IAM Reports ‘Significant Progress’ in Meeting with Delta

IAM representatives met this week with senior officials from Delta Air Lines to review the airline’s steps toward becoming a single carrier for representational purposes and other issues that have arisen. Attending the meeting were Transportation GVP Robert Roach, Jr., staff from various Grand Lodge departments, District 143 President Stephen Gordon and members of his staff.

“We discussed a broad range of subjects,” said Roach, “We made significant progress toward our ultimate goal of representing workers at the combined airline.”

Among the issues discussed were access to the Delta property to represent IAM members there and the timely handling of grievance matters. The meeting resulted in an agreement that District 143 would work directly with Delta’s Vice President of Human Resources to resolve these issues.

The meeting also allowed the IAM to respond to Delta’s allegations of employee harassment. The IAM informed Delta that the union had investigated the airline’s allegations, but had not uncovered any credible claims of harassment from Delta employees.  The IAM offered to investigate further if Delta provided specific instances of alleged harassment, but the Delta officials did not provide any details and indicated there have been no further complaints or negative reports.

“The Machinists Union does not condone harassment of any individual, especially those who we will ultimately represent,” said Roach.

Delta management indicated that they would provide additional information concerning all of the IAM’s inquires. Both parties agreed to set up another meeting shortly in a concerted effort to move the process forward.