Delta Air Lines is once again the focus of a nation-wide union orga­niz­ing cam­paign , with a rank-and-file elec­tion by about 20,000 of the company’s flight atten­dants now expect­ed to take place in the spring or ear­ly summer.

The Inter­na­tion­al Asso­ci­a­tion of Machin­ists & Aero­space Work­ers (IAM) moved to start the for­mal elec­tion process Jan­u­ary 13, when it filed doc­u­ments with the fed­er­al Nation­al Medi­a­tion Board (NMB) demon­strat­ing that near­ly 12,000 Delta flight atten­dants are in favor of hold­ing an elec­tion. The NMB, which over­sees labor rela­tions in the rail­road and com­mer­cial air­line sec­tors, is expect­ed to act in Feb­ru­ary or March to set the pre­cise dates, and deter­mine oth­er elec­tion details, says IAM spokesper­son James Carlson.

“This is his­toric. It’s the biggest air­line dri­ve in the his­to­ry of the indus­try,” Carl­son says, not­ing that the total num­ber of Delta flight atten­dants had grown since 2010 when a sim­i­lar union orga­niz­ing dri­ve by the Asso­ci­a­tion of Flight Atten­dants-Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Work­ers of Amer­i­ca (AFA-CWA) was defeat­ed in an aggres­sive anti-union effort by Delta man­agers. Two ear­li­er efforts by AFA-CWA — in 2001 and 2008 — were also vot­ed down by Delta attendants.

Sev­er­al dif­fer­ences between the 2010 and 2015 union cam­paigns bode well for suc­cess this time, says Julian­na Helmin­s­ki, a vet­er­an flight atten­dant who is active­ly sup­port­ing the IAM dri­ve and was also a sup­port­er of the 2010 dri­ve. The 12,000 signed elec­tion autho­riza­tion cards gath­ered by union orga­niz­ers rep­re­sents about 60 per­cent of the eli­gi­ble vot­ers, she says, so this by itself indi­cates major­i­ty sup­port for the union. Although a drop-off in union sup­port from the begin­ning of the elec­tion process until the end is com­mon, Helmin­s­ki con­cedes, the 12,000 signed cards were gath­ered over a two year peri­od of active orga­niz­ing that has solid­i­fied union sup­port. That’s in con­trast to 2010 when pre-elec­tion sup­port for the AFA-CWA was much soft­er, she explains.

The ear­li­er dri­ve also took place in an atmos­phere of appre­hen­sion over the acqui­si­tion of North­west Air­lines by Delta, Helminis­ki says, and the merg­er of the flight atten­dants lists of union­ized North­west and non-union Delta. Many work­ers feared job cuts as a result of the merg­er, a fear that proved unfound­ed as Delta has shown strong prof­itabil­i­ty in the inter­ven­ing years.

“Plus, there was the process of the atten­dants get­ting to know one anoth­er per­son-to-per­son. The North­west and Delta atten­dants were strangers in 2010, but since then we have worked togeth­er side-by-side. Now we know we have the same con­cerns and the same issues” with how the air­line is man­aged, she says.

One of the most obvi­ous dif­fer­ences is that the pro-union forces are seek­ing to join the IAM rather than the AFA-CWA. Helmin­s­ki says the atten­dants ini­tial orga­niz­ing group went to the IAM in 2012 to ask the union to sup­port the dri­ve after intense inter­nal dis­cus­sion about the dif­fer­ent alter­na­tives. A con­sen­sus devel­oped for the IAM — despite the fact that AFA had rep­re­sent­ed the North­west atten­dants before the merg­er — based on aggres­sive and per­sis­tent attempts by IAM to orga­nize some of Delta’s non-atten­dant workers.

“We had a sol­i­dar­i­ty com­mit­tee with the ramp work­ers after the merg­er, and we got to know the IAM peo­ple pret­ty well. I think it’s fair to say that most of us were impressed,” Helmin­s­ki says.

Inter-union rival­ry has been large­ly put aside for this new attempt to orga­nize the Delta atten­dants, IAM’s Carl­son adds, and the AFA-CWA has offi­cial­ly endorsed the IAM cam­paign. Like­wise, a sec­ond union rep­re­sent­ing flight atten­dants — the Asso­ci­a­tion of Pro­fes­sion­al Flight Atten­dants — has also endorsed the IAM effort, Carl­son says.

Air­line orga­niz­ing in gen­er­al seems to be trend­ing in favor of unions. One of biggest orga­niz­ing suc­cess­es of 2014 was the union­iza­tion of about 14,500 pas­sen­ger ser­vice agents at Amer­i­can Air­lines, who joined the CWA. Also union­iz­ing last year were the flight atten­dants at Vir­gin Amer­i­ca and the pilots at Jet­Blue, who joined the Trans­porta­tion Work­ers Union and the Air Line Pilots Asso­ci­a­tion, respectively.

Key to the cam­paign is like­ly to be about 3,000 Delta atten­dants who have been hired since AFA’s 2010 elec­tion defeat and thus have not yet had a chance to show their pref­er­ence one way or the oth­er Helmin­s­ki says. (The 2010 loss was decid­ed by a plu­ral­i­ty of only about 300 anti-union votes.) Orga­niz­ers have set up a spe­cial unit aimed specif­i­cal­ly at these 3,000, and ear­ly indi­ca­tions are positive.

With Delta record­ing con­sis­tent prof­its in the last five years, new hires espe­cial­ly are won­der­ing why atten­dant wages lag 26 per­cent behind indus­try leader South­west Air­lines, she says. Total com­pen­sa­tion, includ­ing all ben­e­fits, is slight­ly below the indus­try aver­age, Helmin­s­ki says, so many Delta atten­dants are look­ing for improve­ment in this area as well.

Asked whether Delta would active­ly oppose the IAM cam­paign, the com­pa­ny pro­vid­ed the fol­low­ing com­ment from Alli­son Aus­band, Senior Vice Pres­i­dent of In-Flight Services:

The IAM’s poor track record at oth­er air­lines, togeth­er with its cul­ture of divi­sive­ness, harass­ment and per­son­al attacks, would not ben­e­fit Delta flight atten­dants. Work­ing direct­ly with Delta lead­ers, Delta flight atten­dants have enjoyed greater pay increas­es than flight atten­dants at oth­er air­lines since 2007 and they have a supe­ri­or pack­age of top-tier pay rates and an indus­try-lead­ing prof­it-shar­ing pro­gram, along with com­pet­i­tive ben­e­fits and flex­i­ble work rules. Quite sim­ply, our flight atten­dants deserve bet­ter than the IAM.

IAM’s Carl­son said the vig­or­ous anti-union cam­paign by Delta man­agers is expect­ed, but that the union is nev­er­the­less ​“con­fi­dent” of success.

The IAM and CWA are spon­sors of In These Times. Spon­sors play no role in edi­to­r­i­al content.