American Airlines passenger service agents will get another chance to decide if they want to be represented by a labor union.
The National Mediation Board on Thursday agreed that American Airlines and US Airways “comprised a single transportation system.” As such, it authorized a vote to decide if the combined carrier’s agents want to have a union as their collective bargaining agent.
US Airways passenger service agents are currently represented by a coalition of the Communications Workers of America and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. American’s comparable employees are not unionized.
The CWA had attempted to organize American’s agents in 2012, winning a legal battle with American to force the representation election. However, the CWA lost a January 2013 vote: 2,902 in favor of a union and 3,052 against.
If one airline or the other had a disproportionate share of the employees in a craft or class, the NMB could have ruled that the larger group’s union could be certified to cover all the employees. That wasn’t the case in the American-US Airways case.
“The Board’s investigation establishes that there are approximately 8,287 Passenger Service Employees on the pre-merger American part of the system and approximately 6,544 on the pre-merger US Airways part of the system,” the NMB said.
“These numbers are comparable and the Board authorizes an election among the craft or class of Passenger Service Employees, employees of American Airlines using a cut-off date of March 30, 2014,” the agency said.
We believe the choice will be between representation and no representation, with the CWA/IBT association on the ballot.
American took a neutral tone after the NMB ruling.
“”We encourage our employees to get involved in the process, vote and make the decision that is best for them,” American spokesman Casey Norton said Friday.
Here’s a link to the CWA effort to organize the American Airlines employees.
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