Union organizers at Delta are lambasting management for not sticking up for flight attendants who wear Palestine flag pins. In fact, they’re publicly standing up for flight attendants who have been wearing Palestine flag pins.
- Several Delta employees have been spotted wearing Palestine flag pins
- At JetBlue, the airline explicitly updated its uniform policy to disallow this, and apologized to a customer over it.
- Delta remained silent in the face of complaints.
- And when a customer service agent working for Delta’s social media team acknowledged customer concern over it, that employee was reportedly fired, according to aviation watchdog JonNYC.
On the DL lapel pin issue. 1) the customer service agent who posted the Delta response is no longer with the company. 2) DL will have an release an updated uniform policy to cover issues like that moving forward
— JonNYC (@xJonNYC) July 11, 2024
For its part, Delta only says that the employee ‘no longer supports their social channels.’
On Wednesday, we removed a reply that was not in line with our values. We strive for an environment of inclusivity & respect for all, in our communities & our planes. The employee responsible no longer supports Delta’s social channels. We apologize for this hurtful post.
— Delta (@Delta) July 11, 2024
Here’s the Delta social media response:
Whether this racist post on Delta’s X account was approved or unauthorized, Delta must apologize and take steps to educate its employees about this type of dangerous anti-Palestinian racism. Bigotry against Palestinian-Americans is absolutely out of control in workplaces and at… pic.twitter.com/3wezN6W8iN
— CAIR National (@CAIRNational) July 10, 2024
The response in Delta social media was accurate that the Palestine pin appears to run afoul of Delta’s uniform standards not to wear “any clothing that conveys a message or advocates a position or cause other than Delta-sponsored programs or initiatives.” Delta has not publicly sponsored Palestinian statehood.
Contrary to some reports, though, Delta says that the pins do not violate their uniform standards and that the flight attendants involved have not been terminated.
Here’s the message from the Delta organizing chapter of union AFA-CWA. They claim that by not publicly standing up for an employee wearing a Palestine flag pin, they are failing to honor their values of inclusivity and respect and they are “encourag[ing] a hostile work environment.” (What about the work environment for flight attendants who do not support Hamas terror?)
The Delta AFA Steering Committee sent the following open letter to our leadership team, demanding decisive and public action in support of Delta Flight Attendants.
1/2 pic.twitter.com/ezYuNRybIj— DeltaAFA (@DeltaAFA) July 11, 2024
The union suggests that photographing of flight attendants stems from Delta cabin crew not having a union, but it’s more a function of modern society. People carry smartphones on unionized United, American, Southwest, and elsewhere. JetBlue flight attendants are unionized, and the airline expressly disallows these pins now.
AFA-CWA union head spoke out in favor of college anti-Israel protests, so my initial thought that ‘any opportunity to criticize the company’ is what’s behind this, I believe the union position here is more ideological than pragmatic.
My view is that it’s not unreasonable for an employer to prefer employees not wear flair that alienates customers, or makes them feel unsafe. And when it’s a crewmember on board an aircraft, passengers don’t have reciprocal rights to disagree with an employee’s expression. That’s problematic.
Delta is in a thicket, though, because whatever their beliefs on the matter they also operate a hub in Detroit and more than 40 percent of two cities in the Detroit region, Hamtramck and Dearborn, are Muslim and because they don’t want to give grist for AFA-CWA’s unionization drive. So they’re splitting the baby – all past Palestinian flag-wearing is fine, but going forward it won’t be permitted but not because there’s anything wrong with doing so, just because effective July 15 “only U.S. flags will be permitted to be worn on uniforms”
Update: Here’s detail on the new policy going into effect July 15:
I wrote to Ed Bastard about this and have yet to get a response. His staff is pretty miserable about responding. I suspect that I don’t get responses to my letters since, in my capacity as an attorney, I have sued Delta on behalf of clients. I probably should have just e-mailed Tim Dunn – at least he responds to every Delta-related post (even though most of his responses are total rubbish!)
Union scum being Union scum. And that in flight weirdo can GFIS.
Doesn’t anyone at Delta remember 9/11 2001?
Muslim terrorists killed almost innocent 3,000 Americans A number of the Muslims….
Doesn’t anyone at Delta remember what happened 10/7/2023? Palestinian terrorists, raped, murdered & kidnapped innocent Israeli’s.
The fact that the union is selling out America is awful. Remember when the AFL-CIO supported Solidarity & helping Eastern Europe throw off communism? No leadership these days…
The fact that Delta is selling out America is awful…
Delta needs a Robert Crandall or Herb Kelleher…. Not wishy-washy woke committee group-think. IT’s called Leadership. I can fly many airlines; I don’t care to fly airlines that ignore terrorism.
This is easy to me. Employees should not wear anything that is not part of their company’s uniform or is allowed in their handbook. That includes flags of foreign entities. Leave your personal politics at home.
I’m shocked that FA wore the pin on a flight to PBI. Geeze, talk about not very smart.
Then again, I have a bunch of gay friends who joined the “Gays for Palestine” movement, despite me trying to educate them (an ex is from Saudi)… Islamic nations do NOT do gays ** any ** favors, if they even let you continue to live and work. On a few work trips to the Middle East, I was warned by friends to not even get on the apps or gay websites as the police might come and arrest or stalk me. Sure enough, I didn’t listen – and got the nasty pop-up in Dubai that the site was blocked (wasn’t even p0rn)…. and got same warnings in 2 other nations (all blocked access).
*sigh*
@ David Muslims did not kill Do not a simulate everyone into one group. Under your logic white people killed 6 million Jews.
There are millions of Muslims in the world they all did not support nor participated in any terrorist acts.
A Palestinian flag pin on the DL flight attendant is no more a sign of support for terrorism than other national flags that I’ve seen worn by flight attendants on US airlines.
The fact of the matter is that a lot of people who hate Hamas and who would be hated by Hamas are very much concerned about the barbaric nature of the rogue Netanyahu regime and what it is doing to unarmed Palestinians in Gaza — the very Gaza that was majority women and minor children on October 7th 2023 and are paying the heavy price for the twin barbarism of the rogue Netanyahu regime and Hamas.
@Neal Z
Just burst put laughing (Tim Dunn portion) in a meeting and am now getting strange looks. Worth it.
The notion that someone that does business with 150 plus million customers per year expects a personal response is what is laughable. Yeah, I’ll respond to your concerns if you want.
I will say what I said before regardless of the airline or company.
And the AFA is, of course, going to jump on this when they can’t even get pay raises for the employees that pay its salaries. The idea that they will do anything for DL FAs is beyond laughable – but the AFA has proven it is far more whimper than anything else
Detroit metro has a sizable Arab and middle eastern population. This population is majority Christian. I think it’s fine to support people from your region, regardless of faith.
What cowards you are, Delta. What company wouldn’t want to fully align themselves with an organization that despite being self governed, launched an attack on Israeli civilians, killing over 1000, raping women, committing infanticide, and taking hostages? Then they use their own people as human shields, and continue to launch rockets against civilian targets, as they have done for decades.
What’s not to love? The democratically elected representatives of Gaza, ladies and gentlemen. If you support this, you are evil, and I won’t support any company that supports your juvenile leftist temper tantrum.
“Protesting Israel?” On a flight from West Palm Beach where there are scant few Israelis, but lots and lots of Jews. Let’s not pretend that this wasn’t aimed at antagonizing them and that this isn’t an expression of antisemitism.
“…effective July 15 “only U.S. flags will be permitted to be worn on uniforms”.
Considering the imperialistic tendencies of the USA, there are many that would find the “stars and stripes” equally disturbing.
James,
you do realize that, as a US flag carrier, all Delta, as well as American, United etc, aircraft have ONLY the US flag and the respective company’s livery?
I agree with some on here and that is if you are working stewardesses on flights, then you shouldn’t be allowed to wear any type of pins that aren’t sanctioned on your uniforms and you should also leave your political beliefs at home because Nobody wants to listen to you spouting off on stupid stuff
Great work, Tim, you missed the point entirely. I’m starting to agree with your numerous critics.
This Delta circumstance has zero to do with the demographics in some parts of Michigan.
Big US companies are not Muslim-kiss-ups. They tend to be neutral or even prejudiced against Muslims. Let’s not forget that it was DL’s predecessor that was the lead in CAPPS — the father of TSA haraSSSSment — a system that hit Muslim Americans disproportionately more than any other American demographic group.
TM should know Islamophobia sells better than “the Arabs here are mostly Christian (and sometimes even Jewish although more often Muslim than Jewish). So carting out the Muslim bogeyman is the order of the day. It sells better, and there has long been a relationship between the support for Likudniks — and Netanyahu in particular — and being Islamophobic or an Islamophobic Republican who wants to put more Clarence Thomas and/or Tr*mp types in power.
Just as much as antisemitism and the use of antisemitic tropes is racism, so is Islamophobia and anti-Arab bigotry. A lot of people should do better but just don’t.
I assume we are going to eventually see a push by flight attendants to see their employer more effectively counter the ability and/or willingness of passengers to photograph flight attendants and try to dox them online or otherwise try to harass or embarrass them.
If you long for a premium travel experience, please consider Delta for your next flight.
Delta should allow the flag if the flight attendant speaks Palestinian Arabic or Falahi. Otherwise, no.
The desire to control for regional dialect is just a sham to try to further limit the use of the flag pins, so it’s good Delta didn’t go there. But this will become largely moot on Delta after the ides of July.
James,
I get it completely. The US flag has all kinds of connotations. But Delta like every other US airline is a US flag carrier.
They don’t allow a bunch of extra stuff on their fuselage and they shouldn’t allow it on their employees.
GU is absolutely right that the notion that Delta sucks up to Muslims in Detroit is beyond laughable. First, 60% of the DL passengers that fly out of DTW are connecting. A large number of the crew members are commuters. We don’t even know where this FA was from. Two cities in the metro area does not shape policy.
People conflate national issues and politics with business.
It’s no wonder we have so many economically illiterate people in the US.
as for photographing employees, you can’t stop a customer from doing something. You can throw a fit if they do. In this case, the fact that the FA had a non-US flag would have come out. acting like a union is going to succeed at punishing passengers for using technology is the kind of stuff that comes from unions – and proves why they make everyone’s lives miserable and so precisely ZERO problems.
“I get it completely.” No, you didn’t!
“But Delta like every other US airline is a US flag carrier.” Irrelevant to my point.
Keep trying, maybe it will come to you.
I thought that the right was against “censorship”
I thought you guys were whining about everything being offended about everything nowadays?
What happened to that?
If this were a display of some fascist right wing cause and there was controversy about it, you all would be talking about their first amendment rights being violated.
If Delta is going to ban pins, it should also ban the American flag pin. Lots of people, myself included, sees the American flag as a fascist right wing symbol.
*I thought that the right was against “censorship”
I thought you guys were whining about EVERYONE being offended about everything nowadays?
What happened to that?
If this were a display of some fascist right wing cause and there was controversy about it, you all would be talking about their first amendment rights being violated.
If Delta is going to ban pins, it should also ban the American flag pin. Lots of people, myself included, sees the American flag as a fascist right wing symbol.
I mean, also, punishing your employees for opposing a genocide would seem to not be a great look.
*I thought that the right was against “censorship”
I thought you guys were whining about EVERYONE being offended about everything nowadays?
Remember being mad at “cancel culture” and “political correctness?”
What had happened? LOL!
If this were a display of some fascist right wing cause and there was controversy about it, you all would be talking about their first amendment rights being violated.
If Delta is going to ban pins, it should also ban the American flag pin. Lots of people, myself included, sees the American flag as a fascist right wing symbol.
The fact AFA is taking up the fact that customers photograph crew members is laughable. As said by a few here, how are they going to stop that?
Years ago during an IAM union campaign at my then employer, one of my gate agents got the crap beat out of her by someone who missed their flight. Suddenly she was the IAM poster person for “this is why you need a union!” I said flat out in an employee town hall that I’d give $100 to the first person to explain to me exactly how the IAM will stop a US military vet from Afghanistan getting drunk in an airport bar and missing their connection then using the excuse of PTSD to pick up and throw a gate agent over a counter. Oddly enough there was a lot of silence, and then accusations that wasn’t a fair question.
Delta is about as dumb as the white house political team. First, DL employees in the South are not going to unionize because they can’t wear Hamas pins. If anything they will be anti-union from what we’ve seen of the South plus their strong support for Israel. Second, the small minority of DL Muslim employees at DTW likely already favor unions (by virtue of being surrounded by UAW workers) so this isn’t going to influence them. Third, the O/D passengers in DTW and MSP are stuck with DL hub fortress and probably invested in their FF programs. They are not going to “boycott” DL based on a a new pin policy.
DL needs to grow some and remember who is paying their bills. Customers in ATL, NYC and elsewhere who strongly support Israel. And they should rehire the fired worker before they file a wrongful term case.
The Palestine national flag pin is not a Hamas pin. The Palestine national flag is not a Hamas flag any more than a US flag is a KKK flag — they aren’t.
This kind of situation with a flight attendant flag pin won’t have any impact on unionization matters at DL, but that is for reasons that have nothing to do with this flag pin situation.
About whether unions are going to want to protect employees from being doxxed or hung out to dry by customers?They would love to if they could do so, but it would be for way different reasons than just this flag pin situation driven by the ridiculously easily offended and those pretending to be offended but loving to exploit the situation anyway.
A Delta social media contact clown terrified of the Palestine national flag and of an American possibly exhibiting concerned about the barbarism going on in Gaza at the hands of the rogue Netanyahu regime? That’s their personal business if it’s not on company time and using company resources. But it’s company business when the Delta social media contact clown is hijacking the account to peddle fear of national flags, of the airline’s own employees and others. Whether it’s a firing offense or not, that Delta social media contact clown needs some education and check their bigotry before showing up to work instead of being a terrified snowflake encouraging the feeling of being terrified for questionable reasons.
@The Galley Llama
So, you thing the US lag is, “a fascist right wing symbol”?
Make yourself a one-way ticket to North Korea, the left-wing communist paradise!
North Korea’s “rocket man” “dear leader” is a favorite of Moe’s Lord Tr*mp.
@The Galley Llama “Lots of people, myself included, sees the American flag as a fascist right wing symbol.” Maybe a lot of the people you hang out with believe this. The vast majority of Americans don’t. I do not/would not wear a US flag pin. While I imagine those that do a more likely conservative (or a politician, left or right), to connect this to fascism makes all you say questionable. Would some here defend some right wing pin? Possibly, but I suspect most are like me: keep you politics of the FA uniform.
Wow, does no one spell check anymore?
Uniforms are not uniform if they are personalized. I don’t want to see anything on them political or not, pride flags, Palestinian flags, Mickey Mouse pins, whatever. We don’t discuss sex, religion, or politics with strangers because it can go downhill fast; that’s just being courteous. Why put that sh*t on your clothes, much less your employer’s uniform?
And FFS, Palestinian is not a race, it’s a nationality. People want to scream racism all the time, put it back in the deck.
Brand recognition is paramount in the eyes of the public. When one wears the uniform, or the ID of a company, they represent “the company”. They DO NOT represent their political, religious or other beliefs. If they do not like the company rules or the rules do not conform to their beliefs…then they can always get another job. The Coca-Cola Company, for instance, is really snotty about the use of the words, “Coke”, “Coca-Cola” and “The Coca-Cola Company”. Delta is NOT “Delta Airlines”. It is “Delta Air Lines” or more formally, “Delta Air Lines, Inc.” So the unions are just trying to stir up trouble because, like the teacher’s unions, all they want to do is to pad their bank accounts. The company has EVERY RIGHT to set the standards of dress and demeanor that represents the BRAND that the company wants to convey to THE CUSTOMER. To “The Galley Llama”, I am a Veteran. If you do not like the American flag and the values that it represents, then get out. I’ll buy you a one way ticket provided you sign an agreement to NEVER set foot in the US again. I served, as did many others, to give you the right to say what you want…right or wrong. But, try saying “fascist symbol” or other slur in the Middle East or dare say anything in Russia against their leaders. You would be in a stalag and never seen again.
DEI eating itself.
So if they speak German they get to wear a Nazi pin?
derek says:
July 11, 2024 at 8:04 pm
Delta should allow the flag if the flight attendant speaks Palestinian Arabic or Falahi. Otherwise, no
Hey, Moe!
What U.S. president visited the DMZ and shook hands with Kim who just had 30 teenagers executed by firing squad for watching South Korean entertainment? Yeah, Kim is left wing and you’re just another stupid Chump fool!
What is US lag?
A German national flag pin is not a Nazi flag pin any more than an Israel national flag pin is a Hamas flag pin.
Uniforms are very often personalized to some extent. That is why they sometimes have names or numbers on them to identify a person, a unit or skill set or location assignment.
Uniforms are uniform when they meet uniform standards — that doesn’t require everyone to be wearing the exact same thing without any differences related to the individual wearing the uniform.
Palestine is not a country.- never has been never will be, especially after 07/10. Palestine is a name made up by the UK for a certain area that encompasses many modern day countries. Palestinians support Hamas 100% as we saw on October 7 and subsequently imprisoning hostages in their homes. They also danced after the 9/11 attacks. There is no place for Hamas aka Palestine flag pins on airline uniforms. They are offensive and distract from the corporate mission. Good riddance to all the flag pin FAs!
Israel wasn’t there as a sovereign country until it became one due to the efforts of the people wanting there to be a Jewish majority state there (instead of in Africa as a bunch of Europeans considered). And Palestine was referred to as Palestine well before the British got it from the Ottoman Turks.
Hamas refused to allow for there to be any open elections for Palestinians in Gaza after they seized power. Thus the vast majority of today’s Palestinians in Gaza never even had a chance to vote for Hamas — and nowadays Hamas is very unpopular amongst Palestinians. So this nonsense about the Palestine national flag pin being a Hamas pin is baseless propaganda that is “liar, liar, pants on fire” more than it is the “truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth”.
Those who wear Palestin flag pis ARE supporting terrorism, whether they pretend they are or not. The majority of Palastinians support the terrorist group, HAMAS. HAMAS started this, NOT Isreal. HAMAS has been raping and killing Israeli women and killing Israeli children. HAMAS also hides behind Palestinian women and children and pretends it is all Israel’s fault. I am not blaming all Muslims, just those who want to kill Jews and Christians, an anyone else who does not believe as they do.
Palestine is run by a terrorist organization. It’s absolutely insane people think it’s cool to wear that in the work place.
The Palestinian Territories of Gaza and the West Bank are occupied and controlled by Israel — and not only since October 7th, 2023. Even before Hamas’ massive war crimes last year, Gaza was more or less run like apartheid-era South Africa ran the South African bantustans. Gaza was run like a bantustan by the very Hamas which Netanyahu materially supported for the benefit of Israeli right-wingers.
Israelis may have killed more Christians in the Palestinian Territories in the last 10 years than Hamas has killed in the same time frame. Israel has most certainly killed way more Palestinian women and children in the last 9 months than Hamas has killed Israeli women and children in the last 90 months.
The Palestine national flag is not the flag of a terrorist organization. Hamas actually has its own flag, and not only because Hamas hated what the Palestinian national flag represented.
Some people really seem to have fallen and hit their heads on the progressive woke pavement. There is 0 equivalence between Hamas, a terrorist group that intentionally commits mass rape, slaughter, kidnapping, infanticide and other gruesome crimes (and gloats about it and promises to repeat it again given the chance) and a professional Israeli military that tries to mitigate civilian deaths and regrets the loss of innocent lives in Gaza because of Hamas’ reckless use of civilian objects and civilians as shields. There is 0 equivalence between the intentional evils of Hamas and the regrettable loss of life because of an exceedingly difficult urban warfare.