Influential American Airlines flight attendant union leader rejects new contract: Are we facing another strike?
American Airlines has reached a new collective agreement with the flight attendants’ union. This agreement provides for immediate salary increases of 18 to 20 percent, full back pay and an on-board allowance that, according to the union, is on average 8.5 percent higher.
However, this also means that new flight attendants have to work longer hours as “pure reserve”, which makes life more difficult for the new employees only and effectively leads to Class B working rules.
The big challenge is whether this agreement will be accepted by the members or rejected, like the last one, which would mean that we would once again be faced with the threat of a strike after further lengthy negotiations.
- On the one hand, flight attendants may feel they can achieve more. Higher-ranking employees have a better chance of deferring raises, while Boston’s junior employees are eligible for food stamps. Rejecting the union contract, the thinking goes, may just mean they’ll get a better contract later.
- However, American Airlines is underperforming financially. The company does not currently expect to make money this quarter, which is traditionally a strong period. If the economy goes into recession, the profits currently possible may no longer be available.
Against this backdrop, the president of American Airlines’ flight attendant base in Los Angeles has spoken out against ratifying the new contract. There are many priorities, he says, that the union has not negotiated.
Any contract that flight attendants agree to must be respected for up to ten years even though it is a five-year contract. It is only when a contract becomes amendable that serious negotiations begin. This contract took five years to negotiate (with the pandemic delaying negotiations – the flight attendants certainly would not have wanted a contract that could have been on the table in 2020 when the airline furloughed the crew).
- Reserve system not improved. In theory, requiring new hires to work more as reserves helps experienced staff, but that doesn’t confer any benefit at locations that aren’t hiring new staff. American hasn’t hired new flight attendants for 12 years. A better way, he says, is to create a financial incentive not to schedule as many employees as are needed (“If AA had to pay $10 to $15 per reserve hour on top of regular pay, it would reduce the need for reserves to cover flights on their precious days off”), noting that the airline schedules about twice as many employees as it did before US Airways management took over.
- New contract limits flight attendants’ ability to change their place of workBecause the contract allows off-base flight attendants to cover flights, the airline’s need to allow transfers to understaffed bases is reduced (“the company would now effectively have a system-wide open time pool”).
- Delta and United flight attendants will soon earn more and that contract does not include a buyout clause. Often, contracts stipulate that an airline like United that gets a new contract with a pending negotiation will undercut that contract by 1%. Delta, which is non-union, typically gives its employees raises annually. However, once the contract becomes amendable, there is no provision for raises in subsequent years (such as inflation increases). So the longer a new contract lasts, the more money the company could save.
- Many improvements only come after years as the implementation of improvements is in some cases postponed for a year or two. There is no built-in penalty for missing implementation deadlines or even for breaches of the Treaty more broadly.
- The boarding school allowance is merely a compensation for the salary. I have been writing about this for two years and the flight attendants do not want to believe me. Unions have not demanded boarding wages in the past because they preferred higher wages are spread over less working time. Young flight attendants tend to work shorter routes and spend more time boarding. So if wages are based on flight time, the salary is redistributed from young flight attendants to more experienced ones.
After Delta gave its flight attendants in-flight pay as a perk, pressure grew on unions to demand it in negotiations. However, the president of LAX Base notes that this only leads to smaller pay increases.
Although boarding pay was a big focus of these negotiations, its impact on the hourly wage reduction cannot be ignored. When I learned that boarding pay would come at the expense of the hourly wage increase, I suggested to APFA leadership that they give members two options when voting on a TA:
– Lower hourly wage with pension supplement and
– Higher hourly wage without meal allowance.
We all know that our unpaid time during boarding is the hardest part of the flight. There is no question of whether we deserve it. Of course we deserve it. My question is about the fact that this came at the expense of the hourly rate. Members should have had a choice.
I would add that the union has not negotiated a return to pre-pandemic staffing levels on wide-body aircraft. American continues to cut staff on long-haul aircraft even though service levels have been restored.
There are a number of issues that flight attendants are unhappy with in the new contract their union negotiated with American. The last time cabin crew voted on a contract, they voted against it. In my opinion, the union is doing a good job of selling the contract, but the membership is clearly divided — and its powerful president at the LAX location has given the opposition a new voice.
