More AFA Secrets, Half-Truths and Misdeeds

In this Email:

*** Is there any organization less democratic than AFA?
*** AFA’s blunders have cost us all 40% of our livelihoods; now some flight attendants are faced with losing their jobs (or AFA has hit the ground again – SPLAT!)
*** Griffin, Rook and Gehrt meet with company executives – and fail to communicate with us.


Is There Any Organization Less Democratic Than AFA?

In the Friday, August 29, 2008 AFA hotline, our NWA MEC informed us – under the heading “DELTA MANAGEMENT ANNOUNCES PLAN FOR FLIGHT ATTENDANT SENIORITY INTEGRATION” that Delta management has announced plans to assemble a seniority integration committee to represent the Delta flight attendants’ collective interests in combining the NWA and DAL seniority lists.

The important information the MEC failed to tell us is that the Delta flight attendants will have FOURTEEN (14) REPRESENTATIVES on their committee (compared to our TWO (2), and the representatives will be chosen by DIRECT ELECTION. Each Delta base will have at least one representative on the committee, with an additional representative for each additional 1.000 flight attendants at the base.

That’s right! Non-union Delta flight attendants will have full representation on the seniority integration committee. And what does our over $500 in annual dues get us? Two secretly appointed representatives, with a spotty union history who have failed in the fight for our collective best interest.

So this begs the question, why can't we, as a unionized group, elect our own representatives? Isn't that what democracy is all about, and doesn't AFA claim to be a democratic union? Why did our MEC secretly appoint people for us, and only two people to boot, when Delta will have up to 14 people on their committee? Doesn't this put us at a disadvantage? Additionally, why did our MEC appoint MSP FA Barb Schlosser who previously argued for rank/ratio seniority integration? If this ultimately goes to arbitration, why would we take a chance on Barb's shortsighted approach, which could certainly be used against us by Delta?

And how did our MEC think BOS FA Ann Marie Mastelerz was a good choice? Wasn’t she the union negotiator who stood up at the road shows for the purple book contract/TA1 (in 1999) and told us TA1 was the best we could get? Didn’t we vote down TA1, which led to millions of dollars in improvements and the yellow book/(TA2)? She was wrong for us then and there’s nothing to prove that she’s not wrong for us now. Why were these appointments made in secret, with no notification of the openings to the membership?

Link HERE to view the Joanne Smith memo and all the facts the MEC is trying to keep from us. http://joseaibarra.blogspot.com/2008/08/ifs-seniority-integration-committee.html

Link HERE for the NWA contract/DAL policy manual comparison that AFA is trying to keep buried. http://www.fainformation.com/


AFA’s blunders have cost us all 40% of our livelihoods; now some flight attendants are faced with losing their jobs (or AFA has hit the ground again – SPLAT!)

Remember when AFA promised us during the raid that they would “hit the ground running at NWA?” Remember the membership application fiasco, where members submitted membership applications 3, 4 and 5 times to the membership department, but they were never processed? Remember the NWA flight attendants who had been paying dues to the AFA, but were not allowed to vote on contract ratification and in elections because the membership department LOST their applications? Remember the sketchy TA3 vote, where almost 500 ballots were thrown out, many allegedly because there was no membership application on file, even though the flight attendant had been paying dues?

Well, AFA International has done it again. They recently mailed out Status 5 termination letters to scores of Northwest flight attendants. These letters threaten Northwest flight attendants with termination if they don’t correct their dues arrears status immediately. The problem is that many of these letters were sent to flight attendants who are current in their dues. It is the AFA membership department that has failed to correctly credit the payments to their accounts.

In other instances, members have been trying to bring current a past due balance, but have been struggling to keep up with ordinary living expenses. Here is one example from a flight attendant who has been paying her recent dues and has been making efforts to pay down a previous balance:

“Just wanting to drop you a letter to let you know how I feel about the letter I received from Kevin Creighan in the mail. The letter stated that AFA was asking that I be terminated for the back dues of $41.00. I was aware of my back dues and have been paying some each month, but apparently not fast enough for national. I should mention they have gotten their dues from my paycheck every month for quite some time. Well, you can imagine I have been struggling with my 40% pay cut,( all taken while I was paying dues) and have had to prioritize which bills are of importance. I tend to pay rent, electricity, groceries, child care, and medical bills first. Believe or not some months there is nothing left. As AFA is campaigning for a union at Delta they are throwing their members to the wolves. I have made copies of the letter and given them to my friends at Delta Airlines. I have supported the union up to this point, but this made an impact on me. A HUGE IMPACT. I have asked that the letter be placed in Delta Inflight for all to see.
Disgusted,
NWA Flight”

$41.00. How shameful that AFA is willing to have its own members fired for a mere $41.00. But it shouldn’t be surprising. After all, the leaders of this organization voted themselves a pay increase at the recent AFA Board of Directors meeting. Besides flight pay loss, they increased their daily per diem from $45.00 to $56.00 per day. And they can collect per diem even when they are sitting at home! Our domestic per diem comes out to $39.60 per day and we actually have to go out and fly (and turns don’t count). Proof once again that the contracts that AFA negotiates for us are not good enough for the AFA staffers who negotiate them.


Griffin, Rook and Gehrt meet with company executives – and fail to communicate with us.

MEC President Kevin Griffin, Vice President Janette Rook and Secretary-Treasurer Mark Gehrt met with NWA and Delta executives including Ed Bastien, Julie Showers and Mike Campbell earlier this week. Why have they failed to communicate the details of the meeting, much less the fact that the meeting occurred. Griffin likes to tout himself as the ‘great communicator’, yet time after time he fails to actually – um – communicate.

What does Kevin want? First he wants us to email the company executives directly, then he tells us not to complete a company survey, now he’s communicating with the company and not with his own members. For 100 hours of flight pay per month, plus $56.00 per diem each day, you would think that Kevin would be compelled to return some work and communication. Why the secrets, Kevin? Is this another under-the-radar meeting like the one between Doug Steenland and Pat Friend? Did you make any more secret agreements that reduced our rights and cost flight attendants their jobs?

It’s time for the members to get the answers they deserve. It’s time we got the democratic representation we were promised. Write to CWA, Griffin, Rook and Gehrt and demand full disclosure and complete honesty. Your collective futures are too important to squander through secret deals and hidden agendas.

CWA President Larry Cohen: lcohen@cwa-union.org
CWA Executive VP Annie Hill: ahill@cwa-union.org
CWA Secretary-Tresurer Andrew Rechenbach: arechenbach@cwa-union.org
Reach all LEC Presidents with this email - lecmec@nwaafa.org
Kevin Griffin - kgriffin@nwaafa.org
Jannette Rook - jrook@nwaafa.org
Mark Gehrt - mgehrt@nwaafa.org

Sincerely,
Jose A. Ibarra