Against the Wind - National Air Traffic Controllers Association

188
1998
Against the Wind
20
Mar.
intended to do so with or without MEBA’s approval
and, on the way out of the meeting, directed Osborne
to file the injunction immediately.
Despite the protections afforded by the injunction,
a cautious Krasner
hired 24-hour armed
guards to protect the national
office in case MEBA
decided to launch a raid.
He also told employees
to take home
critical files. “I want
nothing in this office that
you think you’re going to
need in case they’re actually
successful,” he said.
“This union has to keep
running.” About $3 million
was shifted to different
accounts to make it
harder for MEBA to find.
“Walking around
my last days in office with armed guards and money
spread out across the country was kind of spooky,”
Krasner says now.
During this time, AFL-CIO general counsel
Jon Hiatt advised Osborne that the labor association
would not be inclined to grant NATCA direct affiliation
if the union broke away from MEBA. At Krasner’s
The AFL-CIO Executive Council votes unanimously to accept NATCA as
a direct affiliate to the union. Since the American Federation of Labor and
direction, Osborne replied that NATCA intended to
achieve independence and it believed direct AFL-
CIO affiliation was best for both organizations. He
added that, if NATCA was turned down, the union
was prepared to live with
that outcome.
But the tense period
passed without incident.
As part of a court-
“
ordered settlement in
— Former President Barry Krasner
June 1997, NATCA asked
its members to vote on the
issue of affiliation. Out of
the 6,044 ballots cast, 99
percent favored breaking
away from MEBA.
Having gained independence,
NATCA now
faced the formidable task
of persuading the mighty
AFL-CIO, which represented
some thirteen million
workers, to accept a union with less than 11,000
members as a direct affiliate.
Since the merger of the American Federation
of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations
in 1955, only twenty or so unions had achieved that
honor. Indeed, AFL-CIO policy discouraged direct
affiliations and there were just sixty-two by the time
Walking around my last
days in office with armed
guards and money spread
out across the country was
kind of spooky.
Congress of Industrial Organizations merged in 1955, it has accepted just
twenty direct affiliates.