Release #02.071
August 8, 2002

WASHINGTON, D.C. --- The 66,000 members of the Air Line Pilots Association applaud the action of the AFL-CIO Executive Council policy statement in support of collective bargaining for all airline workers.

"At the conclusion of the AFL-CIO’s executive council summer meeting in Chicago, they unanimously passed a policy statement in support for defeating any attempts to end collective bargaining for airline workers," declared Captain Duane Woerth, president of the Air Line Pilots Association, International (ALPA). 

"With today’s resolution, the entire 14 million men and women of the AFL-CIO and all of its affiliates are now committed to helping ALPA fight off any slanted, compulsory arbitration method of bargaining that several senators have previously proposed," added Captain Woerth.

The policy statement says "The collective bargaining rights of airline workers face unprecedented legislative attacks by the nation's major air carriers. Led by American, FedEx and Delta, the industry has mounted a campaign to enact legislation that would impose ‘baseball style’ arbitration in airline negotiations, thereby replacing a delicately balanced labor law system with one that tilts heavily in management's favor. The AFL-CIO deplores the nation's airlines' pursuit of this hostile legislative initiative and will work to defeat it if it surfaces in any form in the House or Senate."

"For the most part, the Railway Labor Act and the collective bargaining process have effectively prevented disruptions to air services. In the past decade, there have been only four strikes at major U.S. airlines," said Captain Woerth. "The Railway Labor Act and the collective bargaining process work and we do not need to change it," he declared.

ALPA is the world's oldest and largest pilots union, representing 66,000 members at 43 airlines in the U.S. and Canada. Visit the ALPA Website at http://www.alpa.org.

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