Over the past few years, the introduction of various unions for airline workers seemed like a tangible solution to protect the industry employees, especially as far as the part-time workers were concerned. The employers would benefit from sustainable workflows, whereas the workers would have their rights protected while also having access to a community of colleagues. However, quite soon, the unionized airlines realized that their economic status, as well as working conditions, were affected by the presence of unions.
For example, the process of hiring unionized employees may be more costly for a company, while the actual payment may remain unaffected, as the company’s profitability and income are divided among all the workers. For this reason, airline companies such as Delta are able to hire non-unionized flight attendants and provide them with a better salary due to the fact that non-union workers pay fewer federal taxes. Initially, the salaries of union members should have been higher and resulted in little to no difference in after-tax payments.
However, the primary reason behind eliminating the influence of unions concerns the corporate’s willingness to have more autonomy over business operations and employment. The airline industry, as the most heavily unionized industry in the US and globally, made it more difficult for employers to lower the workers’ wages. For this reason, employers who could previously benefit from underpaying part-time airport employees are now limited in terms of exposure to profit and higher salaries. As a result, the desire to minimize the unions’ influence is primarily catalyzed by the airline corporate representatives’ intention to take control over employee recruitment, taxation, and wage allocation in order to secure corporate benefits for the industry.