Heartened by the presidential victory of Democrat Barack Obama, US airline labour is flexing its muscle as it prepares to recoup its concessions of recent years. At American Airlines, flight attendants have threatened to strike when they are legally allowed, and the airline’s pilots have pressed repeatedly for a federal declaration that their negotiations are at an impasse. And labour at normally placid Southwest Airlines has begun picketing.
William Swelbar of the MIT airline programme says: “Never before have we seen such a convergence of ‘amendable’ dates. Because so many of the present contracts were negotiated during bankruptcy, we have many contracts coming up in a close period.” This means that unions would be able to leverage their negotiations on progress at other carriers.

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