How Flight Attendants Grounded Trump’s Shutdown
Sara Nelson, the flight attendants union leader whose strike threat helped end the government shutdown, speaks to Jacobin. “There are no labor rights without the right to strike.”
Andrew Caballero Reynolds / Getty
On Sunday, January 20, speaking at an AFL-CIO dinner honoring Martin Luther King, Jr, Sara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants (AFA-CWA), called for a general strike to end Trump’s government shutdown.
The following Friday, Nelson, a United Airlines flight attendant since 1996, told the media that flight attendants were “mobilizing immediately” for a strike of their own. A couple hours later, President Trump agreed to provisionally reopen the government for three weeks.
Nelson’s power moves have a backstory — and a future.
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