Delta Shareholders Propose the Airline Stop Interfering with Our Rights

Shareholders of Delta Air Lines are calling for management to stop interfering with our right to freely choose union representation and collective bargaining. It is our legal right to organize for our Delta AFA union without interference from Delta management! But Delta is now on record to all shareholders that they oppose any company policy that affirms our rights.

Delta will hold its 2023 annual meeting of shareholders on June 15, 2023 at 7:30 a.m. EDT., with “Proposal 6 — Adoption of Freedom of Association and Collective Bargaining Policy” on the agenda.

The shareholders’ proposal demands that Delta’s Board of Directors adopt and enforce a non-interference policy that upholds the rights to freedom of association and collective bargaining in its operations. In response, Delta management has told shareholders to “Vote AGAINST” the proposal.

Delta management is effectively telling shareholders that it is money well spent to deny us certain freedoms defined by the law. Management is now on record with investors and the public against the rights of the people of Delta.

Unions have never been more popular in our country than they are right now. People are sick and tired of barely making ends meet. They are done with the double standard for treatment of those with lots of money and those who work hard just to have a modest, decent life. What kind of message does management’s aggressive opposition to our rights send to our passengers about Delta’s respect for their rights? What kind of risk to Delta’s brand are they willing to take? Executives get a contract with protections even when they leave, but Delta workers get no guarantees for our hard work, sacrifice, and career-long loyalty to the airline? While Delta management thinks their aggressive opposition to our union drive is going unnoticed, the proposal highlights the different ways management has interfered in the past and continues to interfere with our organizing efforts.

The concerns of the shareholders are similar to the ones we share among each other: Delta management’s attempts to instill fear and cool our attempts to get a contract of our own.

Shareholders have seen how Delta management has interfered with our union organizing efforts by distributing anti-union material, encouraging new hires to attend an anti-union “briefing,” and hosting an anti-union website. They even cite how Delta management spent $38 million dollars to oppose our union campaign in 2010. Despite the facts, Delta management denies the tactics they use over and over:

• Pressure Flight Attendant trainees to attend an anti-union briefing;
• Distribute anti-union pins and information at Flight Attendant graduations;
• Directly send emails to new hire Flight Attendants with an anti-union video;
• Regularly send us anti-union communications in our On the Fly and Rumor Has It emails discouraging us from organizing our union;
• Field-Service Managers in the Flight Attendant lounges hand out anti-union pins by request;

• Display large anti-union signs with anti-union print outs; 
• Attempts to harass and intimidate Delta Flight Attendants by insinuating potential discipline (no activist has ever been disciplined for organizing and in fact we gain rights when we are public in our support for our union);
• Sponsor and fund the anti-union “grassroots” campaign by Flight Attendants who are opposed to our organizing efforts. For example, Delta IFS’ own Vimeo account currently hosts a One Delta video: 
   
   

Delta management is not neutral in this union campaign and has directly interfered with our organizing efforts. We have the power and we have the right to organize our union. Passengers are with us. Shareholders are with us. If you are a Delta Shareholder, make sure your vote is cast on this proposal. Share this information, sign a card, join our organizing drive, and let’s get our union to secure our future!