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Flight Attendant Unions Hold First-Ever Bargaining Summit |
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In the next two years, nearly 90,000 flight attendants in four unions at 18 U.S. airlines will be in negotiations for new contracts. Today, leaders and activists of the four unions began an unprecedented three-day bargaining summit in Washington, D.C., to map out contract strategy.
The unions—Flight Attendants-CWA (AFA-CWA), the Machinists (IAM), Transport Workers (TWU) and the unaffiliated Association of Professional Flight Attendants (APFA)—say their goal is to coordinate efforts to increase bargaining leverage and assist each other in raising industry standards for all flight attendants.
Meeting with leading academics, labor economists, consultants and lawyers, the union leaders will develop a bargaining blueprint and a system to share information and coordinate individual strategies, as well as strengthen their inter-union communications network. Union leaders also will lay plans to mobilize their members in support of their bargaining demands.
For the past several years, flight attendants and other airline workers have sacrificed pay, benefits and working conditions through a long series of bankruptcies, restructurings, layoffs and threatened liquidations.
US Airways flight attendants provided more than $154 million in concessions to keep the airline flying through a merger with America West Airlines, and Northwest Airlines flight attendants gave nearly $200 million in concessions as part of Northwest’s bankruptcy and reorganization. (Click here and here for more.)
Even though flight attendant productivity is up, working hours are up and time away from home is up, when it comes to wages and benefits, airline executives have rewarded only themselves. (Click here and here for a look at airline executives’ greed.)
Later this year, the four unions will meet other unions that represent smaller groups of flight attendants to help them refine their strategy for gaining much-needed contract improvements for their flight attendants.
The upcoming major contract talks will cover about 46,000 AFA-CWA flight attendants at 18 airlines (including those at United Airlines and US Airways), 19,000 APFA members at American Airlines (CEO Gerard Arpey was runner-up in Jobs with Justice’s 2007 Grinch of the Year contest), 12,000 IAM members at Continental Airlines and ExpressJet and 9,000 TWU members at Southwest Airlines.
4 Comments
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This was really great to read and I am glad that it is here. Before I left Florida for DC I spent time as a volunteer organizer with AFA. I had a part-time job driving a passenger bus to and from the airport with only pilots and crew … I had the workers in the van for a good 20 minutes each way and did what I could to either get part of a union conversation or start one.
When I realized that I needed more information: talking points, sign up cards, anything … I reached out to the union and was sent a full package to share with these workers, including newsletters.
I was focusing most of my attention on the Delta people because I had known that they didn’t vote in the union the first time around and they were facing a representation vote “soon.” One of the things that I shared with a few of the most activist-type workers was the importance in communicating … with ONE ANOTHER.
I hope that this summit was the first of many and that these very hard working dedicated people get the contracts that they need and deserve.
-Richard /Union Review
I hope the flight attendants will consider the health of their industry when deciding how to negotiate with their employers. Hopefully, too, they will not take the hateful, vindictive tone that the narcissistic pilots, whom they have to work with, have adopted. Let’s try to elevate the discourse and represent FAs professionals.
Now if only the rail unions would do something similar! Too many different unions in the same industry makes for a lot of confusion, division and variance in contractual agreements!
This vital Summit and the critical component of our solidarity will move the Flight Attendant profession forward in a united front. Our collective goals to recognize our jobs as Safety Professionals is an additional part of our campaign; we have much work to do. Please visit http://www.afalax.org for more on our unified fight. ~In Unity, Darren Shiroma