Over 2,000 United Airlines Catering employees organizing with UNITE HERE—75% of workforce—file for unionization

Catering workers are the airline’s only non-managerial, frontline workers who do not have a union

Over 2,000 United Airlines Catering Operations employees organizing with UNITE HERE have filed for a union election with the National Mediation Board (NMB), the government agency responsible for overseeing labor relations in the railway and labor industries. This number represents about 75% of United’s Catering Operations’ 2,700 employees in five cities: Newark, Houston, Denver, Honolulu, and Cleveland.

Catering Operations workers are the only non-managerial, frontline workers directly employed by United Airlines who do not have a union. Nationwide, 80% of the airline’s 88,000 employees are union members, including pilots, flight attendants, baggage handlers, and mechanics.

CEO Oscar Munoz has worked to develop positive relationships with the company’s labor unions, settling contracts in 2016 with most unionized work groups. As such, of United’s Catering Operations employees see unionization as a path to equality with other direct employees who are working in the company’s union jobs. Their efforts to unionize have been endorsed by over fifty federal, state, and municipal elected officials. See the complete list at: equalityatunited.org.

Once authorized by the NMB, the union election at United Catering will be one of the largest in the Newark, Houston, and Denver labor markets in over a decade.