Machinists Union emerges as leader in US labor organizing

According to data from Bloomberg Law, the Machinists Union, an affiliate of the AFL-CIO, has emerged as the leading union in the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) union election victories in the United States over the past five years.

The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) won an impressive 314 union elections out of 422 held under the NLRB from 2018 through 2022, the highest number among the 58 AFL-CIO affiliate unions. IAM’s success can be attributed to the union’s proactive approach to organizing, which involves investing heavily in organizing campaigns and mobilizing its members and supporters to participate in these efforts. The Machinists Union has successfully organized workers in both traditional and emerging industries.

One of the benefits of union organizing campaigns is incentivizing employers to raise wages and improve benefits to prevent workers from joining a union. Employers are often hostile towards unions, viewing them as threatening their profits and power. This leads them to engage in union avoidance tactics, such as intimidation, coercion, and misinformation. However, when workers begin to show signs they are seriously attempting to unify their workplaces, employers may respond by offering better pay, benefits, and working conditions to prevent workers from joining a union.

This practice is known as the “union effect,” It has been shown to benefit not only union members but also non-union workers. By forcing employers to raise wages and improve benefits, union organizing campaigns help to establish better standards for all workers in a given industry or sector. Unification efforts positively impact the overall economy by reducing income inequality, increasing consumer purchasing power, and improving the overall quality of life for workers and their families.

The Machinists Union’s success in NLRB elections can be partly attributed to its proactive approach to organizing.

“The IAM set out to make growing our strength in numbers our first priority—and the results continue to show,” said IAM International President Robert Martinez Jr. “We are organizing in both our core industries and new ones, and we are so grateful to the IAM Organizing Department and organizers across our union for continuing to fight for justice on the job for new members.” .

The IAM recently committed to boosting organizing resources at its 40th Grand Lodge Convention in October 2022.

“I’m so proud of every IAM organizer for the job they do each and every day,” said IAM Organizing Director Vinny Addeo. “Our work is paying off for working people and we look forward to growing our capabilities even further.”

Make JetBlue a better place to work with a YES VOTE! 

We are all proud to work for JetBlue, and we work extremely hard to make JetBlue a successful airline, even though we have been placed in difficult circumstances over the last few years. 

We’ve worked through a pandemic and had our hours and pay cut; we’ve worked short because of extremely high turnover; we’ve worked with ground equipment in disrepair; we’ve worked with inexperienced supervisors in deteriorating working conditions; we’ve been dependent upon a management team and a company-controlled “Values Committee” that has hurt employee morale by taking away profit sharing, who lied about Labor Day a paid holiday, who abolished the lead classification and then removed the Lead, OPS and AGR premiums.

All that plus more has stressed GO CMs to the breaking point. If you have worked for JetBlue for a few years, you will realize that management teams come and go. Jetblue is OUR AIRLINE and WE can make JetBlue a better airline by having a CONTRACT. A contract that recognizes our value to JetBlue, so quality GO Crewmembers stay, and a contract that serves to attract new employees to JetBlue.

When we have a real and legal way to ensure that our voices are heard through collective bargaining rights, and a real way to hold management accountable when they violate OUR CONTRACT, only then will we have real power, and fairness at JetBlue.

THE “DIRECT RELATIONSHIP” LEAVES US POWERLESS AND TOTALLY DEPENDENT ON JETBLUE MANAGEMENT AND THE “VALUES COMMITTEE.” And, that’s why management and the “Values Committee” tell us to vote no. They like having all the power. They don’t want us to have the same RIGHT TO NEGOTIATE A CONTRACT, LIKE CEO ROBIN HAYES HAS. This is about GO Crewmembers having THE RIGHT to ensure that OUR IDEAS and OUR COLLECTIVE VOICE will not only be heard but will be RESPECTED. It’s about GO Crewmembers securing our wages, benefits and working conditions, so they cannot be changed by management anytime management wants.

THIS IS ABOUT US. THIS ABOUT HAVING A LEGALLY BINDING CONTRACT. DO YOU REALLY THINK THAT JETBLUE MANAGEMENT AND THE “VALUES COMMITTEE” WOULD BE PAYING SO MUCH ATTENTION TO US IF WE WEREN’T VOTING TO UNIONIZE RIGHT NOW?

We are just one YES vote away from making JetBlue a better place to work. That’s a fact. 

Flight Attendants Stand with JetBlue Ground Operations

Dear GO crewmembers:

Flight Attendants across the industry count you as family. We are inspired that you are voting to join the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) and our labor movement.

We have power together! Organized through our unions, we can negotiate to share in the profits we create at our airlines. You have the commitment of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, 50,000 members strong at 19 airlines, to stand with you every step of the way to a successful vote and your first contract at JetBlue.

Make sure you have a plan to get your vote registered for the IAM before voting closes on February 1, 2023. The IAM is a great union and you have so much to gain with IAM membership. We can’t wait to celebrate with you and work together for our future.

Vote to gain the right to negotiate for a contract with protections in black and white. Executives wouldn’t agree to do their jobs without a negotiated contract that confirms their pay and benefits; we shouldn’t either. Management makes promises about taking care of employees and doing “the right thing” for them. Even if you take management at their word, we know executives come and go in this industry along with their word. That’s why eighty percent of airline workers have chosen the protection of a union contract. A legally binding contract provides certainty and enables us to own our work.

We don’t need to tell you what a difference frontline workers make for our airlines. We are owed the respect of a union contract for our valuable contributions. We are not motivated by golden parachutes that pay whether we perform our jobs well or not; we are moved by the pride we take in a job well done, the means to provide for our families, and the joy we feel when taking care of others.

Unions allow us to take care of each other. We use our collective power to negotiate fair wages, humane schedules, health and safety on the job, and all the benefits of a union contract.

There is so much that may seem out of our control today, but there is a lot that can change for the better if we recognize the power of standing together. Growing inequality and corporate greed needs to be put in check. And that’s exactly what we will do together. Think about the power we have together as aviation workers. We have more public contact than almost any other industry, and we are the backbone of the whole economy. That’s a lot of power if we choose to use it.

Choose to gain the power of joining together for a strong future at JetBlue by voting to join the IAM.

Always remember, we are Stronger and Better Together.

In Solidarity,

Sara Nelson, 
International President, 
Association of Flight Attendants