07 September 2005

Supervisors grill United Airlines passenger about union T-shirt

CWA convention delegate removed from aircraft for questioning; flight home to Vancouver delayed

A TNG Canada/CWA member returning home from a union convention in Chicago was summoned off a United Airlines plane and grilled about the T-shirt he was wearing in support of the company's flight attendants.

John Rufh didn't anticipate trouble at the airport when he purchased a T-shirt in support of the Association of Flight Attendants' battle with United Airlines over pension mismanagement.

John Rufh, secretary-treasurer for TNG/CWA Local 30403 British Columbia, says he was approached by a United Airlines supervisor shortly after taking his seat on the aircraft on Aug. 31 at O'Hare International Airport. "She asked if she could have a word with me off the plane. I was a little confused. I was asking myself what was wrong; perhaps someone I knew was sick. My father was ill at home and I was thinking the worst."

Once they were off the plane, the supervisor began questioning Rufh about his T-shirt, which has C.H.A.O.S. emblazoned on the front in large letters, with "Association of Flight Attendants" below. The supervisor asked Rufh if he knew what the shirt meant, whether he or a family member worked for United, and wanted to know why he was wearing the T-shirt.

“I simply told them I was wearing it in support of my brothers and sisters in the AFA fight against United Airlines with regards to their pension mismanagement.” Rufh had purchased the T-shirt at the 67th annual convention of the Communications Workers of America held in Chicago in late August.

Rufh was questioned in the boarding lounge by another supervisor. "They were quite upset that I was wearing the T-shirt and wanted to know why." He was allowed back on the plane only after another supervisor was called in to consult with the first two.

In a letter to United Airlines Customer Relations, Rufh writes that he returned to his seat "very disturbed and angry."

"Here I was," he writes, "a Canadian returning home from a convention being held in ... the strongest and biggest country in the free world and I was being held and questioned ... about a T-shirt. It would be understandable if I was in Cuba, or the Soviet Union, or some other Third World communist country. Or maybe if I was causing a problem, being loud or bothering fellow passengers.

"No, I was wearing a simple T-shirt; an ugly coloured T-shirt shirt with five simple letters (C.H.A.O.S.) that delayed an aircraft 15 minutes, and forever changed my view of a country whose apparent free speech and First Amendment is questioned."