On the picket line

Flight attendants may strike

Flight attendants at Northwest Airlines overwhelmingly voted down a contract in June that included a 21-percent pay cut and major work-rule changes. NWA has demanded $195 million in savings from attendants to bail it out of bankruptcy.

The 9,300 members switched unions on July 6, voting for the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA to represent them. But after the AFA sent the ranks a tweaked version of the contract, 55 percent of the attendants voted it down on July 31. In retaliationwith the backing of a federal bankruptcy judge—NWA immediately reimposed the harsher contract terms rejected in June. The AFA figures the givebacks in health care and other benefits on top of the pay cut add up to a total income reduction of 40 percent.

The AFA announced on Aug. 1 that the attendants would conduct random, unannounced strikes beginning at 10:01 p.m. on Aug. 15 unless NWA rescinds the contract. NWA asked the bankruptcy court on Aug. 3 to block a possible strike, citing the Railway Labor Act, which forbids strikes that interfere with interstate commerce. Flight attendants in Detroit held an informational picket line on Aug. 4 in defense of their right to stage job actions.

The bankruptcy court has scheduled a hearing on the issues for Aug. 9. AFA general counsel David Borer told Reuters on Aug. 2, “We will aggressively defend our members’ right to strike.”

One of the bankruptcy court’s stipulations is that previously negotiated give-back contracts with pilots and ground workers cannot take effect until there is one with the flight attendants—either approved by the workers or imposed by NWA.

Will the flight attendants stand up for their rights, and the rights of all workers, and defy the court? That is the critical question at this critical juncture for organized labor. Stay tuned.

School bus drivers win contract

The 8,400 school bus drivers in New York City won a new contract July 18 that gives them pay hikes of 10.5 percent and increased contributions to their pension fund over the next three years.

The big issue at the negotiating table was that management wanted the drivers to pay 1.5 percent of their earnings toward health insurance premiums—the same issue that forced transit workers to strike last December. Amalgamated Transit Local 1181 threatened to strike over the issue as well.

Though the final contract does limit some health benefit reimbursements for the first time, the school bus drivers held the line and will not have to pay a penny toward their health insurance premiums.

TWU charges sex discrimination

Darlyne Lawson, recording secretary of Trans port Workers Local 100 in New York, filed a sexual discrimination suit against the Metropol itan Tran sit Authority in State Supreme Court on July 18.

The MTA does not cover birth control supplies for 6,496 women in its health plan for the workforce of 38,000. “I felt it was unconscionable that the MTA would help supply the men with Viagra but not support women’s need of contraceptives to avoid unwanted pregnancies,” Lawson said in the July 28 issue of The Chief-Leader, the weekly newspaper for civil service unions in New York State.

The MTA had agreed to provide coverage for contraceptives in the contract negotiated during the strike last December. Lawson filed the suit to make sure the issue received attention now that the contract is in binding arbitration. A parallel issue of maternity leave is also on the table.

Even though MTA statistics show women of child-bearing age are entering the transit ranks in larger numbers than other workers, the MTA offers no official leave, forcing women to use sick days. That procedure penalizes women when they are reviewed for promotions, noted Lawson. In the December contract, she negotiated a stipend of $200 a week for a four-week leave under the Family Medical Leave Act, as well as paternity leave for new fathers.

No minimum wage hike

The struggle to raise the minimum wage, which has been stuck at $5.15 since 1997, received yet another setback on Aug. 3 when the Senate voted not to close debate on the issue. However, the bill itself was cynically manipulated.

In an opportunistic, welfare-for-the-already-wealthy maneuver, the $2.10 hike in the minimum wage had been linked to two highly regressive measures. One slashed taxes on multi-million-dollar estates by 75 percent, and the other allowed employers in seven states to count tips toward increases in the minimum wage, which would have likely actually cut those wages.

While passage of the bill would have added a welcome average of $1,200 a year to low-wage paychecks, that’s petty cash to the heirs of huge estates who would have collected on average a whopping $1.3 million dividend from the bill, while stripping the treasury of $750 billion in taxes.

The struggle of working and oppressed people continues.