Clinton, Obama Split Up Airline Union Causes

Democrats traditionally have organized labor's support, a pattern that continues this year with presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama both winning major endorsements as they reach out to airline workers.

But labor politics can be tricky, as the case of the Teamsters drive to organize the 9,300 mechanics at UALUAUA indicates. A representation election began Feb. 26 and ends March 31.

Obama, the senator from Illinois, has the backing of the Teamsters, the country's second-largest union with about 1.4 million members, including 43,000 in the airline industry, and he is getting behind the organizing effort at Chicago-based United.

Clinton, a senator of New York, has the support of the International Association of Machinists, which has about 110,000 of its 700,000 members in the airline industry, where it is the largest union.

Just as the two candidates don't much like each other these days, the two unions aren't exactly the best of friends either.

United mechanics were IAM members until 2003, when they left in the midst of a round of industry cost reductions to join another union, the Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association. Subsequently, AMFA suffered a severe blow to its image after staging a disastrous 2005 strike against NorthwestNWA. Most of its Northwest members lost their jobs as a result.

Even though it previously represented United mechanics, the IAM has not attempted a new organizing drive at the carrier. Union spokesman Joe Tiberi said that because several thousand United workers are on furlough and could fail to vote, the Teamsters run the risk that fewer than 50% of the bargaining unit would participate, which would result in a union decertification.

"We didn't want to put the workers at risk of having no union," Tiberi said. But Teamsters spokesman Galen Munroe said: "We are confident in the Teamsters Union's ability to unionize the workers at United."

As part of the organizing effort, Teamsters question United's rapid move to outsource maintenance since 2000, a result of rising cost pressures on the airline industry and of an AMFA contract with fewer restrictions on outsourcing than the predecessor IAM contract had.

United outsourced about 45% of its maintenance in 2007, up from 16% in 2000, according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics. An undisclosed share of the work, including heavy maintenance of widebody aircraft, is sent overseas.

However, AMFA points out that at ContinentalCAL, where Teamsters represent mechanics, about 48% of maintenance work is outsourced, roughly the same percentage as in 2000.

At US AirwaysLCC, where the IAM represents mechanics, around 43% of maintenance is outsourced.

In a letter to the Teamsters this month, Obama wrote: "The practice of outsourcing aircraft maintenance overseas raises security concerns and pits our skilled mechanics making a middle class living against less skilled, less well protected workers abroad. I strongly support moving to reform and establish guidelines related to any foreign outsourcing of aviation mechanic work overseas."

Meanwhile, Clinton has voiced support for the IAM's strong stand against industry consolidation, particularly the possibility of a merger effort by DeltaDAL and Northwest.