On Thursday, the International Association of Machinists (IAM) posted a video on its website announcing that it has sent 125 people to go “door-to-door” to talk to Boeing workers in South Carolina about their upcoming NLRB election on April 22.
This comes on the heels of the union cancelling its attempt to unionize 20,000 flight attendants at Delta Air Lines due to signatures that the National Mediation Board stated were submitted “with fraudulent signatures in possible violation of federal law.”
In the Boeing video, IAM lead organizer Mike Evans states that the union has brought in 125 “IAM staff, volunteers, and community volunteers” to go door-to-door to Boeing employees’ homes.
The deployment of the IAM’s “blitz” strategy is nothing new.
In 2001, for example, when the IAM tried to unionize 15,000 of Boeing’s white-collar employees in Puget Sound, the IAM deployed more than 130 union organizers to conduct 7,500 home visits and still lost an election by 13,142 to 2,329 votes.
Whether or not South Carolina-based Boeing employees welcome the union organizers’ visits to their homes remains to be seen. However, it appears the success (or failure) of the home visits will be used as a gauge to detemerine the union’s next steps.
As with the Delta flight attendants, if the union does not feel there is enough support to proceed, the IAM’s lead organizer stated that the union “would consider withdrawing” (or cancelling) the election “just to fall back and educate more going forward.”
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