An Aug. 7 statement from the CWA declared, “CWA and IBEW members are prepared to return to work when management demonstrates the willingness to begin bargaining seriously for a fair agreement. If not, CWA and IBEW members and allies will continue the fight.”

Observers expect that this will be a protracted battle.

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Nearly every major airline corporation has gotten, or is trying to get, out of their existing union contracts. Government, particularly at the state and local levels, is demanding wage freezes and givebacks. The steel corporations are refusing to meet their obligations to retired workers.

The backdrop to this accelerating war on working people is the prolonged period of economic decline and stagnation. U.S. capitalism is stuck in a protracted crisis of overproduction – the capacity exists to produce far more goods and services than the corporations can profitably market. The result is more layoffs and endless economic restructuring, where the leanest and meanest corporations emerge as the winners.

And the leanest and meanest in corporate America want more. So they come to our unions demanding concessions. They point to some other corporation in their industry, at home or abroad, that pays lower wages or has fewer benefits, and then say they cannot compete if the proposed concessions are not accepted. The result of going along with these concessions is self evident – a downward spiral, pitting worker against worker in a race to the bottom. And the corperate bosses laugh all the way to the bank.

These are challenging times. The government promises us a 'war with out end.' Unemployment is going up. An ongoing economic crisis is falling hardest on oppressed nationality workers: African Americans, Chicanos and Latinos, Asians and Pacific Islanders.

It is vital that the most active, militant and foresighted in the labor movement come together and build a movement that rejects concessions. The heads of corporations are not worried about our fate. Many of us are just getting by, and now these fat cats come along and say we should make do with less. We cannot afford a mindset that puts the profits of the companies we work for ahead of our familes and our selves. The truth is, the rich have plenty of cash and resources. If times are bad, and the economy is down, let them pay for the crisis. We can't afford to.

Unfortunately, more than a few union leaders have bought in to the approach that puts the corporations' interests ahead of everything else. These bureaucrats tell us we need to accept these concessions. They tell us that we need to care more about the owning class that we do about ourselves. Why should we care about a group of parasites, which lives off our hard work?

We need to put our unions on a class struggle basis. We need unions of, for and by the workers, that take up the fight against the discrimination and stand for equality. We need to put an end to the situation where many of the unions are little more than businesses run for the benefit of bureaucrats. We need unions that will fight.

In the face of an avalanche of demands for givebacks, takeaways and concessions, activists and organizers in the labor movement need to take a hard line. We should insist our unions do likewise. In the process of doing so, those of us who have a common view of beating back concessions need to be communicating with each other and building organization – inside and outside the existing union structures – that stands for real resistance to employer demands.

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The list of airline managements seeking or already pocketing concessions is staggering. At first it was airlines on the financial brink such as Delta, United and US Airways that sought take-backs. Then, predictably, management at other carriers began smelling blood and seeking concessions, such as Alaska Airlines management, which is threatening to outsource mechanics jobs and slash thousands from the flight attendant and pilot union contracts. Or Hawaiian Airlines, which, despite earning profits, remains in bankruptcy and is demanding concessions from union workers.

The cuts are devastating. Flight Attendants at US Airways were once among the highest paid in the industry, with solid work rules and vacation practices won through decades of union struggles. Now, after two rounds of concessions, they are at best in the middle of the industry. The number of vacation days were cut almost in half, work rules slashed, pensions taken away, and wages went far below carriers such as Southwest. Under the recently approved US Airways mechanics agreement, almost half the jobs will be contracted out and people remaining will work harder for far less money.

Where does the power of the employer come from? To be sure, the bankruptcy courts have consistently sided with management, gutting contracts and stealing pensions. And the federal government, with the business-dominated National Mediation Board, is hostile to labor. Yet despite these obstacles, given the shaky finances of some of these carriers, even the threat of the strike gives the union the enormous power to force a company out of business.

The Association of Flight Attendants put out a call for a nationwide strike in the event a bankruptcy court voided the union contracts. This call, while militant and followed up by strike votes at several carriers, did not result in any strikes. Why? Because few workers are willing to risk putting an airline in bankruptcy out of business.

The real power of management lies in the fact that workers are competing against themselves – in a race to the bottom that guarantees working people will not win. Here, the lesson is what we have learned before, when the United Food and Commercial Workers led the race to the bottom in meatpacking in the 1980’s and when the United Auto Workers was decimated as locals competed for jobs.

That is why the Association of Flight Attendant’s call for a strike of all airline workers was so refreshing and met which such enthusiasm among frontline fighters throughout the airline industry. The rules of the game are set up for failure. What is called for is industry wide solutions, forcing industry wide standards, and newer and more militant tactics. Just like many times in the past, anti-union courts and politicians may claim these tactics are illegal. But just as in the old mineworker slogan went, “You can’t mine coal with bayonets,” you can’t run the airline industry without airline workers.

It is good that the AFL-CIO’s top officials are finally talking about the urgency of organizing, about streamlining the AFL-CIO, and making the unions more relevant. Ignored for years, these are key elements to restoring labor’s power. But as the example of the highly unionized airline industry shows, density is not enough. At the end of the day, the key question is how can workers win battles that will improve the lives of working people.

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