ABOUT INVOLUNTARY FURLOUGHS AT s-UA

It was a busy December for the CWA-afa flight attendants, with two tentative agreements suddenly reached after YEARS of glacial negotiations at Alaska and Spirit Airlines, and a remarkable about-face at US Airways, wherein the representation of more than 6,700 flight attendants has been ceded to APFA, the altogether more competent union, whose SOLE focus is the representation and well being of American Airlines flight attendants.  Indeed, APFA does not even represent the wholly owned regional subsidiary, American Eagle, nor have they sought representation of the US Airways regional affiliates, Piedmont and PSA, both also now wholly owned by the merged American Airlines.

 By maintaining the focus on the attendants employed by the mainline carrier since 1977, they have avoided the conflict of interest inherent in a labor group that simply wants as many dues paying members on its books as it can get, despite the hypocrisy of complaining about outsourced labor and loss of flying at the larger carriers, but continuing to collect the same amount of money and advocating for growth at the regional airlines.

But severe money problems and an ongoing ideological breakdown within the AFA have caused the CWA parent union to apply pressure on AFA “leadership” to not only finish an embarrassingly long list of open negotiations, but to give up a multimillion dollar fight with APFA they CANNOT win.  (The CWA would have had to finance much of that debacle, too, since the AFA flight attendant sector lists a little over three million dollars in assets to APFA’s nearly fourteen million, despite having a membership a third the size of the AFA).  So despite Veda Shook’s insistence earlier this year that the CWA-afa flight attendants “are just too scrappy” to allow US Airways to be absorbed into the ranks of APFA without a prolonged and needlessly contentious fight, economic reality and staggering ineptitude has finally come home to roost. 

The fact that her “leadership” has become so dysfunctional and inept that the equally inept Sara Nelson and Greg Davidowitch tried to stage a palace coup at great additional cost to WORKING flight attendants and remove her from office in the midst of everything that is going on finally prompted the CWA parent union to step in and cut up their credit cards.  But even so, these developments are lost on the UAL MEC and its flailing president, whose bid to secure union employment at the international level continues to be held hostage by a true reform movement that gathers steam on a daily basis.  There is no other union in this country that prohibits its membership from voting for officers other than at the most basic level, and the frenzied efforts to keep it that way, for no logical reason other than it will break up the CWA-afa “country club” to which incumbents have grown accustomed, reveals an arrogance and self-deluded myopia which has cost s-UAL flight attendants dearly.

Davidowitch’s letter to the membership on December 20 does as good as job as any in recent memory in revealing the business plan of the AFA flight attendant sector, and why the perpetual expansion of their dues paying base, even at the cost of higher wages for WORKING flight attendants, trumps all other considerations.  Though Mr. Davidowitch’s sentence construction in this letter is slightly better than the last, the thoughts expressed are as deluded and self-serving as ever and once again seek to make a strictly emotional appeal to non-thinking flight attendants’ sense of victimization and angst – precisely what he accused the company of doing at the Investors’ Day meeting.

The harebrained threat that they are “prepar(ing) for all contingencies if management should take the draconian step of putting people out of work in violation of our Contract,” is the empty bluster and posturing of a “leader” out of ideas and simply running to the time worn trough of rhetoric flight attendants are accustomed to hearing.  “Draconian” is defined as “very severe or cruel…characteristic of Draco or the severe code of laws held to have been framed by him,” laws, which included among other injustices, the death penalty for relatively minor offenses.  But as wrongheaded and unjust as many of his laws were, he is also credited with taking what had been a justice system at that point in Greek history based largely on oral law and blood feuds, and instituted a codified system wherein rules couldn’t be changed on a whim and where redress could be sought by those who felt wronged.

So no one, in this regard, is really facing anything that could be remotely defined as “very severe or cruel” – rather these are circumstances, which thousands of WORKING flight attendants recognized as probable long ago, for which the CWA-afa itself must take the blame.  No one is being put out of work “in violation of (the) Contract” and the overt suggestion that the company is embarking on unilateral changes to the CWA-afa CBA, thereby freeing the s-UAL attendants to some sort of self-help (i.e. job actions) is not only ridiculous but irresponsible.

Recall that the CWA-afa did similar posturing during the s-UAL bankruptcy proceedings, when they argued unilateral changes to s-UAL pension programs among other things, was a violation of collective bargaining rights and therefore subject to immediate response from the “union.”  What WORKING flight attendants got for all the inflammatory rhetoric at the time was the spectacle of CWA-afa flight attendants with walkie-talkies running around O’Hare airport staging CHAOS test runs to show how prepared they were if the company took the “draconian” step of gutting wages and benefits – including the pension plan.

 The “protection” this threat provided was that s-UAL attendants’ wages and benefits, including the pension plan, were summarily gutted, while s-UAL officers continued to pay themselves hundreds of thousands of dollars per year, far more than WORKING flight attendants could make at the time.  And so it will be here – save the tough talk, Davidowitch, and come to terms with the fact that it is YOUR policy decisions that have brought s-UAL attendants to this point and any reference to contingency plans is silly and sad.

It’s difficult for many at the UAL MEC to believe, but there are some flight attendants at s-UAL who come to work to actually earn a living and support a family, and “having fewer Flight Attendants flying more hours” is an opportunity to make that happen.  Needlessly hiring additional workers in any industry because of inefficient work practices is a guaranteed formula for repeated furloughs in tough times, but the “union” is not interested in efficiency and well paying jobs for a smaller number of attendants, because it impacts their BUSINESS interests.  Flight attendants who are allowed to work as they choose, within the parameters of the FARs that govern them, ultimately help contribute to a thriving company that will be more likely to hire and RETAIN these attendants, rather than the revolving door of hiring and furloughing the CWA-afa has contributed to at s-UAL.

Of course, according to the long, rich history of CWA skewed surveys, s-UAL flight attendants, time and again, have indicated preservation of long layovers away from home is preferable to efficient trip pairings, and that lower wages are acceptable as long as inefficient work rules, often malleable and subject to interpretation anyway, are kept above all else.  Indeed, Davidowitch made sure that even though flight attendants were having their wages cut TWICE during bankruptcy, while he paid himself up to $111,000 per year, flight attendants’ wages remained capped at monthly maximums, no premium was paid for exceeding quarterly flight hour thresholds, and vacation fly-through remained prohibited – all measures that would have given WORKING flight attendants the ability to recoup some of what the “union” lost.  The only concern that Davidowitch had then and continues to have about the “severe consequences for (the) community of Flight Attendants” is the impact it has on the CWA-afa’s finances, and his continued union “career.”

Few organizations are as adept at turning a blind eye to the truth or engage in revisionist history as proficiently as the CWA-afa flight attendants do, and it continues unabated here.  Davidowitch’s reference to the April 6, 2009 service of notice by United management that they intended to “seek modifications to (the 1996-2006) Collective Bargaining Agreement” is followed by the statement that the “union” “presented United’s proposals to you and identified key areas of concerns (sic) with their approach.”

  

If that were true, the “union,” as is its right and responsibility, would have done just that – provided WORKING flight attendants their RIGHT to vote on the company’s offer after clearly and DISPASSIONATELY delineating their concerns with whatever offer was on the table.  Instead, these proposals were NOT presented to the membership in the ordinary sense of the word – rather, the offer by the company to provide s-UAL flight attendants a CAL style contract in April 2010 was not given to the membership for a vote as it should have been.   Flight attendants were summarily dismissed by union management and then TOLD they were not being allowed to vote.

It was precisely at that point in company history – six months before the legal close of the merger in October 2010 - that Davidowitch sealed the fate of s-UAL attendants and set up the divisive conflict that is only now ramping up.  This is a conflict Davidowitch 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, Davidowitch 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 career plans and the fact that the current CAL officers have enjoyed the success they have thus far, and will continue to enjoy as they and the CMI MEC begin Section 6 negotiations for their own contracts later this year, is anathema to an organization which sells delay and frustration as “representation.”

 

Davidowitch’s laughably pathetic and lame manifesto continues on page two of his letter with the statement that “we remained undaunted and guided by you,” in the aftermath of denying s-UAL attendants not only a vote on the CAL contract in April 2010, but a chance to cross over in May 2011 and is a paragon of self-deluded idiocy.  Any “guidance” Davidowitch needed beyond the results of direct votes flight attendants should have been given on these issues was the way to the exit and permanently out of WORKING flight attendants’ lives.  But the revisionism continues with a reference to the “novel” approach of expedited mediation, touted as something bold and new to put flight attendants on a fast track to a better life that was actually a relic that had been dusted off from the early 1990’s with an uneven track record of success and certainly no magic bullet that would reconcile the larger philosophical differences which remain inherent in the three CBAs to this day.  Instead, it merely etched deeper in stone the stark divergence in a CBA written to benefit WORKING flight attendants, and a CBA constructed to benefit union management.

Amongst the many grammatical errors, poor syntax, and fragmentary sentence construction frequently present in all but the most basic of written communication from the CWA – a product a not very bright people trying to sound smarter than they are – is the use of the word “memorialize” when referencing portions of the contract.  In fairness, it isn’t just Davidowitch who misuses this word – it is found in most everything that comes out of the CWA flight attendant spin machine when writing about their “achievements.” 

 

“Memorialize” is “to do or create something that causes people to remember (a person, thing, or event)” and related words include celebrate, keep, observe, enshrine, exalt, glorify, honor, bless, consecrate, sanctify, and solemnize.  A “memorial” is something “created or done to honor a person who has died or to remind people of an event in which many people died.”  To use that word in the context Davidowitch does is perversely appropriate since the CWA-afa flight attendants are cultists in the most basic sense – blind adherents to a dogma that they generally don’t understand for reasons that are unclear even to them.  But to use it in this sense, when referring to a legal document is not only wrong, but frankly ignorant.  The word you are looking for, Greg, is “codified,”   defined as putting together “laws or rules…as a code or system…in an orderly form…to systematize and classify.”

Though CWA-afa flight attendant leadership likes to think of themselves as above everyone else, smarter, with access to privileged information that WORKING flight attendants are too stupid to understand, to speak of contractual provisions as “solemnized” or “enshrined” is ludicrous, and therein lays the crux of the issue.  This isn’t just a legal document to Davidowitch and the UAL MEC and JNC, meant to provide a framework for flight attendants to work and earn as they choose, it is a holy grail of control for union management whereby THEY dictate what is and is not the flight attendant profession, an odd state of affairs given that most officers and employees of the “union” never set foot on an airplane to actually do the work they were hired to do.  (Indeed, Candace Kolander, longtime chair of the international office’s Safety Committee, who has earned well over $100,000 per year for many years, is a former Aloha Airlines flight attendant and is not even remotely employed by an airline, since Aloha no longer exists.  Yet, she is more than willing to be part of an organization that tells WORKING flight attendants how much they should earn and how they should earn it).

And it is especially inappropriate to use “memorialize” when referencing the wretched excuse for involuntary furlough protection found on page 305 of the current 2010-2016 UAL CWA-afa CBA.  The CAL CBA contains an important, and one would think very obvious, assertion that the “Company’s goal is to maintain its flight attendant group intact” (CAL CBA Section 13 page 13-1), yet such affirmation is missing from the s-UAL document, since the UAL MEC and international office has demonstrated repeatedly through the years that they are more than willing to sacrifice flight attendants’ continued employment and economic well being to try to prove a point.

Moreover LOA 25 in the CAL CBA states that “the Company shall not furlough any flight attendant…who was on the Continental System Seniority List as of the date of ratification of this July 13, 2012 – December 31, 2014 Agreement.”  In contrast there is the highly conditional and nebulous “protection” in the UAL CWA-afa CBA that depends entirely on modifications to the 1996-2010 agreement DIRECTLY driving the need for furloughs, when in fact no such condition exists or will exist.   Yet here is the spectacle of dear leader Davidowitch trying to make the case that modifications to the two for one minimum rest requirement (8 ½ in 24), and changes that resulted in the 35 in 7, reduced vacation accrual, the quarter system elimination and other factors which has given WORKING flight attendants a little breathing room to control their own income, is what is responsible for s-UAL flight attendants losing their jobs when it is Davidowitch, Kande, Lump-sum, and the entire cast of clowns at the UAL MEC and international office and their ill-informed policy decisions that is to blame.

The stale desperation of Davidowitch is made manifest at the bottom of page two when he states, right out of the CWA-afa playbook, that “United management is attempting to achieve an increase in Flight Attendants productivity by putting people out of work…contrary to the agreement not to involuntarily furlough any Flight Attendant as a result of productivity improvements…management is emboldened once again to tray to manage the airline on the back of the frontline workers.”  Over the past three decades, since Pat Friend decided that the CWA-afa flight attendant sector was going to be THE union for every flight attendant in the United Airlines, and green lighted Kevin Lump-sum’s ten year contract to put the costly representation of United flight attendants on the shelf while she tried to grow her business, this statement about frontline workers has been used so many times as to become a tired cliché. 

 

It is rather Davidowitch trying to manage his MEC on the backs of s-UAL attendants who are now being put out of work because of HIS decisions, first to deny them the opportunity to leave his sinking ship, and now because he refuses to take responsibility for the consequences of his own actions – the ultimate act of a coward.  CAL attendants should note that these “productivity improvements” Davidowitch so despises are but a small step toward the efficiency and freedom to earn what they choose that has been denied s-UAL attendants since 1973, and it is these restrictions the UAL MEC and international office ultimately want to impose on CAL attendants.

The working together culture he calumniates is a transparent and miserable attempt to invite other s-UAL attendants, of which there will sadly be many, to join in the misery and commiserate with one another about what a bad company they work for and how mistreated and underappreciated they are – once again time worn pages out of the CWA-afa play book that should be recognized for the meaningless and empty rhetoric they are.  The CWA-afa flight attendant sector has done a good job over the years inculcating self-pity and negativity into the work force, thus deflecting blame and criticism from themselves, and also lowering expectations once tentative agreements are reached that fall far short of the lofty promises used in stirring up needless anxiety in the process.  After all, the reasoning goes, it was big bad company management that gave us short shrift on what we are really worth, and this was the best we could do (and resident mercenary economist Dan Akins will be waiting in the wings to collect another paycheck from flight attendants’ dues dollars to nod his head and confirm that based on his extensive knowledge and exhaustive research, this was all they could hope to get right now, but we’ll do better next time).

But s-UAL attendants PAY FOR AND EXPECT THIS THEATRE, and Davidowitch, master showman that he is, will not disappoint.  Drawing upon his own managerial expertise, it is with all due gravitas and import that he postulates “a successful company does not put people out of work,” an observation, no doubt, that has resulted from the many successful businesses he himself has run.  Of course, it wouldn’t be a proper CWA-afa communiqué to its membership without a least one sentence fragment, “Especially when there is an express commitment not to do so.” 

Greg gets very excited in the penultimate paragraph and his chest swells expansively when he asserts that the MEC “has authorized me to take any and all actions necessary to prevent United management from putting any United Flight Attendant on involuntary furlough…we have embarked on a multifaceted plan of action that includes ongoing discussions with management as well as contingency planning for potential legal and grievance preparations.”  Does that include another survey? 

 

S-UAL attendants should note that their dues dollars will now be spent on “potential legal and grievance preparations” rather than continued joint contract negotiations, so any hope of a joint contract prior to 2020 is just that – hope and scant hope at that.  If any grievance filed on behalf of the involuntarily furloughed flight attendants is as successful as the three that were filed post 2010-2016 contract ratification, those flight attendants would be well advised to make sure their resumes are up to date and not expect to return to s-UAL at any time in the near future.

What Davidowitch and the rest of the UAL MEC and JNC will not publicly acknowledge is that the current CAL CBA IS the joint contract – what s-UAL attendants will get for all this delay will be THAT contract with some minor tweaks here and there so whoever is running the UAL MEC at the time can jump up and down and claim some sort of victory as the manifestly insecure people they are.

But s-UAL attendants voted for this “union” and gladly pay for this circus – they expect it, they revel in it, and they will stick with it to the bitter end.  Davidowitch is counting on it, we can only hope he is finally proven wrong by a membership that has had enough.

LOCAL COUNCIL ELECTIONS UPCOMING FOR S-UA SPRING 2014 INCLUDE:

LAX COUNCIL 12 

JFK COUNCIL 11

LAS COUNCIL 25

NRT COUNCIL 38

                            NOMINATE AND VOTE FOR REFORM CANDIDATES!     

"Transforming the Flight Attendant Profession"..........Really?

In what can only be described as one of the most unintentionally hilarious examples yet of the boorish, petulant, adolescent idiocy that characterizes most AFA supporters on social media comes a fraudulent web page meant to mock the FACC’s attempts to effect TRUE reform within the rapidly fossilizing entity that is the flight attendant sector of the CWA.  One need look no further than this collection of myopic, self-aggrandizing shysters and their most ardent adherents to understand why the labor movement has faltered so badly in this country, and why s-United attendants have been so grossly under served since 1973.

Without a legacy of accomplishments upon which to stand, chief of which should have been a series of robust, SHORT-TERM contracts that emphasized flight attendants’ earnings potential while allowing the flexibility that comes from individual choice rather than the corporate dictates of a union management bent of growing their business at all costs, the AFA flight attendant supporters must mock and distract from the litany of failure that clings to everything they do like the chains on Marley’s ghost.

Some of the most contentious legal issues facing flight attendants during the last sixty years when the AFA claims to have been “transforming the flight attendant profession” have actually been initiated by individual flight attendants.  It was only after the fight was enjoined that the AFA rushed to jump on the band wagon and then loudly proclaim their triumph, when in fact without an individual flight attendant’s persistence, change might have been longer in coming, if at all.  The AFA flight attendants have proven again and again to lack the financial wherewithal and legal acumen to pursue the legal issues that should have been the purview of a “union” proactively addressing these matters, and not merely trumpeting their own horn after the fact.

The McDonald flight attendants are so named because of a single flight attendant who sued for redress over the discriminatory policies of the industry when only single, childless women were allowed to be flight attendants.  The “union” did not initiate or lead the fight - they merely usurped it for undeserved credit.  Likewise, the prohibition against men being flight attendants and the weight program were done away with as a result of changing societal mores and the ensuing legislation that resulted.  The AFA flight attendants simply rode the coattails of larger social change and then claimed credit for that in which they did little more than act as cheerleaders.

More recently, the AFA flight attendants stood on the sidelines as a lone flight attendant, at her own expense, took on non-union Sky West Airlines on the subject of lengthy duty times which result in a large of amount of flight attendants’ time at work being essentially unpaid in violation of minimum wage laws.  Compass Airlines flight attendants, prior to their being “organized” by AFA zealots, had mounted a similar legal effort that was subsequently co-opted and quietly ended by the AFA-CWA legal department, since the governing policy of the “union” is that the $1.50 or $2.00 per hour in per diem is adequate compensation for flight attendants at work, performing job duties in uniform, but receiving no wage.

And most stunningly is the settlement recently reached on behalf of California based employees that provided compensation as redress for paychecks being issued without a printed record of hours worked in compliance with California labor law.  This was a lawsuit brought to court through the initiative and expense of ONE flight attendant, yet once the checks were issued, the AFA acted as if they had been at the forefront of the issue, when in fact the flight attendant legal department had neither the money nor the legal knowledge to bring the case to court.  In fact, no local officer based in California was aware of the violation of the labor law until it was brought to their attention by this case.  Had it been left up to the “union,” this would never have been a legal issue, and now they try to claim credit for correcting a situation of which they were completely ignorant.

Yet these are the same “leaders” that mouth breathing, semi-literate cretins on social media continue to make excuses for and exhort others to do the same with time worn, mind numbing clichés like “staying the course,” “being patient,” and “supporting the JNC.”  While we are grateful for the accurate, illustrated depiction of the UAL MEC and s-UAL joint negotiation committee at work as the frontispiece of this telling “article,” it is they, not us and not any WORKING flight attendants at the new United Airlines, who owes an apology. 

THEY owe an apology to the WORKING flight attendants at every airline in this country, but most especially to the cabin staff at United Airlines, where the ongoing debacle loosely called “joint contract negotiations” is following precisely the same well trod path to success that America West and US Airways flight attendants enjoyed over EIGHT YEARS of negotiations.  But more than that,  they owe an apology for forty years of malfeasance that has festered in the midst of the flight attendant profession since a group of flight attendants decided theirs was a higher calling and that mere work in the airplane aisle was beneath their dignity.

And should anyone doubt the total lack of cohesion and direction that characterizes current UAL MEC and international “leadership,” one need only consider the phrase, “when in doubt, stay the course.” This line of reasoning, as it relates to s-UAL attendants, still working under a $1,200 to $1,500 per month penalty thanks to the UAL MEC for as yet unspecified “benefits” and “protections,” would dictate, when speeding toward a cliff and unsure whether to brake, swerve, or leap from the car, simply remaining buckled in, mouth agape, and in a fit of frozen panic, until the car plunges over the precipice.

That is precisely what is being advised by the UAL MEC and the ersatz writers of their fraudulent, dull-witted drivel – to sit idly while impending disaster rushes closer.  The recent announcement of international bases for s-CAL in Los Angeles and Washington DC – with San Francisco soon to follow – speaks volumes to the long term view company management takes of their work force management, while union management at the UAL MEC and international level, play petty games to protect their own fragile egos while the ground shifts beneath them.

The FACC and like-minded flight attendants bent of REFORM are not “in doubt,” and to continue to plead for people to “stay the course,” after an entire generation of flight attendants knows what staying the course looks like is laughable and pathetic.  REFORM is coming, beginning with putting, for the first time, the reins of power in the hands of WORKING flight attendants who will be able to vote for MEC and international officers, but there are always going to be those among us who are comfortable with not thinking too much, and simply believing and doing what they are told.  These are the first ones to festoon their baggage with silly ribbons, buttons, pins, and slogans which do nothing but highlight their own gullibility.

You may choose to stay the course of delay, lies, corruption and incompetence, but the REFORM movement has chosen a new path.

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Not so Subtle Infiltration Attempt at s-CO.....

The CAL MEC has taken great pains in the two plus years since the representation vote in June 2011 to assure and support s-CAL attendants that their contract and culture will be safeguarded. 

 Rest assured that the "old guard" AFA flight attendant “leadership,” in concert with the UAL MEC, is attempting to reverse the growing tide of change that is challenging their entrenched and coveted elitism, by inserting candidates at the local level who will take their marching orders from International Officers determined to keep the status quo intact.  A strong turnout in the EWR vote for candidates committed to change at ALL levels of the CWA-AFA will strengthen the hard won momentum established thus far.

A vote for candidates NOT committed to these changes is a vote to deprive not only EWR attendants the accessible, IN BASE representation to which they are accustomed but will move all CAL attendants toward the unresponsive, heavy handed condescension of current union management that has resulted in years of frustration for WORKING flight attendants and a litany of some of the worst contracts in the industry.

 
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VOTE NOW OR......

 BE FOREVER HELD DOWN BY s-UA'S VERSION OF AFA..........

Everyone should have received their ballot pin number in the mail for elections at s-CO Council 62 and s-UA Councils 21, 27 and 14. If you have not received your ballot pin number please call 1-800-424-2401, Extension 707. If you get an answering machine make sure to include your Name, Airline, Employee ID and a Contact phone number. This office is open Monday through Friday from 9am to 5pm ET. 

The turn out of this election cycle is important. It will determine whether or not the AFA continues down the path of the old guard s-UA MEC or takes a new direction. The choice is clear and there is no doubt the United Airlines management watches the results and makes decisions at the negotiating table based on those results.

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Labor Day Greetings

It has been more than two years since the CWA-afa won the representation election to the collective detriment of the flight attendant work group at United Continental.  But rather than immediately commencing  joint contract talks as ALPA did for the pilot group, the UAL MEC and international officers instead chose to saddle s-United attendants with a six year contract as part of the “stepping stone” approach to improvements to the three current CBA’s.  Such an approach, it was claimed, would lay the groundwork for, among other things, a $64.88 per hour top wage rate, while still retaining whatever inefficiencies and costly provisions of the CWA-afa CBA that the UAL MEC deems the s-United work force wants as a result of a series of fraudulent surveys skewed to illicit certain responses.

The latest joint negotiating committee update has gone so far as to criticize other labor groups at United Continental for quick resolutions to their contracts and who “are now experiencing difficulty regarding the interpretation of new Contract language on any number of issues.”  Such rationalization for the onerous and delay prone approach to everything the CWA-afa flight attendants have done in their past and continue to do as current contract negotiations play out here and elsewhere is such a magnificent display of the pretzel logic that is part and parcel of everything the CWA-afa flight attendants do, that it is impossible to grasp and fully appreciate the self denial and shameless self promotion necessary to write and utter such nonsense with a straight face.

Echoing Sharon McKarcher’s drivel distributed as part of the Coconut Wireless newsletter (s-UA HNL) during the 2012 Board of Directors meeting flight attendants are reminded that “more often than not, negotiations…begin at a slower pace and gain momentum over time.”   But immediately thereafter, while we are told that lengthy negotiations are necessary because “quick and easy (is) not what we’re after,” suddenly, “long negotiation periods can benefit management, because the longer the time before accepting improvement in the Contract, the longer they get to go without paying for those improvements…Management hopes that they can stall us into agreeing to settle for less.”

So in the beautifully duplicitous manner that the CWA-afa flight attendants have honed to a fine art, in one sentence, “quick and easy” contract resolutions are anathema to flight attendant “leadership,” and , indeed, have led to trouble for the other groups who have settled relatively quickly.  But in the same breath, it is then claimed that “long negotiation periods…benefit management” because lengthy negotiations also preclude the need for companies to absorb the extra cost associated with improvements. 

But airline managements across the country have little to worry about here, since the CWA-afa has NEVER managed to negotiate anything approaching real value when it comes to contractual “improvements,” chief among them being retroactive pay.  Retroactive pay is meant to be a punitive incentive for efficient negotiations by avoiding a large pay out upon ratification of a contract well past its amendable date but which the CWA-afa has consistently bargained away for pennies on the dollar.

Underpinned by two different operating philosophies, the CAL and CMI CBAs stand in stark contrast to the overwrought, micromanaged CWA-afa CBA, but it is the egos of the three negotiating team members for s-United who have defined in their minds what is “management’s terms” and what is theirs.  From the ten year debacle of a contract Kevin Lump-sum negotiated in the mid 1990s which has hamstrung s-United flight attendants’ economic well being for the last two decades, to Jack Kande’s and Greg Davidowitch’s Swiss cheese “stepping stone” contract of 2012-2016, the three caballeros have something to prove to themselves and one another, and whether that benefits s-United attendants in the long run or not is of secondary concern.

The fact remains that it is the CAL CBA that will remain standing in some slightly altered form after all is said and done, and s-United attendants in the meantime will continue to be denied the hourly wage rate enjoyed by their counterparts on the CAL/CMI side while the s-United negotiating committee play acts for the next several years. The difference between the work groups, especially ALPA, that have come to terms with the new United management, despite any perceived nuisances or inconvenience that may arise “regarding the interpretation of new Contract language,” is that job security protections are now in place for everyone but s-United attendants.

 

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