Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Challenging UA MEC to Survey Membership for the Combined Contract!

Afa takes contract survey

TWO SIMPLE QUESTIONS
 
  • What sections of the UA contract would you like to see changed in a combined contract?                          
  • Specifically how would you change them?

The CAL MEC received over 30,000 responses from its 9,000 plus membership with survey questions prioritizing what their members wanted in the current single contract negotiations with the company - THESE NEGOTIATIONS STARTED TODAY !

UA MEC, Don't waste our time and dues money on another skewed survey designed to benefit the union and not the membership!!! 

LET US DECIDE OUR OWN FUTURE!




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Sunday, April 22, 2012

AFA REPRESENTATION ELECTION VIOLATIONS


AFA feeding frenzy"The RLA states that elections shall be free from interference, influence, or coercion."
                         Afa's alleged violations include:
  • Use of Another voter's identification numbers
  • Refusing to maintain confidentiality
  • Refusing to maintain integrity of voting process
  • Creating "hot" hyperlinks to interfere with voting process
  • Coercion
  • Intimidation & Harassment
  • Bullying on Social Networking Sites
The NMB CONTINUES , (Maria-Kate Dowling or Angela Heverling), to find representation election violations and is requesting ALL flight attendants affected by Afa violations to contact them as soon as possible. Intimidation & Harassment included LEC's having IAM supporters arrested in ORD and attempted arrests orchestrated by LEC's in SFO. It included multiple phone calls to the homes of flight attendants, blacklists, and verbal insults and threats including physical intimidation.

The violations by the Afa were often blatant with malice intended toward their dues paying members. Flight attendants in many UA domiciles were afraid to openly support or appear in support of the IAM. Many UA f/a's were threatened not to wear their IAM pins if they knew what was in their best interest.

The same Afa LEC and MEC officers subsequently failed to deliver any of the false promises they made, including a better contract than CAL's IAM negotiated contract, retroactive pay, and/or preventing UA furloughs.


Then Afa Raised the Dues of UA Flight Attendants and Rewarded Themselves, the Afa Officers, with 30% Plus Raises!!!


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FACC.

Friday, April 6, 2012

AFA LEC PRESIDENT TELLS FACC TO "MAN UP.....WHO ARE YOU?"


IAD LEC President demands to know who we are............Really??

Anonymity is not a lack of courage, nor an inability to “man-up,” but rather a conscious decision driven by the organizational philosophy of the FACC which puts community and the collective good above the ego of any one individual.

With only lip service paid to the notion of the collective good of ALL flight attendants beyond their own cult-of-personality circle, it is difficult for the CWA-afa flight attendant sector to grasp the concept that no one individual at the FACC seeks to take personal credit, thereby elevating their own sense of self-worth and “importance” as we see all too often in the so-called “leaders” of the CWA-afa. 

The very fact that one LEC President, in particular, has taken it upon himself to consistently attack and deride the FACC speaks volumes of his own personal ambition beyond the LEC level, rather than any attempt to genuinely promote the collective good.  In other words, the time he spends doing this is meant to impress his “peers” at the MEC and international levels, when his time would be better spent tending to the affairs of his council for which he more than amply compensates himself with flight attendants’ dues money.

True courage, or “manning-up,” would be to see an LEC President actually support changes to the CWA-afa Constitution and Bylaws requiring “leadership” at ALL LEVELS be elected by the members, and not subject to the back room politicking and popularity contests that currently drive MEC and international officers elections.
“Manning-up” would be for CWA local “leaders” to demand that ALL employees of the CWA flight attendant sector publicly and fully disclose every penny they have been paid in monthly allowances for officers, and detailed, ITEMIZED accounting on the thousands of dollars of reimbursed expenses, now listed on federally required LM-2 reports only as “representational activities.”  “Man-up” and demand
THOSE changes of your current MEC and international leadership on behalf of the membership, and see how long your union career lasts after that.

The FACC serves as a repository of information taken from publicly available sources, and merely verifies edits and distributes the information it receives from the thousands of readers who care to submit material.  We are a counterweight to the one-sided myopia of an organization that long ago chose to put its own business interests above those of the very people paying their salaries.

It is not surprising that the CWA flight attendant sector, bereft of a driving philosophy beyond self-promotion and the economic benefit of its “leaders,” now finds itself imploding – removing an MEC President less than a week before a vote tally on a joint contract tentative agreement that was six and a half years in the making at one airline, and mired in a three-way contract contest at another, that promises to make the America West/US Airways debacle look tame in comparison.

When self-aggrandizement and ego-driven manipulation are the prime motivators of the “leadership” level in any organization, it is doomed to fail and must resort to fear-driven tactics of intimidation and grotesque distortion of the truth in order to survive.  On the other hand, an organization that simply serves the interests of its membership can lead by example alone, and has little need to explain itself.

Anonymity is not a lack of courage, but rather the absence of ego – it is only the collective good of a combined work force working until a combined contract with an integrated seniority list NOW – not six years down the line - that is the aim of the FACC. 

No one person dictates the terms or direction of the group.  That is the very definition of “member-driven” and the purest form of democracy.  

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Sunday, April 1, 2012

CROSSOVER BIDS AWARDED......

                                                       

One hundred fifty-seven of our flying partners at s-United have elected to avail themselves of the opportunity to participate in the cross over flying program.  That number may change slightly once the ten day grace period has ended, though it won’t be by much.

The seniority range extends from 1/19/1976 through 3/18/2008, the majority falling between 1997 – 2008.  Those at the top of the pay scale at s-United, in addition to the ten percent bump thanks to the recently ratified 2010-2016 agreement; will receive another $9.10 an hour for domestic fliers and $6.08 internationally.  They will receive a $2,500 cash payment for incidental expenses related to the move to their new base, and higher per diem rates than those currently paid to s-United attendants.

As reserves, they are guaranteed eighty-three hours per month, and will spend far less time sitting idly at home as the Continental subsidiary continues to take delivery of new aircraft and aggressively expands flying opportunities.

s-United cross over attendants are now at the bottom of the Continental seniority list for bidding purposes behind several classes of new hires that have filtered through the Continental training center since October 2011.  Not only would they have been senior to these same new hires had they been permitted to exercise their freedom of choice last year when the company first offered the crossover, but the rate of hiring that has gone on since last October may very well have lifted them off reserve status by now – an eventuality that may still happen later this year depending on the base and the shifting allocations of flying, but that was unnecessarily delayed and sacrificed for the CWA’s own political ends.
The point that cannot be stressed enough – this CHOICE was denied to s-United flight attendants nearly a year ago in the midst of the representation campaign as a political tool for “union” management at the expense of the welfare of a small number of flight attendants who may have opted to participate.
It is with our best wishes for the future and good luck that we bid goodbye, for now, to the s-United cross over participants.  Given the ongoing meltdown at US Airways and the fact that the THREE different MECs at United have agreed to continue to work on SEPARATE contracts for the foreseeable future, (with the international officers’ blessing), it will be a long while before we see them again.  In the meantime, we will all learn firsthand from our crossover friends of the benefits of the IAM negotiated contract, to which improvements are already being planned by the Continental MEC.