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Unions for flight attendants, transport workers combine forces
A pair of unions said Friday they would enter into a partnership to more effectively bargain for transportation workers.
The partnership, between the parent group of the union for flight attendants and a union that represents airline, transit and rail workers, comes on the heels of Congress approving a funding bill for the Federal Aviation Administration that some said they could live with and others strongly opposed.
But the Washington-based Communication Workers Association and Transit Workers Union said they would be more effective at lobbying lawmakers if they worked together.
CWA President Larry Cohen added that unions working together is "the only way we will make progress for workers.”
The CWA and the TWU took different positions on the recently approved compromise on labor rules for transportation workers in the FAA bill.
TWU said in a statement days after lawmakers announced the deal that it could "live within" the rules of the compromise, which increases the percentage of a company's workforce that has to agree to hold a union election from 35 percent to 50 percent.
By contrast, CWU ran a newspaper ad this week targeting the members of Congress who voted against the FAA bill, which it has called "anti-worker."
"Is democracy a choice between jobs and workers' rights?," the CWA ad asks. "157 House and 15 Senate Democrats said 'no.' The rest of Congress made the wrong choice, and too many were silent.
The House and Senate have both approved
the FAA legislation, which provides nearly $16 billion per year to the FAA through fiscal year 2015. President Obama is expected to sign the measure before a Feb. 17 deadline.
