Union's High-Flying Victory

It's been overshadowed by the United Auto Workers strike against General Motors, but organized labor earlier this month scored its biggest private-sector organizing coup in more than two decades when ticket agents and reservation clerks at United Airlines voted to join the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM). The vote adds to the union fold more than 18,000 workers who made wage concessions to United in 1994 in exchange for company stock. That agreement is up for renegotiation in 2000.