew members, baggage handlers, fleet service workers, customer service agents, and others at dozens of airports nationwide. Unless the elections get tangled in new technical or legal challenges, most of the results should be in by the end of the year.

The more dramatic and compelling story belongs to the Flight Attendants, which has waged a long and valiant struggle against hostile and aggressive executives at Delta. Affiliated with the Communications Workers of America, the AFA-CWA began preparing a major organizing drive at Delta back in 1997, only to suffer stinging election defeats in 2001 and again in 2008. Things look much brighter for the union now, thanks to new Obama appointees at the National Mediation Board which oversees labor relations in the airline and railroad sectors, and the recently completed merger of Delta with Northwest Airlines.

Two Unions Launch Major Organizing Drives at Delta Air Lines
http://workinprogress.firedoglake.com/2010/07/02/two-unions-launch-major-organizing-drives-at-delta-air-lines/
Two Unions Launch Major Organizing Drives at Delta Air Lines
By: laborite57 Friday July 2, 2010 3:26 pm

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There has been a lot of grumbling in labor circles that Obama hasn’t done enough for the unions that supported him so strongly in the 2008 election, but you are not likely to hear much of that in the inner circles of two airline unions that launched major organizing campaigns on Thursday. The unions anticipate that these campaigns may bring some 25,000 Delta Air Line workers into the union fold.

Two labor organizations — the Association of Flight Attendants and the International Association of Machinists — filed the paperwork July 1 with the National Mediation Board to set in motion union elections among Delta’s cabin crew members, baggage handlers, fleet service workers, customer service agents, and others at dozens of airports nationwide. Unless the elections get tangled in new technical or legal challenges, most of the results should be in by the end of the year.

The more dramatic and compelling story belongs to the Flight Attendants, which has waged a long and valiant struggle against hostile and aggressive executives at Delta. Affiliated with the Communications Workers of America, the AFA-CWA began preparing a major organizing drive at Delta back in 1997, only to suffer stinging election defeats in 2001 and again in 2008. Things look much brighter for the union now, thanks to new Obama appointees at the National Mediation Board which oversees labor relations in the airline and railroad sectors, and the recently completed merger of Delta with Northwest Airlines.

AA TWU fleet service clerks, ground workers to vote on strike

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/bus/industries/airlines/stories/DN-aaunion_02bus.ART.State.Edition1.1aa56a9.html
American Airlines fleet service clerks, ground workers to vote on strike

12:00 AM CDT on Friday, July 2, 2010

By TERRY MAXON

The Transport Workers Union instructed its locals Thursday to conduct a strike vote among American Airlines Inc. fleet service clerks and ground workers, with hopes that the National Mediation Board will declare an impasse and allow a walkout.

The union threw out a tentative agreement with American on Monday and renewed its call for the NMB to release the union from further mediation. That would trigger a 30-day cooling-off period, after which the union could strike.

Robert Gless, deputy director of TWU's Air Transport Division, said the union believes the board could give it a release "as early as September," which would mean a potential strike in October.

The union is facing pressure from the board to give members an opportunity to vote on deals. There is also the legal question of whether the union can repudiate a tentative deal it had already signed.