Coffee, Tea or Workplace Safety?
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Back when flight attendants were stewardesses and airline ads promoted their good looks and winsome smiles to get you on board, these hardworking airline employees had no job safety and health protection. Today, flight attendants still are not covered by the Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA) and Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and most of his Republicans colleagues want to keep it that way, just like the old days.
The Flight Attendants-CWA (AFA-CWA), Machinists (IAM) and Transport Workers (TWU) have launched campaigns to fight back. Here’s the latest video from TWU that notes, “Times have changed” and Paul’s efforts put both flight attendants and the flying public at risk.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) bill now in the Senate provides OSHA protection to flight attendants and other air crew. Paul has offered an amendment to cut those protections from the FAA bill, in effect putting both workers and passengers at risk.
Considering the high rate of workplace injuries and the impact on the flying public, flight attendants are speaking out about why this is a serious mistake. Sanitation, air quality, temperature and humidity levels, noise and blood-borne pathogens are just a few of the hazards that go unchecked for flight attendants in their workplace—the aircraft cabin.
What’s next, passenger parachutes for landing?
Rand Paul Attacks Flight Attendants’ Safety
With some 280,000 jobs at stake in the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) reauthorization bill, you’d think Senate lawmakers would be working together to get those jobs in the pipeline as soon as possible. Not.
First, Republicans used the bill as a vehicle for their near pathological obsession to repeal health care reform. Now, with the support of most of his Republican colleagues, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) wants to use the bill to take away workplace safety and health rights for flight attendants—and, in effect, put passengers at risk as well.
The bill extends Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA) protection to flight attendants and other air crew, something air crew workers have been seeking for decades. Paul’s amendment would cut those protections from the FAA bill. Currently, workplace safety standards and enforcement falls to the FAA. Flight Attendants-CWA (AFA-CWA) President Veda Shook says:
To date, OSHA has been kept out of the aircraft cabin and that means flight attendants and passengers are subject to an environment absent sanitation standards, temperature standards and proper procedures for clean up of bio hazards. This is inexcusable.
Allegiant Flight Attendants Vote to Join TWU
Flight attendants at Allegiant Air voted by an overwhelming margin to join the Transport Workers (TWU), the National Mediation Board (NMB) certified today. The nearly 400 flight attendants are the first group of workers at the fast growing airline to form a union. Allegiant flight dispatchers are voting on TWU representation and the mail ballot process will conclude Jan. 24.
Kristi Cohen, an Allegiant flight attendant based in Las Vegas, says:
Allegiant is a good place to work, and now it’s going to get better. Now we’ve got a voice on the job—which means we can do an even better job of providing great service to our customers. Once we can negotiate about our schedules, work rules, and other issues, we’ll be full partners in growing the business.
Allegiant managers, says TWU President James Little,
ran a very aggressive “vote no” campaign, which is typical of most employers. Allegiant flight attendants did a great job standing up for what they believe in. Read the rest of this entry »
Senate Republicans Fail to End Majority Rule in Union Elections
Senate Republicans today lost their bid to block new democratic election procedures for workers in the aviation and rail industries who want to form unions and bargaining collectively.
Earlier this year, the National Mediation Board (NMB) issued a rule that says air and rail union elections must be decided by a majority of votes cast. In June, a federal court upheld it. A resolution (S.J. Res. 30) to overturn the new rule failed 43-56.
Previously under the Railway Labor Act (RLA), which covers rail and airline workers, each worker who did not cast a vote in a representation election was automatically counted as a “No” vote.
But Senate Republicans—who are elected by a majority of voters who cast ballots in their states—said workers should be denied those same basic democratic rights and introduced the resolution.
In a letter to the Senate urging defeat of the resolution, AFL-CIO Government Affairs Director William Samuel says the same “undemocratic procedures” that Republicans want to impose on air and rail workers, “would never be tolerated in our civic elections.”
Transportation Workers Face ‘Undemocratic Process’ When Seeking Union
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If a worker in the airline or rail industry doesn’t cast a ballot in a union election, under the rules of the Railway Labor Act (RLA) that nonaction is automatically counted as a “no” vote.
Last week, the National Mediation Board (NMB) held a hearing on a proposed new rule that would stop the automatic “veto by silence” and permit a majority of workers who actually vote to decide the union election.
Flight attendants, union officials and labor experts explain the need for change in a new video report from DELTAAFA, the flight attendants group that is working to win a voice for the Delta Air Lines and former Northwest Airlines flight attendants who make up the merged Delta.
