USAir strike: Another example of a defeat snatched from the jaws of victory

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"While these strikes have at time managed to blunt employer attacks, they concessions of some sort being made. The workers' standard of living thus continues to SOCIALIST ACTION NOVEMBER 1992 7 On Oct. 12, 1992, over 8300 mechanics, aircraft cleaners, and stock clerks, members of the International Association of Machinists (IAM), returned to work after a week-long strike against USAir, the nation's sixth largest airline.

The strike began after IAM members rejected the contract proposed by the company after two-and-a-half years of negotiations.

The carrier demanded $400 million in concessions from the union to help offset claimed losses of $700 million in the last two years. Provisions included a one-year 8 percent cut in pay and the workers paying 10 percent of the cost of their health insurance.

The main issue in dispute, however, was that of work-rule changes. The company wanted to have the guiding of airplanes—to and from gates and aircraft de-icing proceduresperformed by ramp workers rather than by mechanics.

Most of USAir's ramp workers are non-union (a recent organizing drive there failed) and earn half the pay of mechanics. This planned cross-utilization was seen by the IAM as a threat to their members' jobs (1000 mechanics jobs were expected to be lost) as well as an anti-union measure.

On the morning of Oct. 5, the machinists struck USAir. They were joined on the first day of the strike by 9000 flight attendants, until a court injunction forced them back to work.

The pilots, who had signed a contract with the company in June, stayed at work, as did the non-union ramp workers. USAir Express and the USAir Shuttle, working under different agreements, also did not strike.

Despite their relative isolation, as well as a virtual blackout of coverage in the capitalist press, the strikers still put on an effective fight. The company itself claimed to be operating 60 percent of its flights, a figure which the union and a number of eyewitnesses said was inflated, and which included planes that were virtually empty or were in transit to maintenance facilities.

During the week the strike lasted, USAir lost between $45-50 million.

The strikers also received significant solidarity at the picket lines from other airline workers, especially employees of United and Northwest Airlines.

The main thing benefitting the strikers, according to them, was the fact that the company did not expect a strike; so USAir was unprepared.

No "replacement" scabs had been hired, as has been the pattern in recent years.

This forced management as well as non-union employees to fill in for striking workers, stretching operations thin. This unpreparedness on the part of the company helped to offset the weak position of .. IAM convention (continued from preceding page)

defeats. The Democrats cannot represent us and the employers at the same time because our interests are in conflict with the bosses.

"For example, our wages can only go up at the expense of profits and vice versa. The Democrats are funded by big business. Their primary function is to defend corporate interests. Look at what happened in rail in April of '91 when all but seven in Congress voted to end the strike without the right to vote on the contract. With friends like that, we don't need enemies.

"The Democrats and Republicans agree on the basics. Workers should suffer cuts in living standards and jobs, not the boss. Rather than continuing to back the employer-sponsored politicians, we need to break with 'the Democrats and Republicans and form our own party, a labor party based on the unions and democratically controlled by the members.

"How would a labor party deal with the question of free trade? Well, we wouldn't ON US have not been able to avoid pose the question of being for or against it, rather we would advocate transforming society into one that puts people and jobs ahead of profits so that if the employers wanted to pack up and leave, we would say you can go, but your assets, plants and jobs stay.

"We need a fight-back policy. A fightback policy would organize massive strike support rallies and put tens of thousands of people on the picket lines. That's what we should be doing at US Air. That's what we advocate.

"We need a policy that puts the rich on the defensive, not us. And with that kind of policy, we think it's the only one that can inspire our ranks so that we can move into the 21st century with our own party seeking to put the government into the hands of those who work for a living and out of the hands of the people who own for a living.

"I'll conclude with this. John L. Lewis's most famous phrase and comment was, "The Lord helps those that help themselves.' And if we don't start helping ourselves, mobilizing our ranks to put up a fight to win, we'll never win....

Leumer received a very warm round of been able to avoid erode."

applause.

Another 565 delegate, Don Bechler, rose to support the resolution and stated: "The purpose behind this resolution is to say that we have to lead ourselves. No one else is going to do it....

"When push comes to shove, he [Clinton] makes fundamentally pro-business decisions. And until we decide to bust out and get ourselves off the bottom of the totem pole and organize ourselves to present our own agenda for America, we'll continue to be on the bottom, and we'll continue to bleed."

Obstacle of bureaucracy

Although many delegates were lined up at the microphone to speak, the question was called and a voice vote was taken. The advocates of a labor party received, I estimate, between 15 and 20 percent of the vote. It was a very good showing given that the convention had endorsed Clinton several days earlier.

Many delegates commented that they agreed with what Leumer said and indicat-; ed that the resolution might have passed if the executive council's Clinton-Gore resolution had not been presented earlier. the strikers, who more than likely would have been defeated by a determined union-busting effort.

Within days of the outbreak of the strike, a tentative agreement was reached between the company and the IAM leadership, who began demobilizing their membership before the ratification vote had even taken place.

The new agreement was approved by the strikers on Oct. 11. It is virtually identical to the contract offer previously rejected.

The 8 percent wage cut has become a three-and-a half percent wage cut. The employees will still have to pay for some health insurance costs. Some mechanics' work will be done by ramp workers, though the company is supposedly obligated to guarantee that no mechanic jobs will be lost as a result. New cleaners are to be hired at a salary of $7.17 per hour, a third lower than the previous salary.

Union officials defended the deal as exchanging wage, benefit, and work-rule concessions for job security, and as being necessary to ensure the survival of the company. In the process, real sacrifices are being made by the workers in exchange for vague and ultimately illusory promises of job protection.

The USAir strike fits into the pattern of recent strikes in this country: The Daily News, Safeway, Caterpillar, national rail strikes, Philadelphia municipal workers, and series of rolling strikes at General Motors are the principal examples.

Overall, we are seeing a growing willingness among workers to fight back against company and government attempts at takebacks. But while these strikes have at times managed to blunt employer attacks, they have not been able to avoid concessions of some sort being made. The workers' standard of living is thus continuing to erode.

What has been lacking is a fighting leadership that matches the militancy and the will to win repeatedly demonstrated by the rank and file. And until this crisis of leadership is resolved in favor of the ranks, labor will continue to lose too many fights unnecessarily.

The support that Local 565's labor party resolution received strongly indicated that the only thing standing in the way of altering the relationship of forces in favor of the workers is the trade-union bureaucracy and its policy of subordinating working people's interests to labor's phony friends.

Just before the end of the convention I asked Leumer what he thought should be done next?

He said: " A long-term perspective is needed in the labor movement by those seeking a fightback policy. I'm not about to stop pushing for a policy that prepares us for what lies aheadthat is, ever-bigger attacks by the bosses and their political representatives in both parties of big business.

"If the unions are to fulfill their function of defending workers' interests they must mobilize the membership and labor's allies for independent political action based on class struggle methods. I'm confident that the dead-end policy of the current union officialdom will be replaced by a new generation of fighters. The vast majority of workers, I'm sure, will stand with the fighters."

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