A number of unions representing workers for oneworld airlines on Wednesday announced the establishment of the “oneworld labor council,” described by labor leaders at a Washington press conference as a loose confederation of work groups focused on combating threats to job security they say are posed by cross-border airline cooperation.

Transport Workers Union VP John Conley, speaking on behalf of American Airlines mechanics, said, “The [airline] partners in the alliance treat it as a de facto merger … We think that it’s in our best interest to partner.”

Rhys McCarthy, representing British Airways workers through the UK’s Unite union, added, “We kind of want to mirror what the airlines are doing … If we don’t, we’ll be in a position where we are always reacting to things within our nation states. But airlines don’t operate within nation states. They operate globally and so will we.”

Conley conceded that the oneworld labor council has “not created bylaws or a charter … We have established goals and some initial strategies. It’s still a continuing work in progress, but it has identity and it lives.”

The labor groups pledged to “extend all lawful support possible within national frameworks” to one another. Responding to a question from ATW about whether the council could be used to coordinate work actions across carriers to disrupt oneworld operations, Gabriel Mocho Rodriguez, representing the International Transport Workers Federation, said by email, “It depends on the kind of work group and the legal framework of the countries involved—but it is conceivable.”

Complete article in Air Transport World online