UNITY, OPPORTUNITY & RESPECT

UNITY, OPPORTUNITY & RESPECT

UNITY

Now that the Delta Air Lines Flight Attendant Seniority Integration Committee has taken the high road, and honored our many collective years of service by agreeing to a date of hire merge for our groups, we should all take a moment to thank those fine individuals for their magnanimous decision, and their service on our behalf.

*** Let’s thank them for working through this difficult issue, even though they were forced to work without Northwest representatives, as our own AFA leadership decided to ignore a great opportunity to build bridges to our future with our future flying partners.

*** Let’s thank them for recognizing that this merger is about the serious business of bringing two great airlines together, while ensuring the survival of our jobs through mutual respect for both our groups.

*** And let’s thank them for not playing politics with our futures, and for not bombarding us with self-serving scare tactics, designed to divide us when we most need to be looking out for our combined best interests together as a group.

OPPORTUNITY

With this decision behind us – despite AFA’s bizarre words in Wednesday’s hotline somehow suggesting otherwise – now more than ever we must quickly bring this merger to a close to ensure that we receive the raises and improvements we badly need and deserve. Delta management has laid out a timeline of when they plan to integrate flying so that all flight attendants from both airlines can benefit from the increased opportunities this merger offers. What is AFA’s timeline? How long do they expect it to take to: hold a representation election, merge the seniority lists, and negotiate a new contract? What is their plan? Why are we getting specific details from management and absolutely no information from the very AFA staffers that are on our payroll? They may try to bluff us that this is yet another strategy that needs to be kept secret, but the not-so-secret is that this will soon be nothing more than another opportunity that has passed AFA by.

RESPECT

Although others may say otherwise, and have tried to sew some twisted meaning into my words, I have not taken a public position regarding the representational election, nor will I, except to say that the time is now to determine our future direction. Only through a democratic election, can the members determine our collective future. AFA apparently respects our opinion so little that they do not even want to have an election.

Let’s get on with it AFA.

STOP denying our right to vote!

Sincerely,
Jose Arturo Ibarra