OMINOUS PRECEDENT
Judge fines pilot's union $45 million
By
Shelley Ettinger
On April 15 a Dallas federal judge fined the Allied Pilots
Association $45.5 million as retribution for its members'
February sickout at American Airlines. It is the biggest fine
ever issued against a U.S. labor union.
APA President Rich LaVoy promised the union will
"aggressively" appeal the ruling on behalf of its 9,200
members.
Although it was clearly calculated to exceed the union's
cash reserves, the fine's size is not the most shocking aspect
of Judge Joe Kendall's ruling. Nor is its punitive character.
This isn't the first time the government has tried to punish
workers for the "crime" of fighting for their rights.
What is most outrageous is the legal principle Kendall
articulated to justify the fine. With this decision, the judge
seeks to establish a dangerous precedent in the ruling class's
legal arsenal against organized labor.
Kendall based the fine on the amount of money airline
executives say American lost as a result of the pilots' sickout
during the second week of February. He thus held the union
liable for the profits the company didn't make because the
workers didn't work.
In other words, the judge ruled that workers have a legal
obligation to perform profit-making labor for their employers.
The worker has no right to withhold that labor.
This nullifies the right to strike.
Beyond that, it means the employer has a property right to
each employee's labor. The employer in effect owns each
worker's labor. The judge seemed to be saying that by staying
home from work, the pilots were stealing money from American
Airlines. Now he's ordering them to "repay" that money.
"This fine is really unprecedented in American labor
history," said Tom Juravich, director of the Labor Center at
the University of Massachusetts, "and represents a level of
accountability for unions that's never really been
applied."
During the sickout, this same judge had issued a
back-to-work order. When the pilots initially defied his order,
Kendall found the union in contempt of court and fined it $10
million.
The language of his Feb. 13 contempt ruling against the
union dripped with hatred of the workers. The judge called the
pilots "liars" and characterized unions as gangsters trying to
"shake down" employers.
And he threatened to slap the union with bigger fines
designed to destroy it. When he was finished with the APA,
Kendall said, "all the assets of the union" would fit into "the
overhead bin of a Piper Cub."
Now that he has made good on his threat, some in his own
class camp seem worried that Kendall went too far. Such a wild
attack on one group of workers could create sympathy for
them.
"It is hard to imagine that the company's apparent attempt
to bankrupt the union is going to help the negotiations,"
worried New York Times business writer Laurence Zuckerman on
April 17.
The ruling should also compel solidarity from the AFL-CIO
and the Air Line Pilots Association. Unlike ALPA, the APA is
not affiliated with the national labor federation. But if ever
the slogan "an injury to one is an injury to all" applied, it's
now. Much is at stake for the whole labor movement in this
attack on one small union.
Broad attack on airline unions
APA President LaVoy says AMR Corp., which owns American
Airlines, has been set on breaking the pilots' union for years.
The February sickout came in response to what pilots see as the
last straw.
When AMR took over Reno Air, a regional carrier, on Dec. 23,
it refused to abide by a basic clause of its contract with APA.
Called the "scope" clause, this acknowledges that all pilots at
American and its affiliates are part of the
collective-bargaining unit, covered by the contract, folded
into the seniority list, and paid the wages and benefits
specified in the contract.
By refusing to treat Reno pilots as required by contract,
AMR was trying to "break the back of ... the career protection
provided by our Scope Clause," according to a union statement.
APA leaders say AMR is using Reno to open the door toward a
broad policy of outsourcing--and, ultimately, a "union-free"
pilot force.
"The stakes are enormous," says LaVoy. He adds: "Subduing
pilots is the key to obtaining concessions from other labor
groups. Airline managers know that obtaining concessions from
pilots is an effective prerequisite to obtaining similar
concessions from other labor groups."
Pilots, flight attendants and other airline workers have
made many such concessions under a heavy assault from the
industry since it was deregulated under President Jimmy Carter
in 1978. As a result, airlines like American and Northwest are
now flush with mega-profits. Yet they want to take more from
the workers.
But workers see things differently. They seem to think it's
time to get back some of the wealth they created. Along with
job actions by pilots at American and Northwest, there have
been major union organizing victories for ticket clerks,
reservation agents, baggage handlers, flight attendants and
mechanics, like a big win in 1997 at USAirways.
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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