Delta union vote may be voided

“Nothing tells me they won’t do that,” Isakson said in an interview.

Nullifying the vote would present a new challenge to the position of Atlanta-based Delta as the least-unionized major U.S. carrier. The flight attendants rejected union representation in results announced Nov. 3, with 51 percent of the 18,760 votes cast against organizing.

A mediation board spokesman didn’t immediately return a telephone call for comment. A spokeswoman for Delta, the world’s second largest airline after United Continental Holdings Inc., declined to comment on what the board may do when it takes up the union allegations.

Claims ‘ridiculous’

“Claims of interference are ridiculous,” said the spokeswoman, Gina Laughlin.

Pat Friend, president of the Association of Flight Attendants, said the union would file the interference charges by a Nov. 12 deadline, or seek an extension if the organization needs more time to prepare its case. Union leaders are discussing whether to seek a revote or a recount, in which votes cast via company computers would be disqualified, possibly changing the outcome, she said.

The computer use may have allowed the company to track whether employees voted, a violation of their privacy, Friend said. “We expect that this board will in fact investigate,” Friend said. “I believe they will ultimately agree with us that there was egregious interference.”

Laughlin of the airline said, “Delta did not track anyone’s votes.”

The board referees relations between labor and management at railroad and airline companies under the 1926 Railway Labor Act.

Previous efforts

Harry Hoglander, a former pilot-union official who became the mediation board’s chairman in July, twice sided with the flight attendants’ union when it brought interference charges following Delta organizing losses in 2002 and 2008. In the first case he called for a new election and in the second urged additional investigation.

Both times Hoglander was overruled by the board’s Republican majority. Obama gave the board a Democratic majority by adding former flight-attendant union President Linda Puchala, who replaced a former lobbyist for Northwest Airlines.

The Democratic-controlled board found in August that Delta tainted the organizing election for 91 flight-simulator technicians by announcing a pay increase and holding “coercive” one-on-one meetings, and it ordered a revote. The workers in February had rejected representation by the International Association of Machinists, with 40 voting in favor. In the re-vote, the union fared worse than initially, with 18 voting for representation, Delta announced Sept. 16.

Republican opposition

Hoglander and Puchala made a change in vote-counting rules in May over protests from the panel’s sole Republican, Elizabeth Dougherty, a former White House special assistant.

Under the change, employees can form a union with majority approval from those who vote, rather than requiring a majority from all workers in a class. Unreturned ballots are no longer counted as “no” votes.

Given the change in voting rules, the board will be watched carefully as to how it handles the flight-attendant protest, said William Swelbar, a research engineer specializing in air transport at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge.

“I see this board as having to tread very lightly,” Swelbar said. “I expect there to be exhaustive diligence. There’s a lot of credibility to win or lose.”