AFA-CWA Statement on Delta Settlement Regarding Executive Compensation Violation of COVID Relief Program

Today, Delta Air Lines agreed to pay an $8.1 million settlement to resolve allegations that it violated the agreements of the Payroll Support Program (PSP) – the Workers First COVID relief program that continued paychecks for aviation workers while capping executive compensation.

The PSP – designed and championed by AFA and unions across the aviation industry – created a first-of-its-kind workers-first relief plan from the government with the most strict requirements and oversight by Treasury. Unlike the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans where less than 35% percent of loans actually went to workers, the aviation PSP worked as it was intended – designed to push 100% of relief to aviation workers, keeping us in our jobs and connected to healthcare while maintaining service to all of our communities. In addition to capping executive pay well after the relief period ended, the program also banned stock buybacks. It provided true oversight and accountability for airlines.

Statement from Sara Nelson, President of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, representing 55,000 Flight Attendants at 20 airlines, and a key leader in the creation of the Payroll Support Program (PSP):

“Union leaders and executives came together to negotiate the PSP and push for Congress to pass it, not once, but three times. However, one CEO was absent from Washington – Delta CEO Ed Bastian. We fought tooth and nail for a program that protected the workers who were at risk of losing everything in the pandemic and ensure our airlines could remain intact to meet demand when travel returned. Delta stood alone during that time - using all of the airline’s political capital on one thing: to remove the one provision that would’ve required them to simply follow the law and not interfere with Delta employees’ free and fair right to choose union representation.

“We applaud the whistleblowers who came forward to shine a light on this gross injustice and violation of a law that simply required Delta to use government relief funds to pay their workers and not their executives. The accountability we are seeing today could not have been possible without the career workers and watchdogs at the Department of Treasury, who enforced the PSP, the most successful worker-first relief program in our nation’s history. A key takeaway today is that a thriving, fair economy and democracy depends on unions and government oversight that puts in check corporate greed.

“Delta’s violation of the PSP by exceeding compensation caps for corporate officers simply shows once again why Delta workers are organizing – because they know without a union, there is no accountability, there is no voice for the workers, and the airline executives are driven first and foremost to take profits for themselves and their investors at the expense of workers, passengers and our communities.”