BY ARLENE RUBINSTEIN
ATLANTA - "My problem with AMFA is that I see them as, in
reality, antiunion. It's not what you say, it's what you do.
Watch their feet," explained James Patterson, a cleaner with 18
years at Northwest Airlines. "I've heard their message before.
It comes almost like clockwork, when our contract comes up for
negotiation."
The vote to determine whether cleaners, custodians, and mechanics at Northwest Airlines will continue to be represented by a union - the International Association of Machinists (IAM) - or by the pro-company Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association (AMFA) is now under way. On October 16 the National Mediation Board (NMB) mailed out ballots to 10,000 workers. All election ballots will be counted November 20.
AMFA has a long history of showing up when workers are in a fight with their bosses, only to become an obstacle in workers' advancing in their fight. Its campaign to break the mechanics from the IAM at Northwest Airlines comes right after the overwhelming rejection by IAM members of the company's July contract offer. Using AMFA's representational bid as its latest excuse, the company has suspended negotiations with all 27,000 IAM members at Northwest. This delay buys time for the company to recover from the blow of the victorious 15-day pilots' strike in September.
Last March, AMFA succeeded in capturing a majority of mechanics and cleaners previously organized by the IAM at Alaska Airlines. AMFA has also launched a campaign at United Airlines.
Pitting `skilled' against `unskilled'
AMFA's union-busting operation seeks to convince mechanics
that they will be better off outside a union that also includes
"unskilled" ramp, kitchen, and customer service workers. AMFA
literature complains that the "IAM believes that mechanics are
just another worker among the toiling masses," whereas "AMFA
believes mechanics are highly skilled and talented individuals
who deserve to be elevated in their status and pay."
Recognizing the serious stakes not only for themselves, but for all workers in the airline industry, a number of rank-and- file IAM members like Patterson have stepped forward to explain the union-busting aims and character of AMFA.
"When they talk about the rampers making too much money," Patterson said, "it's as if they think that taking a dollar away from the rampers will put it into their own pocket. Dream on AMFA, as the only person hurt is the ramper, a union brother! Will cleaners be next? It took a court order to force AMFA to accept cleaners. The real question is how long will it take this antiunion outfit to turn inward upon it's own mechanics?"
AMFA's pro-company outlook is put forward in a flier put out by the "AMFA-Minneapolis Organizing Committee" titled "When AMFA Wins, How Long Before We Get A Contract." The leaflet outlines three scenarios in the fight for a contract. First, the company will just give workers a good contract, second that AMFA and Northwest will enter into 60-day expedited negotiations, and third that if the company maintains its stance "the members can be assured that AMFA will keep them informed during the negotiations process." In the latter case, it is AMFA's "hope that Northwest management will seek to end the labor unrest, allowing Northwest Airlines to return to record profitability in which we can all share, and again become the preferred choice of our customers."
However, after almost a decade of concessions, most union members at Northwest have learned that there is no company goodwill in contract negotiations.
Veterans of Eastern strike
At the company's DC-9 maintenance facility in Atlanta, there
are a couple hundred workers who were participants in the 686-
day Eastern Airline strike in 1989-90. They were on the front
lines of a battle against union busting that won important
gains for all working people. They bring their experiences to
this current fight.
"We were one of the most united and powerful fronts of labor," according to Robert Pais, a veteran of the Eastern strike and a machinist at Northwest. "What really hurts is to see some of the guys I was so united with now going the AMFA way."
The lessons of the Eastern strike are also being debated out in discussions on the shop floor. Countering AMFA's claims that the strike ended in defeat and that the IAM is to blame, former strikers are explaining their real history and how they fought back against Eastern president Frank Lorenzo's ultimatum: to either accept pay cuts as high as 56 percent in some categories, massive work-rule changes, the company's unlimited right to farm out work, the hiring of part-time workers, cuts in pension benefits, and more or fight to defend their union. Three workers have bought copies of The Eastern Airlines Strike: Accomplishments of the Rank-and-File Machinists and Gains for the Labor Movement, published by Pathfinder Press, and supporters of the IAM have lent the book to one another and made copies of pages out of the book.
IAM officials and their campaign materials have not effectively answered AMFA's arguments. Instead, IAM officials decided to restructure the IAM at Northwest by setting up a separate district for mechanics, a decision that has set back the union's ability to fight against AMFA. Many rank-and-file union members recognize that this restructuring plan plays into the hands of the bosses' divide-and-rule tactics.
"I don't agree with dividing any group of workers," explained Bill Collett, another veteran of the Eastern strike, who has nine years as a cleaner at Northwest. "The reason we got as far as we did at Eastern was because the unions came together against a common enemy, not against each other. The strike was the strongest when it was machinists, pilots, and flight attendants against Frank Lorenzo and Texas Air, something the airline industry had never seen."
"I don't think they need to subdivide us like that on a national basis," agreed Kathy McCoy, a cleaner with three years at Northwest. "They're breaking us down even more, sort of like AMFA. You can fight harder as a majority, than as a minority. Numbers is how you can show the corporations what you want."
McCoy related a discussion she had with an AMFA leader at the Atlanta hangar who tried to convince her to support his outfit. "He said that AMFA will make sure there is `accountability' on the job. In other words, take your co- worker to management if you don't think he's working hard enough - something I could never do. That showed me that AMFA is with the company, hand-in-hand."
IAM and AMFA supporters here are wearing hats and T-shirts and buttons. A group of Atlanta Teamsters distributed a leaflet against AMFA's attack on the union, while AMFA has set up weekly tables in front of the hangar. The mood here is tense.
Importance of solidarity
Among the ranks of the IAM, union members are discussing the
importance of social questions in defending the union. "When
women first came to work in the hangar, the attitude of the
guys was that they were threatened by us, and many gave us a
hard time," stated Carol Young, a cleaner in the engine shop
with 20 years at Northwest. "They said women shouldn't make the
same money as men." Young pointed with pride to how women stood
up to the challenges they faced and over time achieved mutual
respect. "But now a lot of these mechanics have the same
attitude with AMFA, saying the `unskilled" are making too
much."
"What's a `skill' anyway? Who decides? If it's a division among workers, it doesn't help any one of us," stated Kenneth Lawson, a mechanic with 31 years at Northwest. "Does it help the worker in Texas to be against the worker in Mexico?"
"I grew up here in the South," Lawson continued. "I saw things here in the '50s, things that sickened me. An older Black man calling me `Mister' when I was just a boy of 18. A store owner refusing to let Black workers on the road crew buy themselves lunch.... If one of us is second class, all of us are second class. I was a student when the big protests at Rich's department store were taking place. That movement was for all of us. I don't want to start going backwards again."
Pointing to the contributions of youth in today's labor struggles, Terry Tindall, a machinist at Northwest, referred to the strikes for union recognition conducted by workers at McDonald's fasp-food chain. "They're a good example for us to think about. From what I understand they are getting a lot more accomplished then we are. They didn't have a lot of money, they didn't even have a union. But they got organized, stuck together, and were willing to fight. Their power was their solidarity."
Arlene Rubinstein is a member of IAM Local 2665 and a cleaner at Northwest Airlines. Mike Italie contributed to this article.