ATLANTA — Delta's roughly 15,000 pilots have voted overwhelmingly to authorize a strike, sending a significant message about their unhappiness with their current contract.
According to the Delta Master Executive Council, 96% of members cast a vote and 99% of those votes were in favor of authorizing a strike.
There remains major hurdles before any strike can actually take place.
According to the executive council, the federal National Mediation Board must "first decide that additional mediation efforts would not be productive and offer the parties an opportunity to arbitrate the contract dispute."
"If either side declines the arbitration, both parties enter a 30-day 'cooling off' period, after which pilots and management can engage in self-help - a strike by the union or a lockout by management," a release said.
The pilots are unhappy with their contract situation, and have staged several protest and picketing actions in recent months at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.
They say they are "working under pay rates, contractual provisions and benefits negotiated in 2016," and that negotiations that began in 2019 and then were delayed by the pandemic - before a restart earlier this year - have "dragged on for too long."
In a letter posted to the executive council website, the council's chairman Capt. Jason Ambrosi said, "The message we have sent to Delta management is unquestionable: we will strike if necessary. We demand, and have earned, a contract commensurate with the highly unique skill sets we provide to bring safe, professional, industry-leading service year-after-year. If offered anything less, we are ready to strike."
But, Ambrosi added in a statement, "Our goal is to reach an agreement, not to strike. The ball is in management’s court. It’s time for the company to get serious at the bargaining table and invest in the Delta pilots.”