ABBREVIATIONS
APFAA - Association of Professional Flight Attendants Archives
JL - Janet Lhuillier private collection
MEM - Mary Ellen Miller private collection
PM - Paula Mariedaughter private collection
TLWLA - Tamiment Library Wagner Labor Archives
INTRODUCTION
1. Narrative derived from Elizabeth Skrondal, personal interview, March 18, 2005.
2. “Strike Report: U.S. Airlines under the Railway Labor Act” (Washington, DC: Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2007), 1–2.
3. Eric Klinenberg, Going Solo: The Extraordinary Rise and Surprising Appeal of Living Alone (New York: Penguin, 2013), 5.
4. Wendy Wang, Kim Parker, and Paul Taylor, “Breadwinner Moms,” Pew Research Social and Demographic Trends, May 29, 2013, available at http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2013/05/29/breadwinner-moms/, accessed June 2, 2013.
5. David Leonhardt, “The North-South Divide on Two-Parent Families,” New York Times, June 11, 2015, A3.
6. For a thorough analysis of the relationship between falling real wages and the reorganization of family life in global cities, see Saskia Sassen, “Economic Restructuring in the American City,” Annual Reviews of Sociology 16 (1990): 465–490.
7. Wage data for all airline trades from Trans World Airlines, Average Annual Wage Data from the Big 5 Airlines, date omitted but current to 1972, Tamiment Library Wagner Labor Archives, New York University (hereafter cited as TLWLA).
8. Kathleen M. Barry, Femininity in Flight: A History of Flight Attendants (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2007), 15–16.
9. McGuire v. Trans World Airlines, Inc., 535 F. Supp. 1283, No. 70 Civ. 3947 (IBW), May 10, 1982, 10–16.
10. Ibid., 17–18.
11. Ibid., 19–23.
12. Ibid., 49–53.
13. Georgia Panter Nielsen, personal interview, August 18, 2006.
14. Barry, Femininity in Flight, 111–114.
15. For a discussion of the economic differences between stewardess retirement benefits and those of male airline workers, see William Lindner, Letter to Fredric Simpson, June 12, 1974, TLWLA. See also McGuire v. Trans World Airlines, Inc., 10–16.
16. For a particularly sharp analysis of how cultural ideas about femininity rendered stewardesses’ labor invisible and in turn justified stewardesses’ disproportionately low wages, see the analysis of emotional labor in Arlie Russell Hochschild, The Managed Heart: Commercialization of Human Feeling (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983).
17. For a thorough analysis of the political economy of 1960s airline advertising, see Barry, Femininity in Flight, 176–179.
18. Ibid., 111–114.
19. Ibid., 169.
20. “Tentative Pact Reached at Continental Airlines,” New York Times, December 16, 1980, B19. Wages converted from 1980 to 2012 dollars using the rate of inflation based on the Consumer Price Index.
21. For a thorough analysis of the relationship between the family wage, sexism, and the modern middle class, see Dorothy Sue Cobble, The Other Women’s Movement: Workplace Justice and Social Rights in Modern America (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005).
22. Kim Phillips-Fein argues that big business’s rise to power in the 1970s borrowed elements of its mass media and political strategy from the leftist social movements of the 1960s. Thus, she uses the term “pro-business activism” to describe business’s new intervention in the 1970s. See Kim Phillips-Fein, Invisible Hands: The Making of the Conservative Movement from the New Deal to Reagan (New York: W. W. Norton, 2009), chap. 9.
23. For an especially apt use of neoliberalism as a historical category to contextualize deregulation, see the cogent discussion of “accumulation by dispossession” in David Harvey, The New Imperialism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), chap. 4.
24. For a summary of the political and economic context of the rise of evangelical Christian politics in the 1960s, see Lisa McGirr, Suburban Warriors: The Origins of the New American Right (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002), 217–261.
25. Bethany Moreton, To Serve God and Wal-Mart: The Making of Christian Free Enterprise (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009), 5.
26. Robert O. Self, All in the Family: The Realignment of American Democracy since the 1960s (New York: Hill and Wang, 2012), 17–46.
27. Data on pay cut proposal from “TWA/Ozark Proposed Merger and Its Effect,” Off the Line, Summer 1986, 13, Mary Ellen Miller private collection.
28. Christopher Lasch, A Haven in a Heartless World (New York: Basic Books, 1977).
29. Association of Flight Attendants Employee Assistance Program, Selected Results from a Survey of Flight Attendants’ Post 9/11 Views about Their Jobs and Careers (Washington, DC: Association of Flight Attendants, 2003).
30. Edward Epstein, “United Airlines Capitulates on Partners Issue: Full Benefits Worldwide for Gay, Lesbian Couples,” San Francisco Chronicle, July 31, 1999, final ed., A1; see also Harriet Chiang, “American Adds Benefits for Domestic Partners: Airline Joins United in Offering Full Coverage,” San Francisco Chronicle, August 6, 1999, final ed., A19.
31. For a detailed summary of the process that led to the rapid decline in union membership rates in the 1980s, see Jeremy Brecher, Strike! exp., rev., and updated ed. (New York: PM Press, 2014), 243–288.
32. Nicole Raeburn, Changing Corporate America from the Inside Out: Lesbian and Gay Workplace Rights (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2004).
33. Lisa Duggan, The Twilight of Equality? Neoliberalism, Cultural Politics, and the Attack on Democracy (Boston: Beacon Press, 2003), 50.
34. Dean Spade, “What’s Wrong with Trans Rights?” in Transfeminist Perspectives in and beyond Transgender and Gender Studies, ed. Anne Enke, 184–194 (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2012).
CHAPTER 1
1. For a thorough analysis of that history, see Kathleen Morgan Barry, Femininity in Flight: A History of Flight Attendants (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2007), 159, 165–173.
2. “Strike Report: U.S. Airlines under the Railway Labor Act” (Washington, DC: Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2007), 1–2.
3. Wage data for all airline trades from Trans World Airlines, Average Annual Wage Data from the Big 5 Airlines, date omitted but current to 1972, Tamiment Library Wagner Labor Archives, New York University (hereafter cited as TLWLA).
4. Anna Clark, The Struggle for the Breeches: Gender and the Making of the British Working Class (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), 198–215.
5. Ibid., 221–227.
6. For a thorough analysis of the labor strategies of airline ground crews, as well as wage data for ground service workers and machinists, see Liesl Miller Orenic, On the Ground: Labor Struggle in the American Airline Industry (Champaign-Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2009), 135–143, 191–209.
7. Margot Canaday, The Straight State: Sexuality and Citizenship in Twentieth-Century America (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2011), 142–152.
8. For a comprehensive analysis of the connections between Fordism, the suburban home mortgage, race, and sexuality, see Grace Kyungwon Hong, The Ruptures of American Capital: Women of Color Feminism and the Culture of Immigrant Labor (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2006), 67–106.
9. Elaine Tyler May, Homeward Bound: American Families in the Cold War Era (New York: Basic Books, 1988), 6–9.
10. Kathy Lynch, personal interview, August 16, 2006.
11. Janet Lhuillier, personal interview, March 19, 2008.
12. Trans World Airlines, Average Annual Wage Data from the Big 5 Airlines.
13. Janet Lhuillier, personal interview, March 19, 2008.
14. Kaye Chandler, personal interview, August 6, 2008.
15. Trans World Airlines, Advertisement, New York Times, date unknown, Winter 1970–1971, Paula Mariedaughter private collection (hereafter cited as PM).
16. Paula Mariedaughter narrative based on Paula Mariedaughter, personal interview, June 24, 2008.
17. Trans World Airlines, photograph, date unknown, likely Winter 1969–1970, PM.
18. On the Stewardesses for Women’s Rights, see Barry, Femininity in Flight, 174–210.
19. Mary Ellen Miller narrative based on Mary Ellen Miller, personal interview, March 19–20, 2008.
20. Barry, Femininity in Flight, 150–152.
21. The Air Transport Association quickly sued the EEOC for issuing this decision, blocking the EEOC from definitively denying that sex was a bona fide occupational qualification for the stewardess profession until 1968. See Barry, Femininity in Flight, 165–169.
22. Ibid., 169.
23. For a much more detailed analysis of gay men’s place in the history of flight attendant labor, see Phil Tiemeyer, Plane Queer: Labor, Sexuality, and AIDS in the History of Male Flight Attendants (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2013), 60–80.
24. Ibid., 109–135.
25. McGuire v. Trans World Airlines, Inc., 535 F. Supp. 1283, No. 70 Civ. 3947 (IBW), May 10, 1982, 11.
26. Phil Tiemeyer, “Male Stewardesses: Male Flight Attendants as a Queer Miscarriage of Justice,” Genders—Online Edition 45 (2007), available at http://www.genders.org/g45/g45_tiemeyer.html.
See also Phil Tiemeyer, “Manhood Up in the Air: Gender, Sexuality, and Corporate Culture in Twentieth Century America” (Ph.D. diss., University of Texas, Austin, 2007).
27. McGuire v. Trans World Airlines, Inc., 8.
28. Richard Wagner, personal interview conducted with Phil Tiemeyer, August 5, 2008.
29. Wage data from Agreement between Trans World Airlines, Inc. and the Flight Attendants in the Service of Trans World Airlines, Inc. as Represented by The Transport Workers Union of America, AFL-CIO, Signed July 29, 1976 (New York, 1976), 9–12.
30. William Lindner, Letter to Fredric Simpson, June 12, 1974, TLWLA.
31. For a detailed history of the differences between flight attendant and purser pay and the relationship between those differentials and the Equal Pay Act, see McGuire v. Trans World Airlines, Inc., 10–16.
32. Ibid., 8.
33. William Brigham, Letter to TWA flight attendants, December 4, 1970, TLWLA.
34. William Brigham, Letter to all pursers, December 4, 1970, TLWLA.
35. Peggy McGuire, Letter to Buddy Ledger, July 29, 1974; Peggy McGuire, Letter to Matty Guinan, July 30, 1974, TLWLA.
36. William Lindner, Memorandum to all American Airlines local TWU presidents, April 18, 1975, TLWLA.
37. Transport Workers Union Local 552 Executive Board, Mailgram to American Airlines flight attendants, date missing, likely third week in June 1975, TLWLA.
38. William Lindner, Letter to all Air Transport Division representatives, July 9, 1975, TLWLA.
39. American Airlines, Letter to all American Airlines flight attendants, September 2, 1975, TLWLA.
40. Association of Flight Attendants, cover letter for tentative agreement, January 31, 1976, TLWLA.
41. Transport Workers Union Local 552, Flyer titled “Your New Contract Gains,” May 1976, TLWLA.
42. Transport Workers Union Local 552, tentative agreement vote results, May 27, 1976, TLWLA.
43. Mike McGraw, “Tentative Agreement Averts TWA Strike,” Kansas City Star, June 5, 1976, Mary Ellen Miller private collection (hereafter cited as MEM).
44. Negotiating committee data from Transport Workers Union, “TWA Strike Deadline Near; U.S. Mediators Press Talks,” TWU Express, June 1976, 1, MEM.
45. Ernest Mitchell, Letter to Fredric Simpson, March 17, 1976, TLWLA.
46. Business Week, August 9, 1976, TLWLA.
47. Transport Workers Union, untitled tentative agreement summary, June 1976, New York, TLWLA.
48. Alice Hartmann, “Union Not Sure TWA Contract Will Pass,” Kansas City Star, June 8, 1976, MEM.
49. Ernest Mitchell, Letter to TWA flight attendants, June 11, 1976, TLWLA.
50. Mary Ellen Miller, personal interview, March 19–20, 2008.
51. Arthur Teolis, Letter to TWA flight attendants, June 14, 1976, TLWLA.
52. Mike McGraw, “Tentative Agreement Averts TWA Strike,” Kansas City Star, June 5, 1976, MEM.
53. Transport Workers Union Local 551 Executive Board, Letter to TWA flight attendants, June 7, 1976, TLWLA.
54. Transport Workers Union, Tentative agreement vote results, June 26, 1976, TLWLA.
55. Transport Workers Union Local 552 Executive Board, Letter to all TWA flight attendants, July 30, 1976, TLWLA.
56. Arthur Teolis, Letter to Ernest Mitchell, July 26, 1976, TLWLA.
57. Repps B. Hudson, “Convention Flights Threatened,” Kansas City Star, date unknown, likely July 20–23, 1976, MEM.
58. Flight statistics from The Official Airline Guide—North American Pocket Guide, April 1, 1974, courtesy of www.departedflights.com, available at http://www.departedflights.com/MCI74p1.html.
59. Petition from Kansas City–based TWA flight attendants to TWU Local 551, June 21, 1976, TLWLA.
60. Flyer for Los Angeles flight attendant layovers, author unknown, exact date unknown, likely late July/early August 1976, TLWLA.
61. Judy Marsalis, Letter to Ernie Mitchell, July 26, 1976, TLWLA.
62. Petition from TWA flight attendants to Ernest Mitchell, approximately July 28, 1976, TLWLA.
63. Transport Workers Union Local 552 Executive Board, Letter to all TWA flight attendants, July 30, 1976, TLWLA.
64. Transport Workers Union, Tentative agreement vote results, August 20, 1976, TLWLA.
65. Wage data from Agreement between Trans World Airlines, Inc. and the Flight Attendants in the Service of Trans World Airlines, Inc., pp. 9–12. All annual wage data presented here are based on an assumption that a flight attendant will be compensated for one thousand hours per year, which is the basic standard that many airlines use to evaluate the cost of “book rate” hourly wage rates in contracts. Individual flight attendants, however, may fly more or less than this number; thus it is a ballpark figure and not indicative of what every flight attendant took home. The one-thousand-hour pay figure remains constant throughout this book. Inflation data from the Consumer Price Index as calculated by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
66. D. J. Crombie, Letter to all union leaders at TWA, July 26, 1976; Transport Workers Union Local 552 Executive Board, Letter to all TWA flight attendants, July 30, 1976, TLWLA.
67. Committee for an Equitable Contract, flyer, Dallas, Texas, Committee for an Equitable Contract, 1975, Archives of the Association of Professional Flight Attendants, Euless, Texas.
68. Robert Callahan, Letter to Eastern Airlines flight attendants, date unknown, likely early 1977, TLWLA.
CHAPTER 2
1. I take the concept of the second shift from Arlie Russell Hochschild and Anne Machung, The Second Shift: Working Families and the Revolution at Home, rev. ed. (New York: Penguin Books, 2012).
2. Dorothy Sue Cobble, The Other Women’s Movement: Workplace Justice and Social Rights in Modern America (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004), 7–8.
3. Ibid., 139–143.
4. Ibid., 140.
5. Ibid., 140–142.
6. For a signature text by a labor historian and leader of the rank-and-file democracy movement, see Peter Rachleff, Hard-Pressed in the Heartland: The Hormel Strike and the Future of the Labor Movement (Cambridge, MA: South End Press, 1993).
7. For the broader historical context of the rank-and-file democracy movement, see Nelson Lichtenstein, State of the Union: A Century of American Labor (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002), chap. 6.
8. Janet Lhuillier, personal interview, March 19, 2008.
9. Gender data from Independent Federation of Flight Attendants (IFFA), “Peace and Goodwill, Bread and Freedom,” June 1, 1986, Janet Lhuillier private collection (hereafter cited as JL).
10. Mary Ellen Miller, personal interview, March 19–20, 2008.
11. Ernest Mitchell, Letter to Arthur Teolis, October 21, 1976, Tamiment Library and Wagner Labor Archives, New York University (hereafter cited as TLWLA).
12. Arthur Teolis, Letter to all TWA flight attendants, October 22, 1976, TLWLA.
13. Matty Guinan, Letter to Victoria Frankovich, Arthur Teolis, and Jim Tuller, October 27, 1976, TLWLA.
14. Traces of these affinity groups appear in Transport Workers Union Air Transport Division archive Box 112, Folders 3 and 4, TLWLA. During the summer of 1975, for example, flyers from a group called the Committee for a Fair Contract appear and then vanish. By early 1976, the flyers had the slogan “How Much More Can You Take” and may have been from the same or other dissident groups, TLWLA.
15. Elizabeth Metrick, Letter to Patt Gibbs, August 27, 1976, TLWLA.
16. Tommie Hutto-Blake, “TWU President’s Newsletter,” March 17, 1977, TLWLA.
17. Tommie Hutto-Blake, Letter to Kathy Knoop, February 4, 1977, TLWLA.
18. Tommie Hutto-Blake, Letter to Barbara Feeser, March 7, 1977, TLWLA.
19. Transport Workers Union Local 551, Summary of election results, February 8, 1977, TLWLA.
20. Transport Workers Union Local 551, Summary of election results, March 22, 1977, TLWLA.
21. Association of Professional Flight Attendants, Untitled newsletter, April 1977, TLWLA.
22. Transport Workers Union Local 552, Summary of election results, May 3, 1977, TLWLA.
23. “National Mediation Board Elections for Flight Attendants” (Washington, DC: National Mediation Board, 1976), TLWLA.
24. Work rule data from Transport Workers Union Local 550, 1972 contract negotiations dossier, exact date unknown; data current to 1972, TLWLA.
25. Ibid.
26. Line guarantee parameters from 1996–2001, 2001–2006 Agreement between United Air Lines, Inc. and the Flight Attendants in the Service of United Air Lines, Inc. as Represented by The Association of Flight Attendants (Chicago, 1996), 50.
27. “Continental Airlines Debtor-in-Possession Emergency Work Rules Highlights,” in “Oversight Hearing on Effect of Bankruptcy Actions on the Stability of Labor-Management Relations and the Preservation of Labor Standards,” Hearing before the Committee on Education and Labor, U.S. House of Representatives, October 5, 1983, 29.
28. Independent Union of Flight Attendants, Summary of opening contract proposal to Pan Am, December 1977, TLWLA.
29. Independent Union of Flight Attendants, Contract settlement summary, April 1979, TLWLA.
30. Independent Union of Flight Attendants, Contract settlement summary, June 1979, TLWLA.
31. Negotiations under the Railway Labor Act normally happen only after union contracts expire. APFA moved to speed up the bargaining process to get cash in flight attendants’ hands as quickly as possible. See Association of Professional Flight Attendants, Letter to American Airlines flight attendants, July 27, 1977, Archives of the Association of Professional Flight Attendants, Euless, Texas (hereafter cited as APFAA).
32. Robert Crandall, Letter to American Airlines flight attendants, July 11, 1977, APFAA.
33. Work rules varied by carrier but reflected APFA’s bargaining goals by the mid-1980s. Only Pan Am, for example, had a truly “four-tier” reserve system, but American and United implemented seniority-based multi-tier rotating systems. American eventually implemented a low-time “on availability” system for flight attendants who wanted to fly less. US Airways allowed reserves to “pass” on the reserve list to tailor their schedules to individual tastes for hours worked and layover destinations.
34. See, especially, David Montgommery, The Fall of the House of Labor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), chap. 5.
35. Strikes, nevertheless, did happen under the RLA; airline workers spent over twenty-two hundred days on strike in the 1970s. Airline management thus used a second strategy to improve its hand against unions during walkouts. Because the federal regulation of the airlines in 1933 explicitly banned new entrants from joining the marketplace, blocking banks and wealthy individuals from starting airlines to cherrypick TWA and its peers, the big carriers were immune to losing market share to upstarts during protracted strikes. All that the airlines needed to accomplish to weather labor unrest was find the money to keep paying bills when walkouts blocked them from selling tickets. To do this, airline management invented the “mutual aid pact” in 1958. The administrations of all the regulated airlines agreed to pony up cash to a general fund based on the size of their operations. If employees walked out, the struck airline would automatically be entitled to cash payments to cover lost revenue. Compensation was based on the solvency of the fund, and by the mid-1970s airlines could expect to recover 35 percent to 50 percent of their normal operating income in a no-strings-attached grant, making it much easier for management to sit back and wait for striking employees to run out of money. Data from “How Airlines Make Money by Not Flying: Facts about Inter-airline Strike Subsidies” (Washington, DC: Air Line Pilots Association, date unknown, approx. 1974), APFAA.
36. Background data on expedited negotiations from “Collective Bargaining in the Airline Industry, Report 546” (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics, 1979), 4, APFAA.
37. “Record for 1977,” 630 News, March/April 1978, 3, Mary Ellen Miller private collection (hereafter cited as MEM).
38. “Text of Accelerated Negotiation Agreement,” 630 News, March/April 1978, 3, MEM.
39. “Company’s Opening Proposals,” 630 News, March/April 1978, 4, MEM.
40. “IFFA’s Opening Proposals,” 630 News, March/April 1978, 5, MEM.
41. “IFFA Negotiating Committee Members,” 630 News, March/April 1978, 8, MEM.
42. “New Contract Improvements,” 630 News, November/December, 1978, 1, MEM.
43. Mike McGraw, “Tentative Package Reached; Flight Attendants, TWA Settle on Early Agreement,” Kansas City Star, July 14, 1978, MEM.
44. Contract negotiator and soon to be IFFA president Vicki Frankovich published an exhaustive, moment- to-moment analysis of contract talks in IFFA’s newspaper, the 630 News. That series of publications, plus e-mail contact with Frankovich herself, provides the basic timeline here. See Vicki Frankovich, “Never Have So Few; Spent So Much; Only to Lose the Good Will of So Many!” 630 News, April 1983, 3, MEM.
45. Ibid., 3.
46. Ibid., 3–4.
47. Ibid., 4–5.
48. Kenneth M. Jennings, Labor Relations at the New York Daily News: Peripheral Bargaining and the 1990 Strike (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1993), 2.
49. Frankovich, “Never Have So Few,” 5.
50. This sequence of events is described in Frankovich, “Never Have So Few” and then reconfirmed in e-mail correspondence between the author, Miller, and Frankovich on March 24 and 26, 2009.
51. Mary Ellen Miller, personal interview, March 19–20, 2008.
52. Frankovich, “Never Have So Few,” 5.
53. Mary Ellen Miller, personal interview, March 19–20, 2008.
54. Ibid.
55. Data from pre-concessionary contract between General Motors and the United Automobile Workers in 1988 and adjusted for inflation. Data presented in Ruth Milkman, Farewell to the Factory: Autoworkers in the Late Twentieth Century (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), 25.
56. Flight Attendant wage data from Agreement between Trans World Airlines, Inc. and the Flight Attendants in the Service of Trans World Airlines, Inc. as Represented by the Independent Federation of Flight Attendants, Signed April 12, 1983 (New York, 1983), 12.
57. Janet Lhuillier, personal interview, March 19, 2008.
58. Independent Federation of Flight Attendants (IFFA), “Peace and Goodwill.”
59. Judith Stacey, Unhitched: Love, Marriage, and Family Values from West Hollywood to Western China (New York: New York University Press, 2011).
60. Elizabeth H. Pleck, Not Just Roommates: Cohabitation after the Sexual Revolution (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012).
61. Wendy Wang, Kim Parker, and Paul Taylor, “Breadwinner Moms,” Pew Research Social and Demographic Trends, May 29, 2013, available at http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2013/05/29/breadwinner-moms/, accessed June 2, 2013. For popular references to the study, see, for example, Catherine Campbell, “U.S. Women on the Rise as Family Breadwinner,” New York Times, May 29, 2013, B1.
62. Campbell, “U.S. Women.”
CHAPTER 3
1. I borrow the concept of a pro-business activist movement from Kim Phillips-Fein, who argues that business interests were successful in creating political change in the 1970s in part by borrowing political strategies from the progressive social movements of the 1960s. Kim Phillips-Fein, Invisible Hands: The Making of the Conservative Movement from the New Deal to Reagan (New York: W. W. Norton, 2009), chap. 9.
2. Ibid., 214–221. See also Robert O. Self, All in the Family: The Realignment of American Democracy since the 1960s (New York: Hill and Wang, 2012), 302–303.
3. “Continental Airlines Debtor-in-Possession Emergency Work Rules Highlights,” in “Oversight Hearing on Effect of Bankruptcy Actions on the Stability of Labor-Management Relations and the Preservation of Labor Standards,” Hearing before the Committee on Education and Labor, U.S. House of Representatives, October 5, 1983, 29.
4. Calculated at one thousand hours per year, the Emergency Work Rules starting wage was exactly the same as the average TWA flight attendant total compensation from 1957. But since the TWA flight attendant workforce was junior in the 1950s, the difference between starting and average compensations was quite small. Also, without any rigs, overall compensation at Continental would have been even lower than it seemed in 1983. Thus the average 1957 and starting 1983 wage make a fair comparison. Wage data from Trans World Airlines, Average Annual Wage Data from the Big 5 Airlines, date omitted but current to 1972, Tamiment Library and Wagner Labor Archives, New York University (hereafter cited as TLWLA).
5. Nelson Lichtenstein, State of the Union: A Century of American Labor, rev. and exp. ed. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2013), 214–245.
6. Thomas K. McCraw, Prophets of Regulation: Francis Adams, Louis D. Brandeis, James M. Landis, and Alfred E. Kahn (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of the Harvard University Press, 1984), 237.
7. “Savings and Loan Policies in the 1970s and 1980s,” Hearings before the Committee on Banking, Finance, and Urban Affairs, U.S. House of Representatives, October 1–3, 1990 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1990), 44.
8. Self, All in the Family, 248–275.
9. To understand how AEI and other conservative think tanks were selling a new political identity to solve the economic problems of the United States in the 1970s, see Jason M. Stahl, Right Moves: The Conservative Think Tank in American Political Culture since 1945 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2016).
10. Ibid.
11. Phillips-Fein, Invisible Hands, 215–216.
12. Stahl, Right Moves.
13. For a historical analysis of the foundations of airline regulation, see McCraw, Prophets of Regulation, chaps. 2 and 6.
14. For a summary of the functions of CAB regulation, see Lee James Van Scyoc, “Effects of the Airline Deregulation Act on Market Performance: Price, Capacity, and Profits” (Ph.D. diss., University of Nebraska, Lincoln, 1987).
15. Paul Ignatius, Testimony, “Regulatory Reform in Air Transportation,” Hearings before the Subcommittee on Aviation of the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation of the U.S. Senate, June 15, 1976, 1018.
16. Donald Nyrop, Testimony, “Regulatory Reform in Air Transportation,” April 4, 1977, 1484–1490.
17. John W. Snow, “The Problem of Airline Regulation and the Ford Administration Proposal for Reform,” in Regulation of Passenger Fares and Competition among the Airlines, ed. Paul W. MacAvoy and John W. Snow (Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute, 1977), 31.
18. William T. Coleman, Testimony, “Regulatory Reform in Air Transportation,” April 7, 1976, 229.
19. McCraw provides a thorough intellectual history and political genealogy of Alfred Kahn in Prophets of Regulation, chap. 6.
20. McCraw, Prophets of Regulation, 226. To understand the relationship between government regulation and Kahn’s theory of marginal pricing, see Alfred E. Kahn, The Economics of Regulation: Principles and Institutions, rev. ed. (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1988).
21. Kahn drew national attention for his success in using deregulation to bring down utility rates while leading the New York Public Service Commission. See McCraw, Prophets of Regulation, 243–256.
22. Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Testimony, “Regulatory Reform in Air Transportation,” April 6, 1976, 170–172.
23. Ibid., 163.
24. United Airlines, System Timetable, Effective April 27th, 1969 (Chicago: United Airlines, 1969), 59, available at http://www.timetableimages.com/ttimages/ua/ua69/ua69-30.jpg, accessed July 25, 2014.
25. Francis A. O’Connell, Prepared statement, “Regulatory Reform in Air Transportation,” April 1976, 1271.
26. Kennedy, Testimony, “Regulatory Reform in Air Transportation,” 163.
27. Snow, “Problem of Airline Regulation,” 31.
28. Kennedy, Testimony, “Regulatory Reform in Air Transportation,” 164.
29. Frank Lorenzo, Testimony, “Regulatory Reform in Air Transportation,” April 12, 1976, 513.
30. Ibid., 514.
31. Ibid., 516.
32. Ibid., 514.
33. Ibid., 510.
34. David R. Graham and Daniel T. Kaplan, “Airline Deregulation Is Working,” Regulation, May/June 1982, 32.
35. Independent Union of Flight Attendants, Newsletter for Pan Am flight attendants, June/July 1981, TLWLA.
36. Independent Union of Flight Attendants, Newsletter for Pan Am flight attendants, August/September 1981, TLWLA.
37. “Tentative Pact Reached at Continental Airlines,” New York Times, December 16, 1980, B19.
38. Bill Sing, “TIA’s Motion’s Gaveled Down at Noisy Continental Meeting,” Los Angeles Times, May 7, 1981.
39. “CAB Backs Texas Air on Its Bid for Continental,” New York Times, March 3, 1981.
40. Sing, “TIA’s Motion Gaveled Down.”
41. Ibid.
42. Tim Waters, “Continental Airlines Chief Is Found Shot to Death,” Los Angeles Times, August 10, 1981.
43. Ibid.
44. Bill Sing, “Continental: What Lorenzo Won?” Los Angeles Times, October 14, 1981.
45. Bill Sing, “Continental, Texas Air OK Financial Merger,” Los Angeles Times, July 14, 1982.
46. Associated Press, “Troubled Continental Ending All U.S. Flights till Tuesday,” New York Times, September 25, 1983.
47. “Continental Airlines Debtor-in-Possession Emergency Work Rules Highlights,” 29.
48. “Continental Air to Keep 4,200 on Job,” New York Times, September 26, 1983.
49. Thomas J. Lueck, “More Flights Cancelled in Strike at Continental,” New York Times, October 4, 1983.
50. “Continental Resumes Talks with Pilots,” New York Times, November 30, 1983.
51. Janet R. Jakobsen, “Sex + Freedom = Regulation: Why?” Social Text 23.3–4 (Fall/Winter 2005): 286.
52. Ibid., 292.
53. Kathi Weeks, The Problem with Work: Feminism, Marxism, Antiwork Politics, and Postwork Imaginaries (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2011), 54.
54. Ibid., 64.
55. Ibid.
56. Charles Murray, Losing Ground: American Social Policy, 1950–1980 (New York: Basic Books, 1984), 219–236.
57. Ibid., 160.
58. Ibid., 160, 158.
59. Ibid., 228.
60. To understand the pressures of long hours and declining pay on middle-class and professional families, see, for example, Arlie Russell Hochschild, The Time Bind: When Work Becomes Home and Home Becomes Work, rev. ed. (New York: Holt Paperbacks, 2001). To understand the impact on poor families, see Sandra Morgen, Joan Acker, and Jill Weigt, Stretched Thin: Poor Families, Welfare Work, and Welfare Reform (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2009).
CHAPTER 4
1. The sequence of events between Frankovich and Icahn were relayed in sworn testimony in front of the House Aviation Subcommittee during the November 21, 1985, proceedings for the hearing “Airline Mergers and Acquisitions: The Question of Labor Protection.” Testimony reproduced in “TWA/Ozark Proposed Merger and Its Effect,” Off the Line, Summer 1986, 13, Mary Ellen Miller private collection (hereafter cited as MEM).
2. For an interdisciplinary cultural analysis of financialization, see Randy Martin, Financialization of Daily Life (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2002); On the connections between the economic crisis of the 1970s and financialization, see Greta Krippner, Capitalizing on Crisis: Political Origins of the Rise of Finance (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2012).
3. Karen Ho describes this process as “the shareholder value revolution.” See Karen Z. Ho, Liquidated: An Ethnography of Wall Street (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2009), 123–129.
4. Ibid., 124–125.
5. Wall Street does not always react positively to news of layoffs. Amid fears that the economy is sliding toward recession, layoff news often causes share prices to decline. But with the focus on efficiency and labor unit costs in the 1980s, austerity measures brought increased value for shareholders. See Ho, Liquidated, 1–2.
6. The details of the TWA flight 847 were extensively covered in the newspapers and news magazines during the period. All details in this account were widely reported, and all appear in William E. Smith, “Terror aboard Flight 847,” Time, June 24, 2001.
7. Bryan Burrough, William Carley, John D. Williams, and Mark Zieman, “Texas Air Agrees to Purchase Trans World Airlines for $23 a Share in Cash, Debt, or $793.5 Million Total,” Wall Street Journal, June 14, 1985, eastern ed., 1+.
8. For an analysis of the M&A boom, see Ho, Liquidated, 133–150.
9. “To Regulate Attempts to Acquire Control of Airlines,” Hearing before the Subcommittee on Aviation of the Committee on Public Works and Transportation of the U.S. House of Representatives, June 6, 1985 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1986), 66.
10. “Continental Airlines Debtor-in-Possession Emergency Work Rules Highlights,” in “Oversight Hearing on Effect of Bankruptcy Actions on the Stability of Labor-Management Relations and the Preservation of Labor Standards,” Hearing before the Committee on Education and Labor, U.S. House of Representatives, October 5, 1983, 29.
11. Ibid.
12. To understand the historical roots of antibanking discourse, see Emily S. Rosenberg, Financial Missionaries to the World: The Politics and Culture of Dollar Diplomacy (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2004), chap. 2.
13. “To Regulate Attempts to Acquire Control of Airlines,” 55.
14. Narrative from Drexel Burnham Lambert, “High Yield Bonds,” April 24, 1985, white paper submitted as an appendix to “The Financing of Mergers and Acquisitions,” Hearing before the Subcommittee on Domestic Monetary Policy, U.S. House of Representatives, May 3, 1985 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1985), 388.
15. Icahn’s analysis from “Takeover Tactics and Public Policy,” Hearing before the Subcommittee on Telecommunications, Consumer Protection, and Finance, U.S. House of Representatives, March 28, 1984 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1984), 184–185.
16. Ibid.
17. “To Regulate Attempts to Acquire Control of Airlines,” 117.
18. All statistics from airline industry schedules are from The Official Airline Guide, the authoritative reference for airline schedules, as accessed through the widely referenced website www.departedflights.com. Aircraft and schedule information appears as presented by the airlines. Thus there may be some minor irregularities in the statistics I present because of the airlines’ own imprecision. See Official Airline Guide North American Pocket Guide Flight Schedules, April 1, 1974, and Official Airline Guide North American Desktop Edition, November 15, 1979, available at http://www.departedflights.com/oagintro.html, accessed June 10–15, 2010.
19. My analysis of the strategic and economic decline of TWA rests on layering TWA’s flight schedules from the 1970s over analysis of urbanization, financialization, and globalization in the work by Neil Smith, Saskia Sassen, and David Harvey on the 1970s. See especially Saskia Sassen, “Economic Restructuring in the American City,” Annual Reviews of Sociology 16 (1990): 465–490, and David Harvey, Spaces of Capital: Towards a Critical Geography (Edinburgh, Scotland: Edinburgh University Press, 2001).
20. Financial details of the Braniff-American 727-200 deal from John Nance, Splash of Colors: The Self-Destruction of Braniff International (New York: William Morrow, 1984), 153–154.
21. Official Airline Guide North American Edition, February 15, 1985, available at http://www.departedflights.com/oagintro.html, accessed June 10–15, 2010.
22. John D. Williams, “Icahn’s Group Plans to Make a Bid for TWA,” Wall Street Journal, May 22, 1985, 1.
23. Teri Agins and Mark Zieman, “TWA Holder Icahn Tops Texas Air Bid with $24-a-Share Cash-Preferred Offer,” Wall Street Journal, August 6, 1985, eastern ed., 1+.
24. William M. Carley, “Takeover Battle Nearly Ended in Secret Meeting, Aide to Icahn Says,” Wall Street Journal, August 16, 1985, eastern ed., 1.
25. “Financing of Mergers and Acquisitions,” 151.
26. Letter from Paul Volcker in “Issues Relating to High-Yield Securities (Junk Bonds),” Hearing before the Subcommittee on General Oversight and Investigations, U.S. House of Representatives, September 19, 1985 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1986), 8.
27. “Final Oversight Hearings on the Savings and Loan Industry in the 100th Congress,” Hearings before the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, U.S. Senate, August 2–3, 1988 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1988), 31.
28. Data for final Icahn transaction narrative from Daniel Hertzberg, “TWA Names Carl Icahn as Chairman but His Victory Is Seen as Bittersweet,” Wall Street Journal, January 6, 1986, eastern ed., 1+.
29. Jeremy Brecher analyzes the relationship between the antiwar movement and the labor movement in Strike! rev. and updated ed. (Cambridge, MA: South End Press, 1999), chap. 7.
30. See the discussion of Kim Phillips-Fein’s work in Chapter 3.
31. William M. Carley, “TWA Pilots Agree to Accept Pay Cuts of up to 20% if Icahn Acquires Airline,” Wall Street Journal, July 3, 1985, eastern ed., 1.
32. See note 1.
33. Ibid.
34. “To Regulate Attempts to Acquire Control of Airlines,” 127.
35. Cosmopolitan article excerpted in “Cosmo Glorifies Icahn,” Off the Line, Spring 1988, 14, MEM.
36. “IFFA Negotiations and the Sale of TWA . . . A Chronology,” 630 News, Spring 1992, 5, MEM.
37. Data and narrative of permanent replacement worker hiring from “TWA/Ozark Proposed Merger,” 13–14.
38. Ibid.
39. “IFFA Negotiations and the Sale of TWA.”
40. IFFA, “Flight Attendant Union Asks Our Help in Fighting Back,” flyer, July 1986, MEM.
41. “IFFA Negotiations and the Sale of TWA.” See also National Mediation Board, “Strike Report: U.S. Airlines under the Railway Labor Act” (Washington, DC: National Mediation Board, 2007).
42. Mary Ellen Miller thoroughly discussed the coordination of the “sweeper flight” missions in her personal interview, March 20, 2008.
43. The category of “breadwinner” dominates every IFFA strike publication. See, for example, “Los Angeles Strike Photographs,” Off the Line, March 1986, 13, MEM.
44. See, for example, “Marsha Smyser Agrees We Can Do It!” photograph, Off the Line, Spring 1989, 1, MEM.
45. Janet Lhuillier, untitled photograph, March 1986, Janet Lhuillier private collection.
46. Ibid.
47. IFFA, untitled photograph, Off the Line, exact date unknown, 1988, MEM.
48. To understand how conservatives approached the white working class through moral traditionalism, see the smart discussion of Richard Viguerie’s activism in Kim Phillips-Fein, Invisible Hands: The Making of the Conservative Movement from the New Deal to Reagan (New York: W. W. Norton, 2009), 215–216.
49. For a particularly clear way that a deserving, procreative, heterosexual working class is pitted against a nonprocreative and nondomesticated elite in a labor/left publication, see Francine Cavanaugh, A. Mark Liiv, and Adams Wood, “Boom: The Sound of Eviction” (Whispered Media, 2001), DVD.
50. The McCain-Palin campaign’s creation of “Joe the Plumber” and middle-class liberals’ revulsion at Joe the Plumber provide a stark example of how both elite conservatives and liberals assume that white working-class people are drawn to reactionary cultural politics.
51. IFFA Negotiating Committee, “IFFAGram,” April 8, 1986, 2–3, MEM.
52. IFFA Negotiating Committee, “IFFAGram,” April 29, 1986, 1, MEM.
53. IFFA Negotiating Committee, “IFFAGram,” May 2, 1986, 1, MEM.
54. IFFA Mailgram, May 18, 1986, MEM.
55. For a summary of Icahn’s legal campaign and IFFA’s defense against it, see “IFFA’s Strike-Related Legal Action,” Off the Line, October 1986, 1–3, MEM.
56. Trans World Airlines, Inc. v. The Independent Federation of Flight Attendants, 87-548, Supreme Court of the United States, 489 U.S. 426; 109 S. Ct. 1225; 103 L. Ed. 2d 456; 1989 U.S. LEXIS 1197; 57 U.S.L.W. 4283; 110 Lab. Cas. (CCH) P10, 946; 130 L.R.R.M. 2657, argued November 7, 1988, decided February 28, 1989, 3–4.
57. Dixie Daniels, personal interview, September 1, 2008.
58. For an analysis of the impact of financialization on pilots’ personal and professional lives, see “Flying Cheap,” PBS Frontline, Rick Young, dir., May 25, 2010.
59. The relationship between the rise of the service economy and the disappearance of the husband breadwinner is a key theme of Bethany Moreton’s To Serve God and Wal-Mart: The Making of Christian Free Enterprise (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009), especially chap. 7.
60. Data for Icahn’s 1987 privatization from William M. Carley and Teri Agins, “TWA Proposes $1.2 Billion Plan to Go Private,” Wall Street Journal, July 23, 1987, eastern ed., 1+.
61. Data on light bulb bond affair from Linda Sandler, “TWA $300 Million Notes Secured in Part by Light Bulbs,” Wall Street Journal, June 2, 1989, eastern ed., 1.
62. “Summary of TWA’s New Demands,” May 26, 1986, 1, MEM.
63. Charles Storch and Carol Jouzaitis, “United Execs Could Score Buyout Bonanza,” Chicago Tribune, September 23, 1989, 1.
64. Charles Storch, “Bankers Bring Down United Buyout,” Chicago Tribune, October 14, 1989, 9.
65. Narrative on the unwinding of the junk bond market from Drexel Burnham Lambert general counsel Richard J. Davis in “Leveraged Buyouts and Bankruptcy,” Hearing before the Subcommittee on Economic and Commercial Law, U.S. House of Representatives, March 1, 1990 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1991), 122–125.
66. Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, History of the Eighties—Lessons for the Future (Washington, DC: Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, 2000), 187.
67. Flight Attendant wage data from Agreement between Trans World Airlines, Inc. and the Flight Attendants in the Service of Trans World Airlines, Inc. as Represented by the Independent Federation of Flight Attendants, Signed April 12, 1983 (New York, 1983), 12, and 1996–2001, 2001–2006 Agreement between United Air Lines, Inc. and the Flight Attendants in the Service of United Air Lines, Inc. as Represented by The Association of Flight Attendants (Chicago, 1996), 24.
CHAPTER 5
1. Jeremy Brecher provides a labor history of the 1980s that places the rapid decline in union membership rates in the context of public policy shifts and a changing political economy. See Jeremy Brecher, Strike! exp., rev., and updated ed. (New York: PM Press, 2014), 243–288.
2. Nicole Raeburn, Changing Corporate America from the Inside Out: Lesbian and Gay Workplace Rights (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2004).
3. Kitty Krupat, “Out of Labor’s Dark Age: Sexual Politics Comes to the Workplace,” in Out at Work: Building a Gay-Labor Alliance, ed. Kitty Krupat and Patrick McCreery, 1–23 (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2001).
4. Margot Canaday, The Straight State: Sexuality and Citizenship in Twentieth-Century America (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2011), 137–173.
5. Flight attendant wage data from Agreement between Trans World Airlines, Inc. and the Flight Attendants in the Service of Trans World Airlines, Inc. as Represented by the Independent Federation of Flight Attendants, Signed April 12, 1983 (New York, 1983), 12, and 1996–2001, 2001–2006 Agreement between United Air Lines, Inc. and the Flight Attendants in the Service of United Air Lines, Inc. as Represented by The Association of Flight Attendants (Chicago, 1996), 24.
6. Association of Flight Attendants United Master Executive Council Negotiating Committee, Letter to the membership, April 9, 1996, Ed Sanford private collection.
7. The most widely circulated underground newspaper was called The IBS, a humorous reference to the “inflight briefing sheet,” the document that provides technical data to flight attendants for each trip. See, for example, “Bend-o, Bend-o; Bend-o Come and I Wanna Contract,” The IBS 3.2 (March/April 1997): 3, Beth Skrondal private collection.
8. James Ott, “United Remakes Itself for Global Competition,” Aviation Week and Space Technology 147.1 (July 7, 1997): 54.
9. Stan Kiino, personal interview, November 20, 2004.
10. United filed the suit in tandem with the Air Transport Association of American (the national lobbying group for all of the airlines) and FedEx. But because United was by far the wealthiest entity with the deepest pockets—and because activists learned that it was United’s management team that spearheaded the lawsuit—they chose to make United the target of the campaign.
11. Stan Kiino, personal interview, November 20, 2004.
12. To understand how conservative activists used social issues to gain control of political debate in the United States, see Donald T. Critchlow, Phyllis Schlafly and Grassroots Conservatism: A Woman’s Crusade (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007). To understand how the category of “social issues” shrank from a broad catchall to a direct referent of homosexuality and abortion, see Bethany Moreton, To Serve God and Wal-Mart: The Making of Christian Free Enterprise (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009), 118–120.
13. Elizabeth Birch, “HRC Corporate Equality Index Coverage: HRC in the News” (Washington, DC: Human Rights Campaign, 1997), available at http://www.hrc.org/pressroom/cei%5Fnews.asp, accessed December 4, 2004.
14. To make this argument about domestic partner benefits replacing the social safety net, I reference Janet Jakobsen’s argument that neoliberal reforms have shifted the United States “away from the state and toward the family.” See Janet R. Jakobsen, “Can Homosexuals End Western Civilization as We Know It?” in Queer Globalizations: Citizenship and the Afterlife of Colonialism, ed. Martin Manalansan IV and Arnaldo Cruz-Malave (New York: New York University Press, 2002), 56.
15. My argumentation about the transformation of LGBT identity in the age of neoliberalism is deeply informed by Lisa Duggan’s analysis of homonormativity and Miranda Joseph’s analysis of how the LGBT community operates as a supplement—in the Derridian sense—of capitalism. See Lisa Duggan, The Twilight of Equality? Neoliberalism, Cultural Politics, and the Attack on Democracy (Boston: Beacon Press, 2003), and Miranda Joseph, Against the Romance of Community (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2002).
16. For analysis of the demonization of women of color as sexually aberrant and “dependent” on the state, and the use of this dependency as an excuse to roll back the welfare state in the 1990s, see Nancy Fraser and Linda Gordon, “A Genealogy of Dependency: Tracing a Keyword of the U.S. Welfare State,” Signs 19.2 (Winter 1994): 314–319.
17. Joseph derives the concept of supplementarity from Derrida’s work in Of Grammatology. See Joseph, Against the Romance of Community, 2–3.
18. Ibid., 3–13.
19. To understand the specific political economic function of communal discourses on the terrain of neoliberalism, see Joseph’s discussion of production and performativity in ibid., 30–36.
20. Association of Flight Attendants Employee Assistance Program, Selected Results from a Survey of Flight Attendants’ Post 9/11 Views about Their Jobs and Careers (Washington, DC: Association of Flight Attendants, 2003).
21. Narrative derived from Elizabeth Skrondal, personal interview, March 18, 2005.
22. Stan Kiino, personal interview, March 15, 2005.
23. Air Transport Association of America, Airline Industrial Relations Conference, and Federal Express Corporation v. City and County of San Francisco, San Francisco Human Rights Commission, and San Francisco Airport Commission, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, Case no. 97–1763 CW, 992 F. Supp. 1149; 1998 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 4837; 158 LRRM 2138; 76 Fair Employment Practice case (BNA) 1108; Employee Benefits case (BNA) 1116, 10–13.
24. Ibid., 35–36.
25. Ibid., 28–34.
26. Wage data for all airline trades from Trans World Airlines, Average Annual Wage Data from the Big 5 Airlines, date omitted but current to 1972, Tamiment Library Wagner Labor Archives, New York University.
27. Elizabeth Skrondal, personal interview, March 18, 2005; Stan Kiino, personal interview, March 15, 2005; Jeff Sheehy, personal interview, November 20, 2004.
28. On the political economy of corporate marketing at Pride, see Susan Craddock and Alex T. Urquhart, “Target(ing) HIV Prevention,” in Queer Twin Cities, ed. The Twin Cities LGBT Oral History Project, 269–304 (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2010). See also Bob Witeck and Wesley Combs, Business Inside Out: Capturing Millions of Brand-Loyal Gay Consumers (New York: Kaplan Publishing, 2006).
29. Beth Skrondal, Stan Kiino, and Jeff Sheehy extensively discussed the civil disobedience rallies in their interviews. See also Crispin Hollings, personal interview, November 19, 2004, and Ed Sanford and Loyd Scobee, personal interview, March 18, 2005.
30. On the HRC’s role in the announcement and publicity for the boycott, see Jason B. Johnson, “S.F., Gay Rights Groups Support Boycott against United: Domestic Partner Rules Contested by Airline,” San Francisco Chronicle, December 15, 1998, final ed., A25.
31. To understand management’s Railway Labor Act case against American Airlines pilots, see American Airlines v. Allied Pilots Association, Order of Contempt, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, Wichita Falls Division, Case no. 7:99-CV-025-X. See also K. Fairbank, “Pilots Union Fined 45.5 Million for Sick-Out,” Philadelphia Inquirer, April 16, 1999, C1.
32. Both Stan Kiino and Beth Skrondal described their elation at arriving at the Geary Street Ticket Office to see swarms of flight attendants lining up and at having to persuade police to shut down additional lanes of traffic to accommodate the size of the protest. Both claimed that police estimated four hundred attendees, and both said that previous rallies had garnered about fifty participants.
33. Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, “Directory of Media Releases,” July 14, 1997, available at http://www.afacwa.org/default.asp?id=639, accessed March 8, 2010.
34. Stan Kiino, personal interview, November 20, 2004, and Kathy Lynch, personal interview, August 16, 2006. Kevin Lum discussed United’s partner benefits overture, and then its silence, in detail with me in Kevin Lum, personal interview, November 21, 2004.
35. Wage data comparisons from Agreement between Trans World Airlines, Inc. and the Flight Attendants in Service of Trans World Airlines, Inc. as represented by the Transport Workers of America, AFL-CIO, Signed July 29, 1976 (New York: Trans World Airlines, 1976) and Agreement between the Flight Attendants in Service of United Airlines as Represented by the Association of Flight Attendants, AFL-CIO, and United Airlines, Inc. (Chicago: United Airlines, 1997).
36. Details on the contract from Agreement between the Flight Attendants in Service of United Airlines.
37. Johnson, “S.F., Gay Rights Groups Support Boycott.”
38. To understand how urban institutions helped shore up collective bargaining as a basis for U.S. unionism during the progressive era, see Bruno Ramirez, When Workers Fight: The Politics of Industrial Relations in the Progressive Era, 1896–1916 (New York: Greenwood Press, 1978).
39. John Schmeltzer, “Some Partner Benefits Ordered in Airline Case,” Chicago Tribune, May 28, 1999, Chicagoland final ed., 3; see also Edward Epstein, “Airline Keeps Leases for Now: United Wins Ruling in Battle with S.F. over Partners’ Law,” San Francisco Chronicle, August 29, 1998, final ed., A15.
40. Reynolds Holding, “S.F. Partners Law under Fire Again,” San Francisco Chronicle, June 18, 1997, A14.
41. Sheehy and Kiino personal interviews.
42. Edward Epstein, “United Airlines Capitulates on Partners Issue: Full Benefits Worldwide for Gay, Lesbian Couples,” San Francisco Chronicle, July 31, 1999, final ed., A1; see also Harriet Chiang, “American Adds Benefits for Domestic Partners: Airline Joins United in Offering Full Coverage,” San Francisco Chronicle, August 6, 1999, final ed., A19.
43. Epstein, “United Airlines Capitulates.”
44. Economic information on the concessions from the December 2001 informational “roadshows” on the concessions at the San Francisco Airport Marriott. The author was present at all road shows and operated trips under the new and old work rules.
45. Wendy Wang, Kim Parker, and Paul Taylor, “Breadwinner Moms,” Pew Research Social and Demographic Trends,” May 29, 2013, available at http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2013/05/29/breadwinner-moms/, accessed June 2, 2013.
CHAPTER 6
1. Chantal Mouffe, The Democratic Paradox (London: Verso, 2000), 13.
2. Ibid., 99–100.
3. Michael J. McCarthy, “TWA Says It’s in Talks with Icahn to Trade Airline Tickets for Debt,” Wall Street Journal, January 12, 1995, eastern ed., A5.
4. TWA and affiliated parties filed dozens of lawsuits against Icahn over the Karabu venture. For legal background, see Trans World Airlines, Inc. v. Karabu Corp., U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware, Case no. 92-115, Adversary no. 96-40, 196 B.R. 711; 1996 Bankr. LEXIS 619; 29 Bankr. Ct. December 236, May 31, 1996.
5. “TWA/American Airline Workforce Integration,” Hearing before the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, U.S. Senate, June 12, 2003, 34.
6. “Family Ties, Shared Success,” Flagship News 57.3 (March/April 2001): 1+, housed at Association of Professional Flight Attendants Archives (hereafter cited as APFAA).
7. See Chapter 4 for a complete discussion of the ALPA picket crossover policy and the sale of TWA assets.
8. For a thorough, quantitative analysis of regional jet service in the United States, see Aleksandra Mozdzanowska, “Growth and Operating Patterns of Regional Jets in the United States,” Journal of Aircraft 42.4 (July/August 2005): 858–864.
9. All data are from the published online schedules of United, American, and Delta Airlines from a peak day in the summer travel season—Thursday, June 20, 2013. The data are compiled by a user on the popular enthusiast website airliners.net and became the central data set for technical discussion of all airline operational strategies for the summer of 2013. All data are from American, Delta, and United’s uploads to the Official Airline Guide, available at http://photos.airliners.net/aviation-forums/general_aviation/read.main/5750206/, accessed May 26, 2013.
10. This information came from a synopsis of the Reno Air affair by Holly Hageman, a former aide to American Airlines CEO Robert Crandall, which was posted on the official Allied Pilots Association Listserv. See Holly Hageman, “Dysfunctional Airline/Union Relations 101,” Allied Pilots Association Listserv, February 8, 1999, APFAA.
11. Pilots’ objections to Reno Air subcontracting are thoroughly summarized in Allied Pilots Association, “Special Report to the Membership,” March 15, 1999, APFAA.
12. Jane Allen, Letter to American Airlines flight attendants, February 10, 1999, APFAA.
13. American Airlines v. Allied Pilots Association, Order of Contempt, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, Wichita Falls Division, Case no. 7:99-CV-025-X, 3.
14. K. Fairbank, “Pilots Union Fined 45.5 Million for Sick-Out,” Philadelphia Inquirer, April 16, 1999, C1.
15. Hageman, “Dysfunctional Airline/Union Relations 101.”
16. Drew Engelke, “Reno Air: Overview of the Current Situation,” Memorandum from the Communications Committee of the Allied Pilots Association to all members, February 8, 1999, APFAA.
17. International Brotherhood of Teamsters, “Reno Air Teamsters Merger Committee Newsletter,” April 12, 1999, APFAA.
18. “TWA/American Airline Workforce Integration,” 65, 67.
19. Ibid., 10, 83–85.
20. “Airline Mergers and Acquisitions: The Question of Labor Protection,” Hearing before the Subcommittee on Aviation of the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation of the U.S. Senate, November 21, 1985 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1986), 22, 37, 63–65.
21. These seniority data were taken from a series of charts produced by APFA for union leaders. Many flight attendants interviewed for the book noted that the charts were widely circulated among front-line flight attendants either via union listservs or in management briefings. Data taken from Association of Professional Flight Attendants, TWA merger information packet for union leaders, approximately March 15, 2001, APFAA.
22. Tommie Hutto-Blake, Letter to the APFA Board of Directors, March 21, 2001, APFAA.
23. Susan French, Letter to John Ward, February 23, 2001, APFAA.
24. Susan French, Letter to Steve Moldof, February 19, 2001, APFAA.
25. Tommie Hutto-Blake, Letter to the APFA Board of Directors, March 18, 2001, APFAA.
26. Patt Gibbs, Letter to John Ward, March 3, 2001, APFAA.
27. Association of Professional Flight Attendants, “Resolution 4,” Minutes from the March 18 to March 22, 2001, Board of Directors Meeting, March 22, 2001, 1, APFAA.
28. Association of Professional Flight Attendants, “Resolution 4,” 2.
29. The March 22 Protocol demanded full company seniority for TWA flight attendants, recognizing their years of TWA service for pay and vacation purposes. APFA’s decision to deny TWA flight attendants’ classification seniority is ultimately what set TWAers up to be laid off.
30. For a particularly poignant example of the internal debates within unions during seniority mergers, see the arbitration decision from the 1982 merger of Republic Airlines and Hughes Air West: Arthur Stark, “Opinion and Award of Arthur Stark, Arbitrator, in the Seniority Integration Dispute between the Flight Attendants of Republic Airlines and the Flight Attendants of Republic West,” April 27, 1982, APFAA.
31. The Reno Air flight attendant seniority merger was itself an anomaly. In all previous mergers, flight attendants were awarded classification seniority at their new employer based either on their original date of hire or on a mathematical formula determined by a neutral arbitrator. In all of these cases, flight attendants got at least some actual bidding power from their years of service. In the Reno Air case, flight attendants got no seniority credit but were compensated in cash for their seniority. Though many flight attendants from Reno Air were angry about the deal, the severity of their case was mitigated by the overall junior status of all Reno Air flight attendants. Given that Reno Air was a new airline, its most senior flight attendant had flown for only six years. The TWA case was vastly different, as the most senior flight attendant had started in 1955, and 25 percent of TWA flight attendants had flown for over thirty years on the date of the American-TWA merger.
32. All TWA flight attendants interviewed for this project expressed anger and resentment at the IAM’s choice to voluntarily waive TWA flight attendants’ scope clause and Allegheny-Mohawk LPPs. For a particularly thorough and ongoing commentary on the situation, see the “Ladybug” newsletters of flight attendant Kaye Chandler and the transcript of her personal interview (August 6, 2008) for this book, Kaye Chandler private collection.
33. Robert Roach, Letter to John Ward, March 23, 2001, APFAA.
34. Robin Dotson, Letter to John Ward, April 18, 2001, APFAA.
35. Independent Union of Flight Attendants, “IUFA Update,” February 17, 1981, Tamiment Library Wagner Labor Archives, New York University.
36. Robin Dotson, Letter to Richard Kasher, April 20, 2001, APFAA.
37. Robert Roach, Letter to Robin Dotson, April 23, 2001, APFAA.
38. John Ward, Letter to Robin Dotson, April 23, 2001, APFAA.
39. John Ward, Letter to Robert Roach, March 26, 2001, APFAA.
40. Since seniority summits were required by federal LPPs, they took place in every merger until 1985, when the Department of Transportation stopped enforcing LPPs. The airline industry then entered an intense period of consolidation in 1986 and 1987, most notably with the Delta-Western, Northwest-Republic, Ozark-TWA, USAir-PSA, and American-AirCal deals. Seniority summits took place on a voluntary basis in all of those deals as management continued to use the LPP system as a basic standard. Mergers at the major airline level then tapered off until the late 1990s, when American’s unions avoided the summit system in both the TWA and Reno Air deals.
41. The National Labor Relations Board interprets and enforces the Wagner Act of 1935 and subsequent amendments. The board has no jurisdiction over airline workers because they are governed by the National Mediation Board, the interpreter and enforcer of the Railway Labor Act of 1926. The Riser case therefore has no official bearing on APFA’s treatment of American flight attendants. It was, however, regularly cited in APFA’s defense against the series of Duty of Fair Representation (DFR) lawsuits that Reno Air and TWA flight attendants filed against APFA and likely helped APFA win all DFR cases that have been decided to date. For more information, see Eleanor McNamara-Blad, et al. v. The Association of Professional Flight Attendants, Case no. 00-15846, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, filed January 11, 2002.
42. The text of the following NLRB decision thoroughly describes the legal precedents for the “time bind”: Riser Foods, Inc. and Douglas F. Schreiber, and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, AFL-CIO, Case 8-CA-21686, Case 8-CB-6465, National Labor Relations Board, November 30, 1992.
43. See http://www.iata.org/pressroom/facts_figures/traffic_results/Pages/2003-07-02-02.aspx, accessed August 2010.
44. Tommie Hutto-Blake, “All Call,” March 4, 2001, APFAA.
45. Since standard industry practice—and the APFA March 22 Protocol—would grant company seniority to incoming TWA flight attendants, and since they were a largely senior group, they would be comparatively expensive to employ. Denying classification seniority to TWAers would allow the company to furlough employees at the top of the pay scale, a cost savings that other carriers were prevented from exercising due to seniority language in their union contracts.
46. Association of Professional Flight Attendants, “Agreement Prohibiting the Leveraging of TWA-LLC against APFA,” December 17, 2001, APFAA.
47. Association of Professional Flight Attendants, “Agreement on Seniority Integration and Related Matters between American Airlines, Inc., and Association of Professional Flight Attendants Representing the Flight Attendants of American Airlines, Inc.,” December 17, 2001, APFAA.
48. For a thorough description of the legal battle that took place over the concessionary settlement of April 2002, see the court records for Sherry Cooper, et al. v. TWA Airlines, LLC, American Airlines, Inc., and the Association of Professional Flight Attendants, 02-CV-3477 (NG) (KAM), U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, 2005 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 41007, decided July 18, 2005. See also Ann M. Marcoux, et al. v. American Airlines, Inc., AMR Corp., and the Association of Professional Flight Attendants, 04-CV-1376 (NG) (KAM), filed November 13, 2006.
49. All of the data on TWA flight attendants’ age and seniority were collected, analyzed, and submitted to the court by Thomas DiPrete, a Columbia University professor contracted to assist TWAers in their class action age discrimination lawsuit against American and APFA. His research originally appeared as evidence submitted by the plaintiffs in the case Margaret Anthony et al. vs. AMR Corporation dba American Airlines and Association of Professional Flight Attendants. The age discrimination charge was later withdrawn and the claim rolled into the broader Sherry Cooper, et al. DFR lawsuit. That case was dismissed. TWAers’ only remaining claims against APFA remain in the Marcoux et al. DFR case. See Thomas DiPrete, Declaration in the Margaret Anthony Case, 1–5, available at http://www.justice4twa.com/pdf/Columbia%20University.pdf, accessed August 2010.
50. For an analysis of how corporations have embraced the workplace racial and gender diversity that was a consequence of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, see Frank Dobbin and John R. Sutton, “The Strength of a Weak State: The Rights Revolution and the Rise of Human Resources Management Divisions,” American Journal of Sociology 104.2 (1998): 441–476.
51. Roger Graham, personal interview, March 31, 2008.
52. Timeline and summary of the McCaskill interactions come from my personal interview with Roger Graham, who coordinated the Missouri effort.
53. For details of that commitment, see Claire McCaskill, Letter to former TWA flight attendants, October 30, 2006, APFAA.
54. Roger Graham, photograph, October 30, 2006.
55. “McCaskill Brokers Deal to Save 1,200 Jobs at American Airlines,” U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill, December 22, 2007, available at http://mccaskill.senate.gov/?p=press_releases.
56. “The McCaskill-Bond Amendment,” Association of Flight Attendants Official Website, Association of Flight Attendants–CWA, AFL-CIO, August 18, 2010, available at http://afaonevoice.org/images/McCaskill%20Amendment%20explanation%20FINAL%20for%20WEB.pdf.
57. Mouffe, Democratic Paradox, 99–105.
EPILOGUE
1. Dave Jamieson, “Virgin America Flight Attendants Vote to Join Union,” Huffington Post, August 14, 2014, available at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/13/virgin-america-union_n_5676228.html, accessed June 15, 2015.
2. Transport Workers Union, “Our Negotiating Committee,” available at http://www.twuvx.org/OurUnion/tabid/1493/Default.aspx, accessed June 24, 2015.
3. Transport Workers Union, “2015 Industry Pay Comparison,” available at http://www.twuvx.org/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=WcjWCV7SHFw%3d&tabid=1534, accessed June 24, 2015.
4. Anna Marie Erwert, “Depressing San Francisco Median Rent Map Shows Rents Up All over the City,” San Francisco Chronicle, March 9, 2015, available at http://blog.sfgate.com/ontheblock/2015/03/09/depressing-san-francisco-median-rent-map-shows-rents-up-all-over-the-city/, accessed June 15, 2015.
5. Jeanne Boydston, Home and Work: Housework, Wages, and the Ideology of Labor in the Early Republic (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), 30–55.
6. John D’Emilio, “Capitalism and Gay Identity,” in The Material Queer: A LesBiGay Cultural Studies Reader, ed. Donald Morton, 263–271 (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1996).
7. Colin Johnson, Just Queer Folks: Gender and Sexuality in Rural America (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2013), 85.
8. Ibid., 86–88.
9. For a cogent analysis of the consequences of the family wage for women workers, and for women’s participation in the labor movement, see Anna Clark, The Struggle for the Breeches: Gender and the Making of the British Working Class (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), 198–215.
10. Delta Airlines, “Ready Reserve Customer Service Agent,” available at http://www.delta.com/about_delta/delta_employment_opportunities/customer_services_reservations/rr_customer_services/index.jsp, accessed June 10, 2015.
11. As members of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Allegiant Airlines pilots were threatening to strike during the summer of 2015. The job action, held up in a legal dispute, had not been resolved as this book goes to press. Work rules are a core issue in the dispute, and perhaps the most hotly debated work rules issue is the VDB base program. Airline Pilot Central, the largest online discussion forum for professional pilots, has had extensive debate about the VDB program, and several VDB pilots regularly post updates about the work rules dispute there. See Airline Pilot Central Forums, Allegiant Air, page 38, July 27, 2014, available at http://www.airlinepilotforums.com/major/75731-allegiant-air-38.html, accessed June 15, 2015.
12. Pilots from across the Allegiant system discussed the frequency of multiple-month VDB assignments, and the stress that VDB basing puts on families, on February 25, 2014. Ibid., 201, available at http://www.airlinepilotforums.com/major/75731-allegiant-air-201.html, accessed June 15, 2015.
13. Bethany Moreton, To Serve God and Wal-Mart: The Making of Christian Free Enterprise (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009), 100–124.
14. To understand how the evangelical Protestant activists of the 1970–2000 period framed and advocated for the economic role that the nuclear family should play, see More-ton’s discussion in ibid., 114–115.
15. For a list of airlines represented by AFA-CWA, the largest flight attendant union, see Association of Flight Attendants–CWA, “Our Airlines,” available at http://www.afacwa.org/our_airlines, accessed June 10, 2015.
16. Jad Mouawad, “JetBlue Airways’ Pilots Vote to Join Union,” New York Times, April 23, 2014, B2.
17. “National Mediation Board Elections for Flight Attendants” (Washington, DC: National Mediation Board, 1976), Tamiment Library Wagner Labor Archives (hereafter cited as TLWLA).
18. Dante Harris’s narrative taken from Dante Harris, personal interview, August 17, 2006.
19. Frank Dobbin and John R. Sutton, “The Strength of a Weak State: The Rights Revolution and the Rise of Human Resources Management Divisions,” American Journal of Sociology 104.2 (1998): 441–476.
20. Kathleen Morgan Barry, Femininity in Flight: A History of Flight Attendants (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2007), 116.
21. Ibid., 118.
22. Pension termination data from Patricia A. Friend, “Protecting Pensions,” Testimony, Senate Finance Committee, June 7, 2005, Congressional Quarterly Congressional Testimony (Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly, 2005), 2. See also Bradley D. Belt, “Protecting Pensions in the Airline Industry,” Testimony, Senate Finance Committee, June 7, 2005, Congressional Quarterly Congressional Testimony (Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly, 2005), 2.
23. Terry Sousoures, personal interview, August 18, 2006.
24. “The Stewardesses Stripped 2007 Calendar” (Los Angeles: The Stewardesses Stripped, 2006).
25. Georgia Panter Nielsen, personal interview, August 18, 2006.
26. See http://www.rafa-cwa.org/RAFA/Welcome.html, accessed March 20, 2014.
27. Ibid.
28. Delta Airlines, “Ready Reserve Customer Service Agent.”
29. Port of Oakland, “Social Responsibility,” available at http://www.portofoakland.com/responsibility/, accessed June 20, 2015.
30. To understand how discriminatory and often illegal employment practices have become widespread in many industries, especially in the service and agricultural sectors, see Ruben J. Garcia, Marginal Workers: How Legal Fault Lines Divide Workers and Leave Them without Protection (New York: New York University Press, 2012).
METHODOLOGICAL APPENDIX
1. For a compelling theory of both the challenges and the opportunities of doing social research in the context of neoliberalization, see Avery Gordon, Ghostly Matters: Haunting and the Sociological Imagination (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997). See also Herman Gray and Macarena Gomez-Barris, eds., Toward a Sociology of the Trace (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2010).
2. For an analysis of the particular challenges of doing post-1973 history, see Kim Phillips-Fein, “1973 to the Present,” in American History Now, ed. Eric Foner and Lisa McGirr, 175–200 (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2011).
3. Mary Jo Maynes, Jennifer L. Pierce, and Barbara Laslett, Telling Stories: The Use of Personal Narratives in the Social Sciences and History (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2008).
4. Off-the-record conversation with a flight attendant before an interview; name withheld on request of the flight attendant. All other testimony about her activism is on the record.
5. The narrative of the fate of the IFFA archive was reconstructed from e-mail and phone conversations with Victoria Frankovich, Kaye Chandler, and Mary Ellen Miller. Particularly important in framing the fate of the archive was an e-mail volley I had with Frankovich in the fall of 2007. Victoria Frankovich, e-mail correspondence, November 15, 2007.