Demanding a Voice at Piper Aircraft

(Metropolitan Washington Council, AFL-CIO)

Rain didn't deter demonstrators protesting Piper Aircraft's anti-union campaign Thursday morning at a stockholder meeting for American Capital Strategies (which owns Piper) in Bethesda. Workers trying to organize a union with the Machinists charge the Piper's anti-worker management team has rung up dozens of unfair labor practice charges, bargained in bad faith and run a systematic campaign of harassment of union supporters. Machinists Strategic Resources Director Steve Sleigh said the company had run a "totally anti-union campaign," that included more strictly enforcing solicitation and distribution rules against union supporters, promising benefits to employees if they vote to get rid of the union and encouraging employees to sign a decertification petition even as management was supposedly bargaining in good faith. photo by Frank Larkin