KEPT IN THE DARK

An organization that consistently pats itself on the back for up to the minute news and carefully controlled “transparency” should be more sensitive to their websites, like Negotiations Update, that haven’t seen an update since March 28, 2012.  It provides an unintentionally hilarious snapshot of the neglect and lack of importance assigned to ongoing negotiations across the CWA-afa spectrum, and stands as a glaring example of the attempt to control information within each individual airline, thereby limiting the ability of casual observers to obtain a true picture of the “representation” provided by the CWA-afa flight attendants to cabin staff throughout the country.  Instead of updated, real time information on the state of negotiations at various airlines, the CWA-afa relies on password protected conduits of information available only to members of that particular carrier, discouraging cross comparisons that would be readily made if general update pages were kept current.

http://www.afanet.org/negotiations/

 

 



 

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Bad Politicians are Elected by Apathetic Non Voters.....

"When you blame others, you give up your power to change."
*Robert Anthony

The fact that 89 out of 100 workers in the US have no voice in the workplace ostensibly through union representation was the clarion call for this year’s biennial CWA convention – paid for with the collective dues dollars of the telephone workers, health care employees, publishers, printers, newspaper employees, public safety officers, and flight attendants that make up the amalgamated representational mess that is the CWA, arguably one of the most corrupt labor unions in America today.

Men and women around the world have DIED through the years fighting for the right to organize and belong to labor unions and have fought far more formidable opponents than ANY labor union in this country faces today.  Yet the language of victimization and blame runs rampant throughout the labor movement, and it stands today as a distant and fading echo of its former self – and much of that blame lay at its own feet.

There is no group that has raised this language of victimization and blame to an art form better than the CWA flight attendant sector, formerly the flight attendant association, formerly the airlines stewards and stewardess division of ALPA.    Stuck in the Jimmy Hoffa era of the 1970s when labor unions grew into the corrupt, excuse-making machinery they are today, labor unions must change their current path, or this country will soon face a day when that 89 out of 100 becomes 99 out of 100.  No amount of banner carrying, pin-wearing, ribbon tying demonstrations has prevented the corporate greed and filthy excess that has repeated itself throughout America’s economic history.  For America to thrive it must have a growing, robust middle class supported by a vibrant labor movement.

But that labor movement CANNOT exist if it continues its short-sighted myopia that has simply created another managerial class on the back of employees already overburdened with excessive corporate layers.  Yet that is precisely what has occurred at the CWA-afa and what continues to occur.  Members who engage in vigorous debate and protest should be welcomed and celebrated – not threatened with expulsion because certain individuals had their feelings hurt and egos bruised.  Debate is a true democracy’s immune system, and the CWA-afa is incapable of accepting and embracing that fact.  Change must occur, because current involvement is pathetically low.  Participation in local election results, which, in a time of volatile change at American Eagle, for example, was 11% - hardly an engaged electorate.

 

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