In addition to the vital LEC elections now underway in IAH,
nominating cycles have opened in bases throughout the CWA-AFA system providing
WORKING flight attendants the opportunity to put in office candidates who
support real reform and change. It is
past time to end the altogether corrupt and self-aggrandizing practices of the
politicians currently in office whose abysmal handful of subpar contracts in
the past FORTY years have done more irreparable economic harm to the flight
attendant profession than any airline management they have sought to demonize
as a distraction to the continued inability to negotiate contracts
intelligently and expeditiously.
Individuals at the LEC level who purport to represent the
interest of these WORKING flight attendants are currently mere puppets of the
MEC and international officers from whom they take their marching orders. Defiance and calls for true change by these
“representatives” to the very structure of the CWA-AFA flight attendant sector
results in frustration and short-lived union careers for those aspiring to more
“prestigious” work at the company-within-a-company (AFA) for whom the lowly
flight attendant job is not enough. Long
standing abuses of privileged trip trading status, inflated flight pay loss
compensation for “union business” and expense reimbursement, publicly
unaccounted for and in gross excess of what is truly needed can be ended with a
new slate of candidates that will support true reform. But it all depends upon WORKING flight
attendants willing to stand up to the bullying and hysterics that has
characterized flight attendant “leadership” since the ”Stewardess Division” (ALPA-S) split from the Airline Pilots
Association in 1973.
Flight attendants in Mesa Airlines’ Phoenix base, American
Eagles’ MIA base, Miami Airs’ MIA base and Spirit Airlines’ FLL base will
similarly face the opportunity to retain their local leadership, or vote for
new, reform minded candidates who support the direction of change that the
majority of AFA flight attendants support.
Whether current officers running for re-election are willing to step up
and support what is best for WORKING flight attendants , or are too intimated
by “leadership” at the “higher” levels of governance is something flight attendants should ask of their
representatives. Ask them to put in
writing their support of the agenda items at the upcoming Board of Directors
meeting that will give flight attendants at all AFA carrier’s control of the
union they pay for, and if they decline, seek out people willing to serve their
peers rather than their own self interest.
