Suffocating Right to Strike: Federal Judges Block Work Actions at Bankrupt Airlines

From auto parts to carhauling to airlines, employers have used bankruptcies to gut union contracts over the last five years. Now airline union members are beating the drums about another disturbing trend emerging from bankruptcy courts: throwing out unions’ right to strike.

In September and October, federal judges issued anti-strike injunctions that derailed threatened work actions at two bankrupt airlines, Northwest (NWA) and Mesaba. Lost, along with the threat of a strike, was most of these workers’ leverage in negotiations. Their unions have been scrambling to come up with an effective response.

“The courts seem obsessed with blocking airline strikes,” said Daniel Grey, a flight attendant at Northwest’s Detroit hub. “The line between court and company is further blurred—and it all seems to happen with the blessing of the federal government. Losing the legal right to strike means losing a great rallying force during tough contract negotiations.”

According to David Borer, general counsel for Association of Flight Attendants (AFA), which represents flight attendants at NWA, the NWA ruling took away the union’s most effective weapon. “The immediate effect was to take pressure off management and make the prospect of a new tentative agreement less likely,” said Borer.

Worse yet, the rulings’ impact may be felt by workers beyond Mesaba, Northwest, and the airline industry (see interview on page 9). “With [the NWA] decision, employers have even more incentive to use bankruptcy as a hammer to smash unions and destroy collective bargaining agreements,” wrote AFA attorneys in their brief appealing the judge’s decision.

CONTAINING CHAOS

Over the summer, NWA flight attendants were preparing for a strike, organizing rallies, pickets, and other mobilizations (see Labor Notes October 2006). AFA threatened to walk off the job over the airlines’ plans to throw out its contract and impose cuts of up to 40 percent on wages and benefits.

A federal appeals judge issued an injunction on September 14 to block AFA from launching its trademark “CHAOS” strikes—rolling, seemingly random walkouts timed to maximize disruption.

At Mesaba, a regional jet associate of NWA, unions representing pilots (ALPA), mechanics (AMFA), and flight attendants (AFA) joined together this summer in a cross-union coalition, the Mesaba Labor Coalition, to prepare for contract battles.

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The coalition launched joint strike preparations after a bankruptcy court allowed Mesaba to shred its contracts with all three unions and impose steep wage and benefit cuts October 15. Despite this ruling, the three unions kept preparing until an October 23 injunction (legally based on the earlier NWA court decision) banned the strike outright.

With few remaining options, all three Mesaba unions reached tentative agreements with the company a week after the injunction. All three unions have announced that there will be givebacks.

AFA maintains though that the joint fightback strategy did limit the givebacks in its settlement. According to Borer, “[Mesaba’s management] held off rejecting our contract, even after winning the right to do so earlier in the litigation, primarily because the strike threatened by the coalition created a standoff.”

Mesaba originally sought wage and benefit cuts of almost 20 percent over six years; under the new agreement, flight attendants will reportedly only face cuts of 2.7 percent, while pilots will face cuts from 5-5.5 percent.

ANGER BUILDING

Following the injunction at NWA, Dale Allen, an interim rep for AFA Local 94 in Detroit, said the mood among flight attendants was angry. The union is still working to harness that anger and reverse the strike ban through the courts.

It’s not clear what will happen if AFA’s fight is barred again. Union officials have shied away from challenging legal bans on strikes in recent years, but some have pointed to the possibility of defying anti-strike court rulings as New York transit workers and Detroit teachers did in the last year.

“Flight attendants overwhelmingly thought we should have struck after the injunction,” said NWA flight attendant Karen Schultz. “When have unions ever progressed our cause by following the rules? Detroit teachers struck anyway—and some of us here want to do just that.”

Meanwhile, the union continues building for legally-sanctioned CHAOS at the airline. According to Allen, an emphasis on “one-on-one meetings” and “more interactive and member-driven communication” are features of the new campaign.

“They can tie our hands only temporarily,” said Borer. “Ultimately our right to strike will be brought to bear and [NWA] will face CHAOSor they will agree to new terms.”