Few organizations are as adept at turning a blind eye to the
truth or engage in revisionist history as proficiently as the afa-CWA flight
attendants do, and it continues unabated here.
It was precisely at that point in company history – six months before
the legal close of the merger in October 2010 - that the s-UA MEC sealed the
fate of s-UAL attendants and set up the divisive conflict that is only now
ramping up. This is a conflict the AFA
International Office and the UAL MEC have planned, and wanted, since winning
the representation vote in June 2011.
S-CAL flight attendants would do well to ALWAYS keep in mind that it was
never enough for them to merely win the representation vote.
Rather, they wanted then and continue now to try to expand
their own confrontational dysfunction to the CAL work force as a substitute for
the efficient and decisive representation they simply CANNOT provide. In other words, Nelson and the UAL MEC see
themselves as the rightful heirs to represent ALL FLIGHT ATTENDANTS at the combined
United Airlines – the current CAL MEC is an obstacle and impediment to their
plans and the fact that the current and past CAL officers have enjoyed the success they
have thus far, and will continue to enjoy as they and the CMI MEC perhaps begin Section 6 negotiations for
their own contracts, is anathema to an organization which sells delay and
frustration as “representation.”
It is time for the s-United JNC and MEC Officers to step
down. They have proven time and again to
be incapable of delivering on promises made to the membership, and have done
nothing to “reach across the aisle” to our CAL brothers and sisters in order to
promote an expeditious conclusion to joint contract negotiations. Instead they have begun to lay the
groundwork, with the same tired rhetoric they have used for thirty years, for conflict
and contentiousness, thereby ensuring a needlessly protracted period of combined
contract negotiations. This does nothing to further the interests of WORKING
s-United flight attendants. It does however
guarantee continued income and union employment for officers while engaging in
their “master plan” of further organizing attempts at Delta and initiating a
raid on APFA with the help of ex-USAir flight attendants.
The flight attendants of s-United Airlines are unwilling to
subsidize the continued employment and substandard results that have
characterized this JNC and MEC leadership.
Since WORKING flight attendants are prohibited from exercising their
right of choice in their elected leaders beyond the local level, we demand of
our LEC Presidents that they make it known to the MEC and International
President Sara Nelson that the s-UA membership hereby calls for the immediate
removal of Kevin Lum, Jack Kande and Ken Diaz from the current JNC.
The continued disparity in pay, and lack of scheduling
flexibility that the s-UA MEC deems acceptable for s-United attendants to
endure for another five years of NMB Mediation while they play political games
with WORKING flight attendants’ livelihoods is completely unacceptable and will
not be tolerated. Any LEC President
unwilling to support this petition of the UAL MEC will, in turn be subject to a
grass roots recall effort, since it will then be abundantly clear that their
political aspirations and continued union employment are more important than
what real, WORKING flight attendants demand.
s-United leadership no longer deserves the privilege of
representing the WORKING flight attendants at United Airlines, and we will no
longer be held hostage to personal and political ambitions and agendas of the
AFA leadership. At this point, ALL WORKING FLIGHT ATTENDANTS at the combined
United Airlines have surely come to the realization that there is only one
solution to the problem that is the afa-CWA and will undoubtedly choose to elect their own
INDEPENDENT UNION, the UFAA!
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