Question about Compass Airlines flight attendants.

Q: I heard through the grapevine that AFA just lost the election to represent the Compass flight attendants (less than 50 flight attendants). Didn’t we have language in our contract that gave them the right to represent Compass flight attendants? If they gave away the language, why would they turn around so soon and try to organize the Compass flight attendants? It just doesn’t make any sense at all . . . is this some new AFA strategy? I remember AFA recently announcing they had filed for a vote at Compass, but I can’t find any information about the results on the AFA website. Since they are spending our dues money on organizing other airlines, shouldn’t they inform us of the outcome? Also, why would they choose to spend our dues money on this campaign when they could have had the Compass flight attendants for free?

A: To give you a bit of history, in negotiations for TA 1, PFAA demanded representation for Compass flight attendants to ensure that they would have negotiated work rules and pay rates. The strategy (aside from the obvious desire to protect Compass flight attendants with union representation) was to make sure Compass flight attendants had the best possible negotiated wages in order to reduce the incentive for NWA management to transfer our flying to Compass.

For whatever reason, in TA 3 AFA gave away representation of Compass. I have no idea if AFA got anything for us in return, and if they did, it certainly couldn't be much (just look at TA 3).

Last fall, AFA launched a drive - with our dues money - to gain representation of Compass flight attendants, and filed for an election in December. The vote count was on January 29, and unfortunately, AFA lost what should have been a very simple win, given the very small number of Compass flight attendants.

Here are the Compass election results:

Number of Eligible Voters: 46

Void Votes: 0

Votes Cast for AFA-CWA: 16

Valid Votes Counted: 16