July 17–24, 1997

hit and run

Look for the Union Label

Last year, U.S. Airways workers held a similar election, but the National Mediations Board has just determined that U.S. Airways (formerly USAir) illegally interfered with the elections, and that therefore the election results, tallied in January 1997, were void.

"U.S. Airways has a system in place called the roundtable system," explains Ed Mooney, a CWA organizer. "They had a process in which they would send people from all over to meetings to discuss problems employees were having. But once union elections started, they used the roundtables as anti-union meetings."

The company tried to get a federal restraining order to block new elections, to no avail. The new election will take place in August. Ballots will be counted in early October. Under National Mediation Board rules — under whose jurisdiction U.S. Airways workers fall — voting in a union is doubly tough because any worker who doesn't send in a ballot is counted as a no vote, Mooney says.

— Daisy Fried