ATLANTA — The vote among Delta Air Lines flight attendants on whether to unionize is being closely watched throughout the airline industry.
As the conclusion of voting nears Wednesday, “all eyes are on Atlanta,” said Samantha Tate, a spokeswoman for the Association of Flight Attendants.
An association spokesman said the campaign is the largest organizing effort in Georgia history. “We’re bringing in people from all over the country” to lobby Delta flight attendants in the last few days of the campaign, said John Cornelius, the association’s Delta campaign coordinator in Atlanta.
With Delta working toward its proposed merger with Northwest Airlines, union organizers said one of their biggest concerns would arise if Delta decided to outsource flight-attendant work to foreign national flight attendants.
The Delta-Northwest merger is widely expected to spur further consolidation in the industry, including a possible pairing involving United Airlines, the largest carrier at Denver International Airport.
Delta employs foreign nationals with U.S. work permits who are based in Atlanta, but said it does not plan to outsource flight attendant jobs. The airline has about 13,000 flight attendants.
“This is just a scare tactic at the end of the campaign” by the Association of Flight Attendants, said Mike Campbell, Delta’s executive vice president of human resources, labor and communications.
Other carriers, including Northwest, hire foreign nationals and restrict them to certain areas, such as within Asia.
If Delta decided to outsource the jobs of flight attendants, “it wouldn’t just affect Delta itself but the entire airline industry,” Delta flight attendant Mara Levene said last week.
The fear is that other airlines may consider similar moves.
Union organizers point to Northwest’s proposal to replace some flight attendants on its international flights with non-U.S. flight attendants to cut costs while it was in bankruptcy more than two years ago. Northwest later backed away from the plan. Union officials said they feared the merger “may resurrect efforts” by Northwest.
