[ UAW builds on a tactic—selective strikes—pioneered 30 years
ago by the Flight Attendants. It conserves the strike fund, which
would only last about 90 days if all workers were out. Not knowing
which plant will be struck keeps companies off-balance.]
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LABOR’S MILITANT CREATIVITY  
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Robert Kuttner
September 18, 2023
The American Prospect
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_ UAW builds on a tactic—selective strikes—pioneered 30 years ago
by the Flight Attendants. It conserves the strike fund, which would
only last about 90 days if all workers were out. Not knowing which
plant will be struck keeps companies off-balance. _

United Auto Workers on the picket line at the Ford Michigan Assembly
Plant in Wayne, Michigan, September 18, 2023, Deecee Carter/Mediapunch
/IPX // The American Prospect

 

Many observers have been impressed with UAW President Shawn Fain’s
astute strategy of using selective strikes, rather than calling all of
his members off the job. The strategy has three significant tactical
benefits.

First, it conserves the strike fund, which would only last about 90
days if all workers were out. This in turn lets management know that
the union can take a longer strike and increases the UAW’s
bargaining leverage.

Second, it also allows the union to inflict the most damage for the
least cost by taking advantage of supply chain vulnerabilities, as
when a key parts supplier or a plant producing popular cars in short
supply is shut down. Already, the shutdown of facilities that supply
other facilities has led GM and Ford to temporarily shut down two
assembly lines
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(The companies are denying laid-off workers the partial pay they
normally offer when idling plants, which the UAW has called a
strategic attack. The union has guaranteed those workers some income.)

And third, management not knowing which plant will be struck keeps the
companies off-balance.

As it happens, this original idea is not quite original to the UAW. It
was pioneered by the Association of Flight Attendants in 1993, in a
strike against Alaska Airlines, where negotiations had been dragging
on for three years in the face of huge company profits.

The flight attendants named their strategy CHAOS
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Around Our System.” They even trademarked the name.

I write about this tactic in more detail in a
forthcoming _Prospect_ feature piece on the Flight Attendants. Here
are the basics:

Because labor relations in the airlines are governed by the Railway
Labor Act, the union can call intermittent mini-strikes, with no
warning to management, designed to inflict maximum damage. If flight
attendants walk off the job just as a flight is boarding, the entire
system backs up, because of the airlines’ profit-maximizing strategy
of getting rid of all of the system’s slack—no spare planes, no
extra crews.

The first CHAOS strike took place at Sea-Tac Airport in August 1993,
when three flight attendants abruptly left an Alaska Airlines flight
just as passengers began boarding. Three days later, attendants walked
off the last Alaska flight out of Las Vegas. In September, AFA
targeted five flights simultaneously in San Francisco.

The 25 striking flight attendants all were summarily fired. But Alaska
could not withstand the chaos and the passenger loss of confidence. It
soon caved. So did AirTran, US Airways, America West, and Midwest
Airlines, on the eve of threatened CHAOS strikes. All the flight
attendants got their jobs back as part of the Alaska settlement.

Today, Alaska Airlines is again making record profits and is again
stonewalling the union. In August, there were picket lines at all of
the major airports served by Alaska. Flight attendants were joined by
their brothers and sisters from dozens of other union locals and
allied progressive groups.

The signs read, “Pay us or CHAOS.”

The UAW doesn’t have quite the same leverage. Under the National
Labor Relations Act, it cannot call intermittent strikes; the plants
currently out must stay out until an agreement is reached. But the
premise of keeping management guessing and using selective strikes
that cascade through their systems is familiar.

In today’s economy, the unions are going to need every bit of this
kind of militant creativity and solidarity, from airlines to autos to
trucking to warehousing to fast food.

_[ROBERT KUTTNER is co-founder and co-editor of The American Prospect
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and professor at Brandeis University’s Heller School.]_

_Read the original article at Prospect.org
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_Used with the permission. © The American Prospect
[[link removed]], Prospect.org, 2023 [[link removed]].
All rights reserved.  _

_Support the American Prospect [[link removed]]._

_Click here [[link removed]] to support the Prospect's
brand of independent impact journalism_

* Auto Strike
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* UAW Strike
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* UAW
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* autoworkers
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* United Automobile Workers
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* United Auto Workers
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* Flight Attendants
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* Strike Strategy
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* Ford
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* GM
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* General Motors
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* Stellantis
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* Shawn Fain
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* Labor Unions
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* Trade Unions
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* labor militancy
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