2.14.19 – American’s Attempt at Union Busting

Thursday, February 14, 2019

 

Happy Valentine’s Day! Where’s the Love, Doug?

Union’s Response to Company’s Rhetoric

• First, the company gave APFA about 15 minutes notice before releasing their “resizing” plan. During Crew News, Doug Parker said he was alerted to this plan only about a month ago. This “plan” surely didn’t happen overnight. We have reason to believe they knew PRIOR to all the transfers in November that prompted the Vacancy Transfer Arbitration. It begs the question, “Why did they allow 50 Flight Attendants to uproot and transfer into PHX in November?” Unbelievable! Our members made SIGNIFICANT changes to their lives and 3 months later the company tells them they are downsizing the base by 700.

• Secondly, Doug Parker blatantly bargains with our members. Considering APFA and the company are going into a negotiating session next week, perhaps he could have allowed the process to play out instead of negotiating directly with the membership in a Crew News session.

“Positioning OUR Membership for the Future”

For the first time in nearly 2 decades, we are in the position to negotiate with a company that has prospered as a result of our repeated sacrifices. To quote Doug Parker, “American will never lose money again.” This promise, along with company’s “One Team One Plan” agenda which also promises “To propose industry leading offers for Pilots and Flight Attendant teams with the goal of completing CBA’s before contract amendable dates,” should normally have all of us feeling excited about the future. But in true American Airlines fashion, what they say and what they do rarely translate into a partnership that promotes a healthy work environment where the Flight Attendants are made to feel a part of the “team”.

A Roadmap with No Direction

The news of the company’s plan to “resize” bases has had an extremely profound effect on our members. The company’s answer of “we aim to address the overage over time through voluntary transfers and by not filling vacancies created by attrition and transfers at PHX and STL,” just does NOT cut it! Being “hopeful” that we can correct the imbalance without displacement leaves more questions than answers, for their “valuable” team members.

“One Team One Plan” sounds good; but it’s a shame it doesn’t include the Flight Attendants.

We will continue to demand that the company give us a concrete plan that includes a timeline and more detailed information so that the membership can prepare for these changes. In the meantime, please volunteer to be an activist apfa.org and sign up to receive the APFA hotline and your Base Brief. Wear your Union pin. The company has shown it will do whatever it wants whenever it wants and we need to show them that we are UNIFIED.

We must do this together.