DALLAS — The Transport Workers Union is making another bid to represent about 7,900 baggage handlers and cargo agents at Continental Airlines Inc. after losing close elections the past two years.

The Continental ramp workers would be a prized catch for any union. The president of the Transport Workers says they are the biggest group of nonunion employees in the heavily organized airline industry.

Last year, the TWU got more than 3,300 votes but fell about 300 short of a majority.

It also lost by a slim margin in 2005. The union is back after a mandatory 12-month waiting period between elections.

Ballots went out Tuesday, and voting ends Jan. 9.

"These people should have a union," said James C. Little, the TWU's international president. "But if we don't win this one, maybe it has to be the Teamsters or the IAM — maybe it's not us."

The International Association of Machinists has positioned itself to step in if TWU loses again, but the IAM and the Teamsters have also failed in attempts to organize the ramp workers at Houston-based Continental.

Continental pressured all workers to take pay cuts in 2005, after the airline lost nearly $1 billion in five years. Ramp workers saw their wages cut nearly 10 percent.

They got 2 percent raises last year, but TWU and its supporters say that pilots and mechanics will get their lost wages back much sooner because they have unions to negotiate new contracts.

"They just blow us off," said Robert K. Rose, a customer service agent in Houston who has been trying to organize his co-workers for more than a decade. "Corporations today worry about stockholders and the numbers. It's up to employees to take care of themselves."

Julie King, a spokeswoman for the airline, said the ramp workers bore only their fare share of cost reductions in 2005.

"All of our employees participated in cost reductions up to and including our CEO," she said. "Our employees are also participating in a new profit-sharing program so that when the company does well, all of our employees are rewarded."

Continental paid $111 million in profit sharing this year, and King said the company expects to increase that by 30 percent to 40 percent next year.

As of Sept. 30, it had set aside $157 million for profit sharing, $59 million more than in the same period last year.

Continental earned $343 million last year — its best profit in six years — and another $491 million through the first nine months of this year.

The company has more than 40,000 employees.

Union organizers say it's difficult to judge where they stand as voting begins. They thought they would win last year.

TWU officials expect to win majorities at Continental's big hubs in Houston, Newark and Cleveland but are worried about smaller outposts.

Little, the international president, said that in small airports where there are just a handful of bag handlers and cargo agents, "bonds are tighter, and maybe management does special favors. We fell short in those bases last year."

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