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A group of American Airlines (EEL) Flight attendants are Calling a vote to authorize a strike. The workers are employed by PSA Airlines, a regional airline that is part of American’s American Eagle network. Represented by the Association of Flight Attendants, they say a wage proposal presented to them by the company is inconsistent with what they see at larger airlines and that many of them are struggling to pay their bills.
“Flight attendants at PSA and other regional airlines across the industry are fighting to eliminate pay scales in aviation,” AFA President Sara Nelson said in a statement accompanying the announcement. “Flight attendants at PSA wear the same uniforms, fly the same routes and perform the same duties as flight attendants on regular airlines. But the airlines are outperforming them in terms of compensation and benefits.”
American Airlines did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The vote to authorize a strike will be completed next month, although the flight attendants’ strike votes are usually almost unanimous. Because the employment contracts of cabin crew are governed by the Railway Labor Act rather than the National Labor Relations Act, they are much more limited in their ability to take industrial action. A successful vote would not immediately lead to a strikebut a positive outcome would give them the opportunity to continue a strike if government officials consider that an impasse has been reached in the talks.
American Airlines does not break out in its annual report the money it makes from its American Eagle lines. The company technically buys the “capacity” from these airlines, controls the marketing, and takes all the fares they generate while lumping them into its general reporting line “passenger revenue.” When they spoke to Quartz last monthAFA’s Nelson said one of the difficulties for airline unions is negotiating for the smaller airlines that are tied to big-name parent companies but are not treated as branded companies at the bargaining table.
“We need to tackle the business model of contracting to the major airlines, where the major airlines say it’s not their decision,” she said. “We need to negotiate with these regional airlines, even though we know it’s actually the decision of the major airlines who set these rates and demand these low labor costs to contract this work to the regional airlines.”
A PSA flight attendant walkout would not be the first time American has faced a strike threat this summer. For months, the company’s main division flight attendants (represented by another union, the Association of Professional Flight Attendants) sought to gain an exemption from state-mandated and mediated collective bargaining in order to improve on the offers they received from the other side of the table. Finally, have a deal without you having to stop working.
