Delta CEO Ed Bastian swiftly and succinctly dismantled a poorly-researched tweet by U.S. Senator and Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders (D – VT).
I routinely cover airline CEO correspondence on Live and Let’s Fly and I do not think I have ever seen a more effective letter than what Bastian just sent to Senator Sanders.
The controversy started when headlines remerged about an anti-union flyer put out by Delta encouraging employees to spend $700/year on a video game system rather rather than union dues.
Sanders took to Twitter to condemn Delta and also penned a letter signed by 12 other Democratic U.S. Senators concerning the unionization at Delta.
Delta told employees to buy video games instead of forming a union. What a disgrace.
Delta's CEO made nearly $22 million in 2017 while paying ramp agents as little as $9/hour.
I say to Delta: Stop trying to undercut workers' right to form a union and negotiate for better wages. https://t.co/8fx30jIfJf
— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) May 9, 2019
Mr. Bastian, you earned almost $40 million in the last two years while paying workers who make Delta Air Lines arguably the most financially successful airline on the planet as little as $9 per hour. Thousands of your employees live paycheck to paycheck and seek IAM representation to better their lives. Instead of allowing Delta workers to decide whether unionizing is right for them free from your influence, you have directed your management to actively interfere with the efforts of your workers to decide this question for themselves.
Bastian took particular umbrage at the $9/hour accusation, which he argues is outright wrong. But let’s take a step back. First, Bastian begins with a concession to Senator Sanders:
I agree that the communication recently cited by the IAM – a year-old flyer that was in our breakrooms and removed after a week – was poorly crafted and not an appropriate communication to our people. That’s not who we are, and we have taken steps to make sure future messages to our people regarding their choices on representation are always meaningful and respectful of their rights.
Notice two things First, Bastian downplays the video game flyer by saying it was over a year old and voluntarily removed before any controversy arose. Second, her at leasts gives lip service to giving employees the choice of whether to unionize or not.
Bastian then continues by showing, via bullet point, how well Delta treats its employees. I find each argument effective and persuasive:
That said, facts matter. Delta is and always will be pro-people. That commitment shows in our track record:
- Total annual compensation for our people, 80,000 strong, has increased by 80 percent since 2008. I’m unaware of any company our size that can make a similar statement. We’ve given 10 pay increases over the past 10 years.
- In the past 5 years, our employees have seen their base pay increase by more than 30 percent on average.
- Delta provides strong, middle-class jobs. Your tweet that ramp agents earn $9 per hour is simply wrong – starting salaries are nearly double that rate. And at the top of scale, after 12 years of service, our airport agents and flight attendants earn $74,000 and mechanics earn $121,000 annually. Across the board, these are the best-rewarded airline employees in the world. Rightfully so.
- We have the best profit-sharing plan in our industry and likely throughout America. Effectively 15 percent of the profits of our company go to employees, in addition to their salary. We paid $1.3 billion in profit-sharing last February – our 5th year in a row with payouts in excess of $1 billion. No other company in this country can make that claim.
- Our industry-leading 401(k) plan offers up to a 9 percent contribution from Delta, including a 3 percent company investment and, on top of that, a 6 percent dollar-for-dollar match when the plan member contributes 6 percent.
- When Delta faced bankruptcy a decade ago, we were the only airline that fought to retain our people’s pension plans. It required an act of Congress, including a unanimous vote by the U.S. Senate, to approve a rule change that preserved the accrued benefits our people had earned. We have funded $7 billion into our plans over the past 5 years.
- Delta is hiring more than 5,000 team members every year. We receive hundreds of thousands of applications from people wanting to join our family, because we are known as the airline of choice that takes the best care of its people.
- Our people, who have many career options, choose to invest their time with us. Our average attrition rate is below 5 percent, significantly under the national average, and average seniority is 16 years.
For good measure, Bastian adds:
I’m proud that Delta has consistently been named a “Great Place to Work” in recent years by organizations like Fortune, Glassdoor and Indeed. We also have been named by Fortune among the best workplaces for diversity and women.
CONCLUSION
I appreciate that Bastian did not simply ignore the false charge. He was right to counteract it. And even if the disparity between what Bastian earns and what employees earn continues to widen, the “trickle down” approach is indeed working at Delta…there is no question about it. Delta employees I speak to are thrilled to work for Delta…simply thrilled. Delta is absolutely anti-union, but it is not anti-employee.
Just curious, but when, if ever, did you last vote in a November general election where you personally voted for the Democrat to be President instead of voting for the competing Republican running for President on the very same ballot?
Are you under the impression that Mathew is under the federally mandated number of votes for a Democratic Presidential candidate?
@GUWonder: 2016.
Your point?
Matthew, I always appreciate your excellent summaries. However, please look at the whole picture. Look at the thousands of employees that work Delta flights who are not considered Delta employees, yet do the exact same work for Delta while receiving far less pay and a fraction of the benefits. These include DGS employees who do much of the ramp and gate agent work (even at hubs!) and regional partners (who operate roughly 45% of Delta’s flights). The picture there may not be as pretty as Ed Bastian paints…
I think what Bernie is referring to with his comment about ramps agents making $9/hour is the employees of Delta’s wholly owned subsidiaries such as Delta Global Services (DGS) and Endeavor Air. Ed Bastian leaves out some key details about his treatment of the employees at his wholly owned subsidiaries in his rebuttal to Bernie Sanders. These employees receive almost non of the benefits outlined in Bastian’s bullet point “facts” and are certainly not always made to be felt like they are part of the Delta “family.” Delta recently stripped DGS employees of their flight benefits and pilots at Endeavor Air continue to fight for better career progression to mainline, a standard at American’s wholly owned subsidiaries. Some food for thought on how Bastian could have told a more accurate truth here.
Bastian is a weasel and has zero integrity. Further, he’s cherry picking facts.
This is an impeccable example of mixing the general and the specific.
Delta’s management has (rightly) decided that the best way to run their business is have good, well paid, well trained, and happy staff. As a result (in combination with other good strategic choices, Delta business is very successful and profitable. So *at this time with this management* deltas employees don’t desperately need a union.
But other workplaces and other management do treat their staff much worse. Other airlines currently do the same.
And it’s too late to start the union *after* all the good conditions, good pay and enjoyment of the job have been taken away by a change in management.
I look forward to Bernie Sanders’ response. Will he apologize or counter?
“Her at least.” I think it’s “he at least.”
people know i’m no DL defender by any stretch of imagination, but this time gotta side with Ed here. Just about every idea on the entire platform the village idiot from Vermont were poorly-researched before he opens his beak, and the same can also be said the nut jobs on the fringe left who support him.
It’s not about rehashing 2016. The selfishness of the fringe left is the thing that destroyed democracy as a construct for America. That’s larger than any single individual’s candidacy is worth.
Claiming that the “fringe left” is what destroyed democracy in America is truly one of the most asinine statements I’ve seen on this site
Came for the airline coverage, left because of the politics.
I don’t think that Matthew really took a side on the matter. It’s news for both airlines and for politics and reading it as either on a site pertaining to either still seems valid to me.
Give Sanders a break. He may have early dementia. Trump certainly does. Early dementia people have bad judgment and often get fixated on one thing. Trump sees something on TV then gets fixated on it.
Mr. Bastian’s statement is only looking at a convenient truth. Zooming out to the whole operation, there are thousands and thousands of people that work Delta flights who are not considered Delta employees. Despite doing the exact same work as their Delta counterparts, they receive far less pay and a fraction to none of the benefits. Examples include Delta Global Services (DGS) employees who do a large portion of ramp and gate agent work (even at hubs like DTW). And then there are the regional airlines (who operate nearly FOURTY FIVE PERCENT of Delta’s flights and hundreds of aircraft). So while the CEOs retorts may apply to the 80,000 people labeled Delta employees, it’s hardly accurate of all the people who operate and serve the Delta brand every single day.
Regardless how you feel about Delta, Sanders’ comments were uninformed and inappropriate.
Sanders is way past retirement age and is too old to be President (same with Biden and Trump). Some old people have very mild dementia that causes them to have bad judgment (but not repeat the same question over and over –yet). Sanders is one of them.
After 12 years of employment, a 35 year old FA can make $74,000. That is sweet. FA often sit around. Some do not have good public relations skills. Mechanics have a technical skill and make $121,000. That is sweet. Some doctors in crowded cities don’t make that much, especially if they see Medicaid patients.
Unions are important but $700 in dues is a lot of money. Unions are flush with cash. They should bargain their dues to be less then the union would probably be a good idea.
@UA-NYC yeah the “fringe left” hasn’t destroyed democracy in America. Yet.
Congrats that your boy 45 has lit the Constitution on fire and then wiped his ass with it.
Calls for universal healthcare, cleaner energy, etc? Call me crazy, not too terrible, good for almost everyone.
Every time I hear ppl like UA-NYC, I want to get up and start to sing Soviet anthem…NOT!
Of note: born in the USSR, grew up in East Berlin, GDR….Heard all that socialist nonsense already….
..
I love the MAGA types decrying socialism while also enjoying Medicaid/Medicare and collecting Social Security.
Oh sweet irony…
“That’s not who we are” is the apologetic part of the response. This phrase is oft repeated: is it in Chapter 1 of ‘PR Spin for Shysters”? That’s exactly who you are: you wrote it/approved it and it circulated for a year before you were called out on it.
Yet the response doesn’t contradict anything Bernie said. Delta did make the horribly condescending flyer, which is really the tip of the iceberg in terms of the crap they’ve done to discourage unionization. They also pay some workers as low as $9. Bastian can run a bunch of big numbers by you, but it doesn’t fundamentally contradict anything Bernie tweeted. So, from that perspective, responding was a boneheaded move. It only gives Bernie more attention and it highlights a really stupid move on Delta’s part. You really need to be up Bastian’s ass to think this was smart.
Also – ever hear of the free rider problem? Do you really think Delta is handing out this extra compensation because they really love their employees that much? No. They just really don’t want a union, so they know they need to throw in enough comp to make it not worth the effort to form a union. In other words, the rank and file at Delta owe their extra compensation in large part to the concessions unions at AA and UA were able to wrangle. Do you really think Bastian would have all these superficially impressive numbers if AA/UA didn’t have unions?
And FWIW, I don’t like Bernie. Some OK ideas, but too much baggage and we have had enough grumpy, geriatric white guys in the WH.
Let’s be honest, Bernie, Beto, Biden…there are simply too many old, white men running for President that add no diversity to the nomination. I mean these guys aren’t even gay. Zero diversity. And there are plenty of other candidates who are female, black, gay, Native American, etc. I’d like to know why these three are standing in the way of history.
Oh, so now you’re siding with management?! Scab!
Biden is a child groper so you can count that in your diversity tally.
Which candidate is Native American?
nice article.. Ed and Delta seem to be on the left side of the political scene and UNIONS AT ALL COSTS !! I agree with Ed they do not need the bad influence that unions will bring to them… If you want a business destroyed bring in the UNIONS>> look at American and the mechanics slowdown union acts!!
UA-NYC no one is destroying Medicare or Caid get your liberal left -sided facts straight vs believing FAKE news
DELTA HAS THIS SOCIAL SECURITY “OFFSET” FOR RETIREE’S ! WHEN YOU RETIREE UNDER THE THE OLD RETIREMENT SYSTEM PRIOR TO BANKRUPTCY , AS SOON AS YOU APPLY FOR YOUR SOCIAL SECURITY AFTER YOUR PENSION STARTS , DELTA TAKES APPROXIMATELY HALF OF WHAT YOUR SOCIAL SECURITY CHECK AMOUNTS TO FROM YOUR PENSION CHECK ! ALL OF US ORIGINAL DELTA EMPLOYEES GET HIT WITH THIS ! WE UNDERSTAND FORMER NORTHWEST EMPLOYEES GOT THEIR UNION TO FIX THIS WHEN THEY DO RETIRE FROM DELTA IF THEY ARE GRANDFATHERED ! THEY DO NOT GET HIT WITH THE OFFSET! GUESS THIS WAS A WAY FOR DELTA TO GET BACK THE 50% THEY HAD TO PAY WHILE WE WERE EMPLOYED ! SO UNIONS ARE SOMETIME VERY HELPFUL !
I like the fact that Sanders is making victims not victors its what the USA needs!!