United Airlines flight attendants haven’t seen a raise since 2021, because that’s when their contract became amendable.
Negotiations were delayed by the pandemic (not a great time to ask for more money if you worked in travel) and because the union decided to wait to see what American Airlines flight attendants got in their deal first, to use that as a starting point for their own negotiations.
They even lent their union’s top negotiator to the rival union that represents flight attendants at American, to try to score the best deal possible (and to have American’s flight attendants strike if necessary, instead of walking off the job themselves).
The United union, though, is threatening a strike. That won’t come any time soon, because they first need the permission of the National Mediation Board.
- The NMB would first have to declare that negotiations are at an impasse.
- That starts a 30 day ‘cooling off’ period before the parties would be permitted to engage in ‘self-help’
- However, the NMB has adjourned mediated negotiations for the year. Eventually, Republicans will gain a majority on that board – and even the Biden administration-dominated NMB wasn’t willing to let airline unions strike.
- And it’s only been a couple of months since the United flight attendants union revealed their economic demands. They also just fired their negotiating committee. It’s hard to say things are at an impasse in any case.
However, with United flight attendants having overwhelmingly voted to authorize their union to declare a strike if the government lets them, the AFA-CWA union is currently soliciting volunteers from amongst their members to be the first to strike, as first reported by aviation watchdog JonNYC.
That’s because their strategy wouldn’t be a total walking off the job. Instead, the union’s tactic is called “CHAOS” which stands for (C)reate (H)avoc (A)round (O)ur (S)ystem.
- They engage in seemingly random, one-off strikes – hitting specific flights that change each day.
- That way they scare customers away from booking the airline – passengers don’t know which flights will operate and which ones won’t, so the carrier becomes unreliable.
- But only a small percentage of flight attendants have to strike, which means everyone else still earns their income (unless the airline locks them out and shuts down operations!).
Flight attendants are not well-positioned to endure a long work stoppage. They don’t have the financial resources, usually, to go without income.
The airline knows this. So the union doesn’t want to get into a protracted airline-wide strike.
They prefer to spread the pain, and have a given flight attendant endure it only for a total of a few days – maximize impact on the company, while minimizing economic cost to their members.
