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Peter Rachleff
FOUR YEARS AGO, WHEN asked by an academic journal to write about whether the strike was still a viable weapon in labors arsenal, my title was blunt: Is the Strike Dead?(1) As is my style, I introduced some historical material and offered an analysis of the anti-labor bias of the past 25 years, during which the number of large strikes (involving 1,000 or more workers) had declined from more than 400 per year to less than 30.(2) I then offered some hope, some possibility, that workers would revitalize the strike or would find other tactics of comparable effectiveness. Having now seen whats happened to mechanics, cleaners, custodians and flight attendants at Northwest Airlines in the past year, I must offer a revised analysis. Four years ago I suggested that workers had the right to strike in contemporary U.S. society only when their exercise of it would not have an economic impact. How disturbingly right I was and how dire our situation is. David Harvey gives a profound insight in his A Brief History of Economic Neoliberalism that contemporary elites might embrace neoliberalism, but are not practicing it as it is constructed on a blackboard (or, today, I suppose, in a powerpoint presentation).(3) They may celebrate free market economics, free trade, reduced government, deregulation, and privatization; but at the end of the day, they seek first and foremost to solidify their power, their profits and their hegemony. When the application of free-market principles yields the desired results, they are consistent neoliberals, but when they need the muscle of the state to protect and further their interests, either globally or domestically, they become supporters of government intervention and invokers of government authority. Under some circumstances they can even become practitioners of Keynesianism, advocates of deficit spending, as long as the bill is not put on their tab. In 1980 the U.S. Congress passed the Staggers Act, which deregulated interstate transportation, following on the 1978 Airline Deregulation Act. Both were signed into law by President Carter, a Democrat. A year later, major collective bargaining agreements on the nations freight railroads began to run out, and a number of unions filed Section 6 notices, calling for the negotiation of new contracts. Thanks to the assistance, oversight, mediation and arbitration services provided by the federal government under the proviso of the Railway Labor Act, the clock kept ticking and the spring of 1991 dawned with negotiations still ongoing. That April, 235,000 workers on 11 major freight railroads struck, only to be ordered back to work 17 hours later by a unanimous consent motion from the U.S. Senate, brought to its floor by Orrin Hatch and Ted Kennedy, at the behest of President George H.W. Bush. Bush-the-first invoked the Railway Labor Act and appointed a Presidential Emergency Board, which wrote new contracts for more than a dozen trades. Congress then enacted these contracts into law, making them binding. As a railroad engineer and union activist here in the Twin Cities remarked at the time: Congress must have forgotten to deregulate labor when they passed that Staggers Act.(4)
So the AMFA strike dragged on. It had its significant high points, such as the occasional blocking of scabs buses and worksite gates, substantial rallies, an effective food shelf, a spirited solidarity committee and, above all, the impressive maturation of a core group of activists from the striking union and the ranks of the other NWA unions which had chosen not to honor their picket lines. But on the whole, hamstrung by the strategic actions and inactions of the government, the strike was unable to dent the armor or the pocketbook of Northwest Airlines. Meanwhile, NWA management took on one union at a time. One month into the AMFA strike they declared bankruptcy, and used the federal bankruptcy courts as leverage with these other unions. The bankruptcy laws allowed NWA to choose its court, and it picked the New York City district, long renowned for being sympathetic to corporate management in bankruptcy proceedings. If these unions would not agree to the substantial concessions being demanded, management threatened, they would ask the bankruptcy judge to abrogate the collective bargaining agreement and impose managements terms. These unions, having chosen not to support AMFA, now had the tragic unfolding of that unions strike to watch as an object lesson. Moreover, NWA unleashed a lobbying juggernaut in Washington, seeking (and ultimately gaining) a law allowing them to stretch out their overdue pension payments. Management claimed that the only other option was to walk away from $4 billion of their pension obligations, since they had been systematically underfunding those pensions for years and had already leveraged or hawked most of their assets. Fearful of losing their pensions altogether, many of the unions, while in the midst of bargaining over the demanded concessions, sent not only their lobbyists but even rank-and-file members to Washington, D.C., to join NWAs corporate lobbyists in working Congress and the Senate. At a bargaining, organizational and ideological level, the unfolding of the bankruptcy process became a major weapon in managements hands, and one union after another gave in.
Meanwhile, even as AMFA appeared tossed aside (though they remained a thorn in the side of NWA, rejecting yet another tentative agreement in late December 2005) and key unions like the pilots (ALPA) and the groundworkers and customer service staff (IAM) caved in, the flight attendants held out, as rank-and-file members twice rejected tentative agreements. Their story was quite complex and requires some explanation. Conflict between flight attendants and NWA dates all the way back to the 1986 merger of NWA and Republic Airlines. Work rules, seniority protections and job assignments were resolved in a contentious process that left flight attendants with skepticism about the quality of the representation they were receiving from the Teamsters Union, while women and queer union members felt especially disenfranchised by the gender and sexuality politics practiced by the Teamsters. Seven years later the Teamsters, like other major unions at NWA, pushed their members to swallow a package of substantial concessions when NWA threatened bankruptcy. A militant network of flight attendants, organized into phone-tree and email networks called contract action teams (CAT), built an increasingly cohesive web of information and mobilization within the ranks. A few years later, on this base, Teamsters for a Democratic Union activists gained control of IBT Local 2000, which represented all of NWA flight attendants. However, when James Hoffa, Jr., replaced Ron Carey as national president of the Teamsters, he placed the Local 2000 leadership under increasing pressure, insisting that his red-baiting, gaybashing personal representative be present at all executive board meetings. This amounted to a virtual trusteeship which undermined the ability of the new leadership to build a program and a rank-and-file organization which could stand up to NWA management. Many of the activist flight attendants watched with interest when mechanics, custodians and cleaners, frustrated with the quality of representation that they had received from the IAM (such as being asked to vote three times on the same concessionary package in 1993), decertified the IAM and reformed themselves as AMFA. These flight attendants urged the decertification of the Teamsters and reformation as a new, independent union, the Professional Flight Attendants Association (PFAA). In 2002 they got their wish, and the PFAA became the bargaining agent for NWAs 11,000 or so flight attendants. NWA management wasnt happy and wasted little time showing their distaste for the new union. Back in 1993, when the Teamsters, IAM and ALPA gave NWA major concessions, they received seats on the board of directors. The situation was immediately squirrelly, as the unions representatives on the board quickly announced that their fiduciary responsibilities as board members required them to withhold confidential information from the very members of their unions! Then, in 2002, after PFAA was certified as the legal bargaining agent for the flight attendants, NWA announced that the Teamsters would continue to hold the seat on the board and an invitation to sit at the table would not be extended to the PFAA. Management claimed that the 1993 deal had been with the Teamsters Union, not with their employees! NWA also announced that their dues checkoff agreement had been with the Teamsters and that, if the PFAA wanted the dues checkoff, they would have to make financial concessions.
The PFAA refused and, for the duration of their presence on the property, they relied on the voluntary collection and contribution of dues. This became a sore point within the union when it became apparent that some of the former Teamster officials were choosing not to pay dues to the PFAA! By the way, no appeals to the National Labor Relations Board, the National Mediation Board, the Federal Aviation Agency or any government agency resulted in pressure on NWA management to deal respectfully with PFAA.
Although many flight attendants had been intimidated by NWAs crushing of the mechanics strike, others felt that, given the terms they were being asked to swallow, these jobs would not be worth keeping. When the PFAA leadership brought a tentative agreement back to the membership in June, it was solidly voted down. In the midst of the complex negotiations, bankruptcy hearings, and rumors of corporate plans to replace large numbers of unionized attendants with Asian-based attendants, first in Asia itself, then in trans-Pacific flights, and then in the continental United States, some attendants many of them former Teamster officers, some with TDU credentials, some with pro-Hoffa track records announced that they were seeking the decertification of the PFAA and its replacement by the Association of Flight Attendants (AFA), the countrys largest flight attendants union and part of the Communications Workers of America (CWA), and therefore the AFL-CIO. The new dissident group counted on rank-and-file flight attendants assessment that AMFAs independent status had been a factor in the labor movements failure to support their strike. When the National Mediation Board, under the rules of the National Railway Labor Act, conducted a representation election in July, the AFA won. They were now the official union for NWAs dwindling cohort of flight attendants. In a matter of weeks, under the leadership of Mollie Reiley, who had led IBT Local 2000 before the TDU upsurge, and Danny Campbell, who had led that upsurge and succeeded Reiley as president of the union in the late 1990s, now appointed interim president and vice-president of AFA-NWA by AFA national president Patricia Friend, the new union announced a tentative agreement with NWA. It included some minor changes in how the $190 million in givebacks would be structured and some minor changes in contract language. In August, even as NWA management insisted that a rejection vote would lead to their imposition of their own contract terms, the membership voted this tentative agreement down.
Planning CHAOS
The very day the contract rejection vote was announced, NWA management made good on the threat, imposing the cuts and new language. AFA responded with a strike notice, as is required under the Railway Labor Act, adding that they intended to use their CHAOS (Create Havoc Around Our System) strategy. Rather than shut the airline down, particular flights would be targeted, crews would fail to show up, refuse to work or walk off the plane, disrupting the NWA schedule strategically without leaving large numbers of flight attendants vulnerable to replacement. CHAOS has taken on legendary status in airline union discourse, although it has actually only been implemented once, on Alaska Airlines in the early 1990s. AFA leaders assigned a CHAOS director for the campaign, a coordinator for each major city, and began to organize committees and conduct training. Rank-and-file flight attendants responded with enthusiasm, and lime green CHAOS t-shirts appeared on informational picket lines at airports around the country. But the AFA delayed implementing CHAOS. NWA returned to the bankruptcy court and asked Judge Gropper to enjoin AFA from CHAOS or any strike action. They argued that, because the airline was in bankruptcy, the union no longer had a right to strike. The unions attorneys responded that, under the Railway Labor Act, since the company had resorted to self help by imposing its contract terms, the union was now free to resort to self help itself.
Management, labor, legal and media eyes watched closely as there was no precedent, there had never been a case that tested the right to strike during bankruptcy under the auspices of the Railway Labor Act. Judge Gropper ruled that bankruptcy made no difference, and that the employers use of self help freed the union to do so as well. NWA immediately appealed Groppers decision, filing with Judge Victor Merrero of the U.S. District Court in New York. U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez and the U.S. Department of Justice filed an amicus brief in support of the companys claims, as did lawyers representing every major airline in the country.
This conflict could be the poster child of a revived labor movement. One need not be a visionary to imagine a civil disobedience movement initiated by flight attendants, resisting directly, peacefully, non-violently, Judge Merreros order in the name of the defense of working peoples basic right to strike. Such a movement might galvanize the passions, energies, and bodies of working women and men flight attendants and other airline workers; auto workers who are rapidly losing their pensions, their health care benefits and their jobs; and other workers, inside and outside the labor movement, who feel that their rights are being taken away, who are looking for some inspiration, some strategy, some movement that can stand up to the anti-labor neoliberal agenda. Sadly, there is little indication that such a movement is on the horizon. Even as NWAs economic health returns with two consecutive quarters of in-the-black performance, even as the price of oil drops, even as Mesaba workers present a united front in the midst of their bankruptcy crisis, and even as other airline workers question the necessity for the concessions they gave only months ago, the union leadership on the firing line waits and waits. Meanwhile, NWA flight attendants are working more inhumane schedules and earning less money for it, day in and day out, while waiting for the AFAs lawyers to present their appeal to the federal appellate court. AFA national president Pat Friend has stepped in and taken the leadership in negotiations with the company, but there has been no discernible or announced progress. Email lists, websites and local CHAOS committees have knitted the flight attendants together, but they have been given nothing to do but wait. Some activists have turned their attention to internal AFA elections, when offices filled by interim appointments will be up for popular selection. How much longer can rank-and-file attendants hope and resistance weather this waiting game? This labor conflict is not only demonstrating the power of capital in the early 21st century, and corporate managements discovery of bankruptcy as a new anti-labor tool, but it is also revealing the role of the government in enforcing this agenda and the inefficacy of the labor establishment in formulating a response to it.