By now most of you have probably read the despicable string of emails wherein AFA International President Patricia “Pat” Friend disgraced herself and urged our appointed and elected leadership to engage in a smear campaign – including lies – to defame former SFO LEC President Kate Day. As the San Francisco flight attendants know, Kate’s reputation as a union activist is beyond reproach. She worked tirelessly on behalf of her members and has the best grievance-win record at NWA AFA. She was successful in winning several flight attendants their jobs back and was one of only 2 local presidents who managed to stay within her budget year after year. Flight attendants from other bases often called Kate when they couldn’t reach representatives at their own base, or when they believed their own LEC presidents would not adequately represent them.
It speaks volumes when a true union activist such as Kate leaves an organization because she finds the bureaucracy, incompetence and greed to be an insurmountable obstacle in the continuation of her good work on behalf of the membership. And for those of you that thought that Kate’s resignation letter was merely her “opinion” or anything less than the factual truth, Pat Friend was quick to prove the opposite: It turns out that Kate’s letter was an understatement of the miserable state of affairs within the AFA asylum.
Many of you have responded with shock and outrage, even more of you have replied that none of Pat’s or AFA’s increasingly mendacious and bizarre proclamations any longer surprises you. This is just business as usual.
Of course, we could attempt to debate Pat’s motives, and perhaps even examine some or all of her past decisions and statements, and ask ourselves, “How many times has she lied to us in the past, and how many times has she urged our appointed and elected leadership to lie to us, and how many of them have complied? In fact, has she ever told us the truth, and why should we believe anything she says now? How can we ever believe that anything that comes out of AFA is the truth?”
But what’s the point? She’s lied before, and she’ll lie again – and the disgusting string of emails proves it beyond all doubt. AFA is and continues to be Pat Friend’s AFA: Pat Friend’s Personal Fiefdom for the Last 16 Years, where lies and smear campaigns are well rewarded, even encouraged, if it will keep Pat in power.
And Pat Friend was handsomely rewarded for her sinister style of leadership by her cohorts on the NWA MEC, who nominated her for the AFA Ada Brown Lifetime Achievement Award at this year’s Board of Directors meeting. That’s right! Rather than holding Pat accountable for attacking and conspiring against a Delta flight attendant and AFA dues-paying member, our own MEC gave her an award! The nomination drive was led by none other than our MEC president Janette Rook. I guess this is Janette’s payback to Pat for not filing charges when Janette was caught with her hand in the Treasury cookie jar and treated herself to extra “bonus” payments. This is just another example of how the concerns of the members continue to be ignored by the very people who are supposed to turn to us to drive their decisions.
So what now? Reform? Not likely. It has become all too obvious that we can’t reclaim and restore AFA (given the current slate of appointees and representatives on the local and national horizon). However, we can certainly send a message that we are no longer willing to wait to express our democratic right for a representational election while AFA delays the inevitable and falsely claims that the NMB and the company are somehow preventing a vote. Only AFA’s Patricia (Pat) Friend can trigger the election and she has no deadline to force her to trigger an election.
Now’s the time to stand up and take action – demand OUR right to vote, and tell Pat and her cronies to get out of our way if they aren’t willing to be honest with us. It doesn’t matter if you support or don’t support a union. What matters now is our right to a fair and democratic decision, and our need to move past this merger, and regain the concessions that AFA surrendered in bankruptcy.
The petition (which I myself have already signed along with many of our co-workers you will recognize) was forwarded to me by a group of flight attendants, who, according to their biographical information, are:
“… a group of Delta flight attendants, from both pre-merger carriers, who want to move on NOW. Whatever the final result, we demand our democratic right to vote, NOW. Otherwise, we are non-political, and only want what's best for our merged group: raises, routes and respect. We urge all flight attendants and anyone that supports our joint efforts to sign this petition!”
I highly urge everyone to sign this. Ask your friends and family to sign it as well. After all, this delay is affecting more than just the flight attendants of the new Delta. Let’s move on now. Let’s move past AFA’s lies and smear campaigns, and its incompetent leadership. Let’s move forward to a better future.
Don’t succumb to fear, stand up make your voice heard and sign up.
We have the right to a Vote!
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/ourvotenow/
Sincerely,
Jose Arturo Ibarra
