Pilots are primarily concerned with quality-of-life issues like having more reliable schedules, as their trips are often unexpectedly extended and their destinations can change at the last minute due to poor planning by the airlines. Jesús “Chuy” García (D-Ill.) reintroduced the Good Jobs for Good Airports Act, which would establish a $ 15 dollar-per-hour minimum wage at the nation’s airports.Ĭontract negotiations at American and Southwest have dragged on for four years and three years, respectively. Meanwhile, airport service workers such as ticketing agents, cleaning staff, baggage handlers, wheelchair agents and food workers have been successfully organizing around better pay and conditions for the past several years through SEIU’s Airport Workers United campaign. Delta’s flight attendants, fleet service workers and mechanics are all non-union - but a coalition of the Association of Flight Attendants, International Association of Machinists and Teamsters is currently working to change that through an ambitious organizing campaign. Pilots at Delta, also with ALPA, voted to authorize a strike last year, then won a new contract this March that includes 34% pay increases. Bargaining continues, but so far the union has not held a strike vote. Still, the strike votes are illustrative of a larger wave of worker militancy in the airline industry that has only grown since the pandemic.Īt United, pilots represented by the large Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA) voted to reject a tentative agreement last fall, sending the union and management back to the negotiating table. It lasted only a few minutes before President Bill Clinton issued an emergency suspension. The last time American Airlines pilots went on strike was in February 1997. That law requires several steps before either APA or SWAPA could legally go on strike - including federal mediation, a review by a Presidential Emergency Board, and multiple “cooling off” periods - meaning any possible work stoppages are still at least several months away. Like the railroad unions, whose threatened strike last year was preemptively blockedīy Congress and President Joe Biden, unions in the airline industry are subject to the complex bargaining process “The decision to authorize a strike is not one we have taken lightly, but given the lack of accountability and dearth of leadership exhibited by our current executives, we felt that this was a last resort to try to force them to face the issues plaguing our passengers, our frontline employees, and our pilots,” explained SWAPA President Capt. Over the Christmas holiday, with over 16, 700 flights cancelled and 2 million passengers stranded.

The move comes after Southwest Airlines experienced an operational meltdown “We will not be deterred from our goal of an industry-leading contract.”Īlso on May 1, the Southwest Airlines Pilots Association (SWAPA), representing 10, 000 pilots at that airline, began its own strike authorization vote - the first in the union’s 45-year history - that will conclude on May 31. “With more than 99% of participating pilots voting in favor of authorizing a strike, our pilots’ resolve is unmistakable,” said Capt. Signaling their unity, thousands of uniformed APA members held informational pickets on May Day at ten of the nation’s major airports, including Chicago’s O’Hare and Boston’s Logan. Last week, the Allied Pilots Association (APA), which represents 15, 000 pilots at American Airlines, announced that its members had voted overwhelmingly to authorize a work stoppage. As the busy summer travel season approaches, 25, 000 union pilots at two of the nation’s largest commercial airlines - American and Southwest - are taxiing on the runway of a potential strike.

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