NEWARK -- The Teamsters want to organize 8,000 fleet service workers at Continental Airlines in a bid to push the number of unionized workers at the nation's fourth-largest airline past the halfway mark.
The time is right to organize ramp, cargo and customer services workers at the Houston-based company, International Brotherhood of Teamsters president Jim Hoffa said at a rally today.
Hoffa said his organization filed for an election with the National Mediation Board on behalf of the workers. He said American companies have been sustaining profit growth at the expense of their own workers for decades and the result is the best union organizing climate in at least 10 years.
"There's a backlash taking place in this country because workers have gone backward," Hoffa said at a rally near Newark Liberty International Airport, home to Continental's second-largest hub. "People are outraged by excessive corporate profits and executive salaries and they're fighting back."
The percentage of the 129 million U.S. workers represented by labor unions rose to a three-year high of 13.7 percent in 2008 from 13.3 percent in 2007, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The Teamsters, which have 1.4 million members, added 40,000 new members last year.
"We're definitely seeing more union activity in the airline and freight industries right now," said airline analyst Helane Becker, with Jesup & Lamont Securities. "They're testing the new administration to see if their election support will be rewarded."
Becker, who has a "buy" rating on Continental shares and owns none, said a similar union drive is under way to organize flight attendants at Delta Air Lines Inc. Workers who band together in labor unions bargain with employers as a group instead of individually.
The Teamsters estimate that 17,000 of Continental's 41,000 workers are unionized. They presently represent 3,975 mechanics at the nation's fourth-largest airline and are seeking a new contract for them.
Teamsters spokesman Galen Munroe says a "strong majority" of Continental's fleet service workers are interested in becoming union members.
"Your destiny is up to you," U.S. Rep. Donald Payne of New Jersey told the raucous crowd at today's rally. "Let's change Continental."
Several ramp workers told the capacity crowd how they and their colleagues are routinely denied light duty when they're injured or pregnant.
"This rhetoric is related to the union's attempts to once again organize our fleet services workers," Continental Spokeswoman Julie King said of those comments. "We've been through this before."
The election is the fifth attempt to organize fleet service workers at Continental in the last 13 years. Previous efforts never drew enough workers to be valid — more than half must cast ballots.
Hoffa is also speaking Saturday at an organizing event in Farmingdale, N.Y., for 1,700 school bus drivers. On Sunday, he'll be in Brooklyn with New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Newark Mayor Cory Booker to discuss pollution from trucks carrying cargo in and out of the Port of New York and New Jersey.
"In this desperate economy there's more interest than ever in unions, but workers have less leverage because so many people are competing for every job," said David Finegold, dead of the school of management and labor relations at Rutgers University.