Why is AFA afraid of Truth and Full Disclosure?

Three items in this post!
* Why is AFA afraid of Truth and Full Disclosure?
** Don't they trust their members to make up our own minds?
*** And How AFA gave away some of our Allegheny-Mohawk Labor Protective Provisions (LPPs)

Item 1 ~ Why is AFA afraid of Truth and Full Disclosure?

More than a week after they lost the election to represent the Compass flight attendants (and after I released the results on my BLOG), AFA finally issues a concession statement. They blame the loss on "repeated assault on us by Compass management and its hired-gun law firm, Paul, Hastings, Janofsky and Walker, LLP, and through its unusual influence with the National Mediation Board. . ." If AFA can't go up against a company that employs 46 flight attendants, what delusions do they have of protecting us against a combined Delta/Northwest management? Where is the plan AFA? What is the strategy? Where is the state of the art communications you promised us during your raid? Why are we kept in the dark?

AFA also blames the Compass flight attendants for choosing to work "at will," not AFA's own removal of Compass representation at the negotiations table with NWA and AFA's failure to win representation back.

Fro more info about the Compass representation debacle and how it might impact you read previous post.

Item 2 ~ Delta work rules and salary information!

AFA continues to talk down the Delta work rules, yet has failed to provide you the information to make an informed decision. Link on the top right of this page to see the Delta work rules and decide for yourself. If history is any indication of the future, Delta will continue to improve conditions for its employees to remain at par with industry contracts. Meanwhile, we're locked into our contract until at least 2011. Delta management only imposed concessions after AFA allowed concessions to happen at United and US Airways. Delta's been in business since 1928 and hasn't done the horrible things that AFA is trying to scare us about. Once again, AFA is substituting strategy and leadership with a fear campaign.

Give us the information AFA! Let us decide for ourselves. We are the union and we pay you to get what we need. Unless you don't trust us.

Item 3 ~ How AFA gave away some of our Allegheny-Mohawk Labor Protective Provisions (LPPs)

Section 1 of our contract and Allegheny-Mohawk Labor Protective Provisions (LPP).

During the AFA raid, the Northwest flight attendants fought hard to protect the Scope language in Section 1 of our contract. However in TA3, AFA handed over to Northwest management another important LPP that was contained in different section of our contract: moving expenses. Allegheny-Mohawk provides for moving expense reimbursement in the event of displacement (i.e. base closure). AFA, with all their staff attorneys and negotiators and their years of negotiations 'experience' gave away this important protection. There has already been media speculation about the closure of Memphis if a merger occurs between Northwest and Delta. If that happens, the Memphis flight attendants no longer have any displacement protections, thanks to AFA.

More alarming is the fact that our union dues are still paying these negotiators to be offline 10 months after our contract was ratified. It's time that Lovey Offerle, James Yung and Bruce Retrum stop attending parties with management, stop handing our contract language over to the company and stop sucking up our dues money.

It's time to bring in the people who have knowledge of the history of our scope language. Why is Kevin Griffin and the MEC purposefully EXCLUDING from discussions the very people who negotiated the strongest scope language in the industry and bringing back those who tried to staple the Republic flight attendants to the bottom of the seniority list. It's time the MEC stop playing their childish and exclusionary political games with our future.

Sincerely,
Jose Arturo Ibarra