Angry Janette Rook Misses the Point(s)

AFA = Opportunities Missed. Unity Shattered. Respect Lost.

Hey Janette: Here’s a news flash. A union is supposed to do two things: 1) Negotiate a contract and 2) Enforce that contract.

Stop trying to distract us with your empty words, false hopes and meaningless statements. And stop embarrassing us by sending out worthless, emotional missives that have nothing to do with your job as MEC President.

Recently Janette signed her name to a letter that was written for her and addressed to Ed Bastien. Setting aside the glaring fact that the Airline Quality Rating does not isolate and measure flight attendant performance, the letter still begs the question: What is the role of the union in ensuring airline quality ratings? This simple answer is: none. But Janette refuses to address the very real issues that affect us, our families and our finances on a daily basis, and chooses to try to distract us with insincere rhetoric.

These are the questions that Janette should be answering:

1. Why have you been unable to put together a factual, objective comparison of the AFA-NWA contract and the Delta policy manual that shows the benefits of an AFA contract?
   
   
2. What exactly is AFA’s timeline for the representation election, seniority integration and contract negotiations? How does AFA possibly plan to accomplish all that by next March? Isn’t it true that AFA contracts typically take YEARS, not months, to negotiate?
   
   
3. Isn’t it true that when AFA paid staffers and campaigners met in Baltimore recently, they couldn’t even agree on a date to file for election, and that’s the real reason we’re left with the broad “promise” of a summer filing, and it has nothing to do with keeping it secret from Delta management?
   
   
4. Never mind the empty promises about our next contract; when can we expect AFA to protect our CURRENT contract? Routes are gone, me-too clauses that guarantee pay raises remain unenforced and flight attendants have lost their jobs due to AFA backroom deals and plain old AFA ineffectiveness. The incompetence has gotten so bad that AFA no longer allows your base representatives to speak at company Q&As in defense of flight attendants. Where are the fence agreements and the job protections that a union is supposed to provide?
   
   
5. It took AFA all this time to “establish a goal of an Industry Leading contract”?!?!?!?? What?!? Hey Janette, how do you and AFA plan on achieving that? What are the plans and the strategy to support that goal? After all, we only have to open our eyes to realize that, after 60 years of representation, AFA HAS FAILED TO ACHIEVE THE INDUSTRY LEADING CONTRACT AT ANY AIRLINE IT REPRESENTS. Isn’t this latest “goal” really just a function of the AFA-hired-PR-firm-tail wagging the union dog, having nothing to do with reality and everything to do with AFA trying to collect more dues money from the Delta flight attendants?
   
   
6. In short, Janette, what has AFA done for us lately? Or EVER for that matter? Can you name just 1 advancement that AFA has won in the past 3 years? Can you name just 1 promise made during the raid on the NWA flight attendants that AFA has kept?

The bottom line, although Janette refuses to admit it, is that AFA has devolved into an oligarchy ruled by a non-flight attendant tyrant, who has little incentive to listen to the members. After all, Pat Friend is happily receiving her six-figure AFA salary that you and I pay for, while enjoying the protection of her United Airlines pension PLUS an executive-style AFA pension that you and I also pay for. At the end of the day, each and every Northwest flight attendant could petition the LEC presidents for a representation election and it will do no good, because Pat, supported by entitled paid staffers like Janette Rook, works on her own timeline which is void of any plan or strategy and serves only to protect her own financial interest.

If there was any lingering question that AFA could one day become a member-driven organization with a true bottom up structure (as they promised us 3 years ago), those hopes were blown to smithereens at the recent AFA Board of Directors meeting, where any proposal that even hinted at democracy was quickly and summarily dispatched to the junk pile of failed resolutions.

When an organization is void of any fresh ideas or new strategies, it condemns itself to repeating the same old tired tactics over and over. It shuts out free thinkers, dismisses reformists and ostracizes those who dare to exercise their right to free speech. In a little under 3 years of representation, AFA – with their negative approach and fear tactics; their exclusion of talented and dedicated NWA flight attendants; and their divide and conquer strategy – have managed to corrupt the amazing culture of the Northwest flight attendants and done considerable harm to our solidarity and unity. All in the name of the almighty dues dollar.

Sincerely,
Jose Arturo Ibarra