Sara Nelson on the Drive to Unionize Delta Flight Attendants
The Political Scene | The New Yorker
The New Yorker
4.3 • 3.9K Ratings
🗓️ 6 June 2022
⏱️ 17 minutes
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Summary
Before the pandemic, Sara Nelson had emerged as one of the most visible leaders in the labor movement. The Association of Flight Attendants represents some fifty thousand workers and nearly twenty airlines, and, as the union’s international president, Nelson made regular appearances on CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, and Fox Business. During the pandemic, she became a critical voice amid reports of unruly and abusive passengers, urging Congress to pass greater protections for airline staff and pushing for restrictions on the sale of alcohol in airport terminals. “We’ve got a lot more work to do to get things under control,” Nelson tells Jennifer Gonnerman, who profiled her last month, “and make sure that people don’t think that when you get on a plane you get to punch the flight crew.” Organized labor is newly resurgent, with recent drives at Amazon making headlines. Nelson speaks about the push to unionize flight attendants of Delta Air Lines, which—if successful—would be one of the largest union wins in recent history, covering almost twenty-four thousand workers.
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| 1:23.7 | Sarah Nelson started working as a flight attendant in 1996. |
| 1:28.4 | She had a job with the United Airlines working out of Boston, where she roomed with other flight attendants. |
| 1:34.5 | I got an apartment with seven other women because that was the only way we could survive. |
| 1:40.5 | And started my flying career. |
| 1:42.5 | And about three weeks in, my fellow roommates got their first paycheck |
| 1:46.4 | and I was so excited to get it and called called my bank account was down to $12. |
| 1:53.0 | I remember like $12.51 or something like that. |
| 1:57.7 | So I went into the office and asked somebody, you got to help me, I didn't get my paycheck. |
| 2:03.1 | So the answer I started to get from the company personnel in the office there in Boston was, well, people get their paychecks at different times for different reasons. |
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