The next day, a handful of air traffic controllers on the East Coast did not show up to work, briefly grounding flights in New York.

Nelson in her United Airlines uniform and Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia over her shoulder, blanketed the lefty internet. “Many of these people are fighting for our country right now, and we are not paying them.” The clip, with Ms. “Many of these people are our veterans,” she said, her voice wavering. Nelson spoke at Reagan National Airport in support of federal workers at airports. The suggestion drew commentary in publications as diverse as The Atlantic and Teen Vogue, and the liberal-leaning Salon put her in the same frame as the phenom congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: “The single most important pro-labor speech of the shutdown was not given by AOC,” read a headline. Nelson called for a general strike, an idea so radical that it has scarcely been invoked in public by the head of a national union in generations. Working together, the labor groups produced a series of increasingly alarming statements.Īt an A.F.L.-C.I.O. Nelson advocated for an aggressive response. As aviation unions met behind closed doors, Ms. Nelson, the president of the Association of Flight Attendants union, used social media and cable TV appearances to warn, loudly and effectively, of the dangers of not paying airport workers. Nelson had become something of a celebrity in her own right - harnessing the chaos of the government shutdown to certify her image as a rising star of the labor movement. But in the weeks leading up to the State of the Union speech, Ms. Sanders at an event on the 2016 presidential campaign trail, when the candidate was in the habit of having working people warm up his crowds. She waited in the reception area of his office until the independent from Vermont emerged, cracked a grin and bear-hugged her: the most powerful flight attendant in America. Seven hours before the State of the Union address, Sara Nelson went to Capitol Hill to visit Senator Bernie Sanders.

Basalt by Sarah L. Nelson