Delta Airlines Crosses One Line Too Far in Union Busting

We create, develop, document and collaborate as users of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) from around the globe, usually by working remotely on the Internet. However, human beings have many millennia of evolution that makes us predisposed to communicate most effectively via in-person interaction. We don't just rely on the content of communication, but its manner of expression, the body language of the communicator, and thousands of different non-verbal cues and subtle communication mechanisms. In fact, I believe something that's quite radical for a software freedom activist to believe: meeting in person to discuss something is always better than some form of online communication. And this belief is why I attend so many FOSS events, and encourage (and work in my day job to support) programs and policies that financially assist others in FOSS to attend such events.

When I travel, Delta Airlines often works out to be the best option for my travel: they have many international flights from my home airport (PDX), including a daily one to AMS in Europe — and since many FOSS events are in Europe, this has worked out well.

Admittedly, most for-profit companies that I patronize regularly engage in some activity that I find abhorrent. One of the biggest challenges of modern middle-class life in an industrialized soceity is figuring out (absent becoming a Thoreau-inspired recluse) how to navigate one's comfort level with patronizing companies that engage in bad behaviors. We all have to pick our own boycotts and what vendors we're going to avoid.

I realize that all the commercial airlines are some of the worst environmental polluters in the world. I realize that they all hire union-busting law firms to help them mistreat their workers. But, Delta Airlines recent PR campaign to frighten their workers about unions was one dirty trick too far.

I know unions can be inconvenient for organizational leadership; I actually have been a manager of a workforce who unionized while I was an executive. I personally negotiated that union contract with staff. The process is admittedly annoying and complicated. But I fundamentally believe it's deeply necessary, because workers' rights to collectively organize and negotiate with their employers is a cornerstone of equality — not just in the USA but around the entire world.

Furthermore, the Delta posters are particularly offensive because they reach into the basest problematic instinct in humans that often becomes our downfall: the belief that one's own short-term personal convenience and comfort should be valued higher than the long-term good of our larger communityf. It's that instinct that causes us to litter, or to shun public transit and favor driving a car and/or calling a ride service.

We won't be perfect in our efforts to serve the greater good, and sometimes we're going to selfishly (say) buy a video game system with money that could go to a better cause. What's truly offensive, and downright nefarious here, is that Delta Airlines — surely in full knowledge of the worst parts of some human instincts — attempted to exploit that for their own profit and future ability to oppress their workforce.

As a regular Delta customer (both personally, and through my employer when they reimburse my travel), I had to decide how to respond to this act that's beyond the pale. I've decided on the following steps:

• I've written the following statement via Delta's complaint form:

  I am a Diamond Medallion (since 2016) on Delta, and I've flown more than 975,000 miles on Delta since 2000. I am also a (admittedly small) shareholder in Delta myself (via my retirement savings accounts).

  I realize that it is common practice for your company (and indeed likely every other airline) to negotiate hard with unions to get the best deal for your company and its shareholders. However, taking the step to launch what appears to be a well-funded and planned PR campaign to convince your workers to leave the