(The following story by Anne C. Mulkern was published in the January 20 issue of the Denver Post.)
WASHINGTON, D.C. — As they struggle to stay aloft financially, the nation’s largest airlines are financing a campaign to significantly weaken the negotiating power of their unions.
Major carriers — including United Airlines Corp., which has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection — want Congress to change labor laws so that unions and management submit to binding arbitration when they’re unable to reach contract agreement. That would eliminate the possibility of strikes, airline lobbyists say, preventing unions from obtaining wages and benefits that airlines say they can’t afford.
The change would affect pilots, flight attendants, mechanics and other union workers for almost every airline. In Colorado, at least 6,000 workers would be affected.
“It’s such an overreaction in light of all the concessions we’ve made,” said Duane Woerth, spokesman for the Air Line Pilots Association. “If the airlines had lobbied this hard for tax relief, we’d have it by now. It’s just preposterous.”
Airlines as a group lost more than $9 billion last year, with the largest carriers losing the most. With Republicans in control of the U.S. House and Senate, airlines and their lobbyists see a unique opportunity to act now.
As they make the rounds on Capitol Hill, lobbyists are pointing to United as an example of a case when unions won unsustainable salary increases.
“It serves as a reminder that we don’t have time. We need to act,” said Susan Molinari, president of the airline-backed group Communities for Economic Strength Through Aviation. “Everyone understands that this is a crisis.”
Poor management choices on a variety of issues contributed to the problems, Molinari said, but labor costs have often been devastating. The threat of a strike gives airlines little choice but to accede to most union demands, she said.
There have been six airline strikes since 1992.
Unions say it’s absurd to blame them for contracts that are negotiated by both sides. They say unions have been willing to take salary cuts to keep their employers solvent. And they argue that binding arbitration won’t work because they need to negotiate not just wages but the rules dictating how they work.
United Airlines spokesman Chris Braithwaite declined to comment on the issue, referring questions to the airlines’ trade group. Airlines mostly are lying low on the issue, letting lobbyists campaign. But at a recent Senate hearing on aviation issues, American Airlines chief executive officer Don Carty told lawmakers: “We need to examine the labor code. We do think it needs to be changed for the long- term health of the industry.”
Southwest Airlines is steering clear of the issue all together, saying it is not involved.
Other airlines, through their largest trade group, hired a slew of high-powered lobbyists to push the effort. Molinari, a Republican former U.S. representative from New York, sat on the House Transportation Committee and knows key lawmakers. Other lobbyists hired by airlines include former U.S. secretaries of transportation Neil Goldschmidt and James Burnley, former Sens. Slade Gorton and Chuck Robb, and former U.S. Reps. Vic Fazio and Vin Weber.
Lobbyists call the group a grassroots effort because it has support from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Business Roundtable and scores of local tourism bureaus and chambers of commerce. They argue that aviation is critical to the economy, so everyone has a stake in the industry’s economic health.
In addition to working in Washington, lobbyists through those state and local groups are pushing voters to call their representatives and indicate their support for the change.
“These are airlines that say they’re broke and are asking for enormous concessions from their workers, and they hire the most expensive lobbyists in town to push a bill that would weaken worker rights,” said Michael Buckley, a spokesman with the AFL-CIO, which is working with airline unions to fight the airline lobbying effort.
The total cost to airlines isn’t known. Molinari would not say how much airlines are spending for lobbying, although she said it’s insignificant compared to what one airline would pay for one union contract for one year. Documents detailing amounts spent on lobbying for all of 2002 haven’t yet been filed with the Senate.
Congress appears to be paying attention. At a recent hearing on the state of the airline industry, Sen. John McCain, a Republican who heads the Senate Commerce Committee, repeatedly asked about labor costs and how they contributed to current woes.
McCain in August 2001 introduced legislation that would require unions to submit to binding arbitration. Under his bill, the secretary of transportation could declare an emergency when union negotiations stalled. Each side would then present its last best offer, and a panel of three arbitrators would chose between the proposals.
McCain’s bill lost momentum after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, when Congress turned to more pressing security issues.
Since then, Republicans have retaken control, and McCain in particular is in a position of power. Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., co-sponsored McCain’s bill last year and now heads the aviation subcommittee.
Airline lobbyists said they think McCain is preparing to reintroduce the legislation. A spokeswoman for McCain didn’t respond to several inquiries on the issue.
“We’re hopeful,” Molinari said.
Union workers are “taking this very seriously,” the AFL-CIO’s Buckley said. “It’s the highest priority of the airline unions.”
If McCain gets the proposal passed, it would still need to be passed in the House. A spokesman for Rep. John Mica, R-Fla., chairman of the House’s aviation subcommittee, said there would “probably be some support for that.”
“We’d take a look at it,” Mica spokesman Gary Burns said. “I think there is a certain level of interest.”
But other observers say there is a sizable gulf between interest and passage into law. Getting enough votes will be difficult, one transportation expert said, because many moderate and even conservative Republicans are hesitant to vote against labor.
This isn’t the first time airlines have tried to change the Railway Labor Act, a 76-year-old law covering airline and railroad workers. It currently requires presidential intervention to prevent a strike.
Every attempt since 1959 has failed, said Bradley Bartholomew, a labor analyst with the Newfoundland Group who also works as a pilot for a major airline.
“If you look at it historically, it’s very difficult to change labor law,” he said. “But if you look at the last two or three years, with the shift in Washington, I would say there’s a heightened chance.”