MONEY ON A STRING

UNION SCALE WAGES NOT GUARANTEED
DELTA PROPAGANDA OVERCOMES FLIGHT ATTENDANT VOTE


Remember when you were younger and one of the most fun childhood pranks was to attach a long string to a dollar bill and lay it in the play grounds waiting for some wide eyed sucker to come along? He or she would see the money and make a bee-line to grab it and revel in his or her dumb luck at finding easy money.

Just as they would reach to grab the money, the string would be pulled and the chase was on. Some of the hapless victims would run after that dollar for quite some time before realizing they had been duped. What a laugh we all used to share over the gullibility of those who fell for the prank.

What is happening right now at Delta Air Lines is not much different from those early days of our youth. Delta has our money and benefits on a string and has been yanking us around for years. Each time we have had union campaigns, our management team offered modest improvements in our pay. Sometimes we’ve even had our benefits altered slightly so as to appear that they are moving us forward economically and have us believe progress towards industry stand pay is being made.

Then they would pull the string.

Many employees, especially newer ones who haven’t seen or experienced Delta’s ploys and tactics before, often fall for these methods and accept the promises and modest gains. Unfortunately our past is full of these temporary pay increases that disappear almost as quickly as they are given as soon as the threat of a union goes away. Even worse, when union elections are lost, the financial devastation and job loss delivered upon us has been deep and lasting.

Quite recently, a flight attendant manager was over heard laughing out-loud at the results of the latest union vote. He was amused and was astounded at the naïveté of the Atlanta based attendants who helped defeat the campaign. This person stated that the company will move quickly to do what must be done to take advantage of their ‘victory.’

Those of you who don’t see the need for a union will soon realize the mistake of your perception. We, in the past, made union scale pay and received union equivalent benefits because Delta would simply match what the unions were providing other airlines’ employees. They did this to prevent us from having a voice and to keep out the unions.

Recently, Delta’s attitude has changed slightly. Their new ploy is to not match the top union scale pay because they have found that promises and commitments seem to influence and temporarily satisfy enough employees without actually handing over the monetary goods. They know if they can ultimately defeat Northwest’s unions when we become a combined carrier, there will be one less bargaining unit in the airline world. The industry standard pay that Delta keeps promising will have one less advocate to help sustain and maintain it. Delta’s actual goal is not to take us to a higher standard but to weaken and lower the standard…then follow it. This fact should be clear even to those who are easily fooled. ‘Money-on-a-String’ is a childhood prank. Let’s not be tricked by this tactic now.

A contract will guarantee that money and benefits bargained for won’t evaporate with the coming economic storms on the horizon or the whims of management. Our future will be more secure with an IAM negotiated contract; not subject to hollow, empty promises attached to the end of a string.