Flight attendants at American Airlines were celebrating September 12 after approving a new five-year agreement by 87 percent, with 95 percent turnout. They won a big retroactive pay package and an immediate wage increase of 20 percent.
They also became the first flight attendants to nail down boarding pay in a union contract. Flight attendants typically are not paid until the aircraft doors close. All that greeting, seating, sorting out problems, and assistance with bags is off the clock.
“The coolest thing is I had people from so many different unions across the country texting me congratulations,” said Alyssa Kovacs, a flight attendant in Chicago. Over fifty other unions had joined them at informational pickets over the years: teachers, actors, Teamsters, pilots, hotel workers. “You know, a win for one is a win for all,” she said.
It was an arduous road for the Association of Professional Flight Attendants (APFA), the 26,000-member union at American. Its previous contract expired in 2019, and then came COVID.
APFA’s three-year contract campaign included systemwide picketing, popular red “WAR” (We Are Ready) pins and T-shirts, seven marches on the boss, pop-up pickets at the White House and Wall Street, and last year, a 99.47 percent yes vote to strike.
“By the time we were meeting with the National Mediation Board,” said APFA president Julie Hedrick, “management, the government, everybody knew our flight attendants were ready to strike.”
In 2020, the pandemic threw the airline industry into a tailspin. Furloughs left flight…
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Auteur: Jenny Brown
