A VERSION OF THE TRUTH

A FORCEFUL ARGUMENT DOESN’T ALWAYS HAVE TO BE FACTUAL!
MANY EMPLOYEES PREFER RHETORIC OVER SUBSTANCE

One of the most frustrating aspects of the attempt to organize Delta employees is the seemingly high wall of misperception one has to climb in order to disseminate truth. You would be stunned over the ton of absolute crap that many Delta employees have been led to believe about unions and contracts.

Never mind the hilarious descriptive adjectives and old school anecdotes that they will deliver almost verbatim concerning the so called ‘colorful’ history of American unionization; some antagonists have no problem in making up their own ‘facts’ to fit their delusions as to what they believe unions are all about.

It’s hard to reason or sanely argue with someone who has developed their own belief system concerning a subject, however off-base their facts are. They know what they know. Any amount of actual fact checking through reliable news and internet sources only serves to harden these ‘intellectuals’ further against the ‘conspiracy’ you present to them.

Quite recently while taking the employee bus away from work someone asked me how the union campaign was developing in SLC. Quickly and briskly a young female gate agent snapped that, “WE DON’T WANT THAT.” My response to her was that many of her colleagues had already signed cards and that actually the campaign was progressing nicely. I pointed out to her that we were attempting to improve employees’ work rules, insurance, sick time, vacation time and restore a pension.

She retorted loudly, “WE DON’T WANT ANY OF THAT IF WE HAVE TO PAY DUES.”

I was stunned but not surprised. She quickly added that she would prefer to be 100% non-union like Southwest and Delta. When I pointed out to her that Southwest was almost 100% union her quick answer was that I was wrong.

Some people’s ‘facts’ however, nonfactual, seem to carry more weight than the truth. It’s hard to argue the truth with people who have been brought up in a system carefully nurtured and developed by Delta to present an image of how well we take care of our own all the while NOT taking care of our own!

People’s ability to discern fact from fiction becomes skewed in a universe of deception and disappointment. We all want to have a respectful debate that is based on solid and truthful information; a conversation between adults that is beneficial and mutually rewarding. This is a scenario that can and must take place; again we look forward to the opportunity to present our case for unionization under a prism of direct light and accurate truth telling. We relish the opportunity, as we have said in the past to begin the dialogue and compare contracts to promises.

We think that we have a case to make. If only we can find a way to alleviate workers’ fears and present real facts to begin to dismantle the fiction and fables by those who fear the truth.

There’s a reason that union literature is quickly scooped up in Delta break rooms around our system by eager supervision; they don’t want Delta employees to begin knowing fact from fiction. Keeping people in the dark is the only ploy Delta has left in this very important campaign of ideas.