AFA – Just A Dues Collection Agency?

AFA promised NWA flight attendants a lot during their raid and they scared many flight attendants into voting them onto the property. We have not only seen those promises broken, but the AFA “blame game” fires up whenever they are questioned about the contract or when flight attendants attempt to hold them accountable to the dues money they are raking in…and which will be increasing in June this year.

Yearly dues paid to AFA per NWA flight attendant: $500.

Unfortunately, while AFA is getting a pay raise, we have not seen real successes from AFA that put real dollars into our pockets like ALPA achieved for their membership.

While we spend our hard earned money on AFA representation attempting to improve our pay, benefits and work rules, all we seem to get in return are the same smoke and mirrors that we got during the representational campaign. Not only do most of us not have the money to waste, but we expect more respect from the union we pay for.

Months since our quality of life was demolished: 9

Here are just a few more AFA “broken promises”, the ways these debacles are now getting “spun” (here and at Delta) and how your dues money is being spent:

AFA promised NWA flight attendants big improvements from TA1 if they got voted in. David Borer, AFA’s general counsel, told Delta flight attendants on a campaign webcast (typically very costly) that they won over $30 million in improvements at NWA.

Have you seen them? I haven’t.

What are they?

Do you remember AFA calling off CHAOS when we were all ready to strike for improvements when TA2 got handily voted down? Pat Friend told the MEC that it would be ‘good PR’ to call off the strike. Scott Braxton, who was her appointed President in DTW, introduced a motion at the MEC that took away the only chance we had to stirke during the bankruptcy process.

AFA is now claiming credit for negotiating the equity claim payments. Did you know that the equity claim was negotiated by PFAA and that it was in ALL of the TAs?

AFA says getting quarterly grievance review (QGR) back into the NWA contract is a success. In a recent email to the members, AFA Grievance Chair Kathy Sandvik, apparently unaware of AFA’s own campaign rhetoric, touts the return of Quarterly Grievance Review as some type of victory.

Do you remember the AFA representational campaign letter from DTW flight attendant and former Teamster leader, Anne Toombs, that said the previous union was wasting your dues money and union time with QGR? The previous union agreed, took it out of TA1 and now the union Ms. Toombs helped get elected, AFA, brought it back.

Do you know how much was spent to negotiate back this item that AFA once said was too costly? (It is not a “cost neutral” item.)

Do you know how much of your dues dollars it takes to put up all of your representatives in hotels in Minneapolis for a week, plus food, training and transportation? (Hopefully at least those who live in Minneapolis won’t take advantage of this.)

This past week AFA sent out an email to the Delta flight attendants saying they won leaves with medical benefits for the Northwest flight attendants.

When?
The answer is never. (So would this be a broken promise or just an outright lie?)


Delta Flight Attendants deserve the truth
We deserve better union representation.