AFA's comical litany of complaints reads like an indictment of our MEC leadership's own incompetence, and - if true - begs the question: What exactly have MEC President Janette Rook and the other unelected, appointed officers been doing while Delta has been running roughshod over the premerger NWA flight attendants? Has AFA fiddled, while the contract burned or is this lawsuit nothing more than a cheap campaign stunt designed to make AFA look effective?
In the lawsuit, AFA alleges the following (in italics):
o Delta has violated its duty to maintain the CBA provisions concerning rates of pay, rules, and working conditions. Delta has also failed in its duty to settle all disputes both through its refusal to resolve disputes informally and through its inaction and unresponsiveness in the grievance process.
So what exactly does this mean Janette? Are you admitting what many of us have suspected all along, that while you've wasted our dues on meaningless campaign videos, an army of paid “volunteers” campaigning in crew rooms, and a forest of flyers touting AFA's “experience” and so-called “democratic ideals,” that you've allowed the company to wantonly abrogate our pay, rules and working conditions with nothing more than a sideways glance until now, on the eve of the representational election. Basically, with this lawsuit, you and AFA are agreeing with former LEC President Kate Day, who listed in her resignation letter that AFA’s representation of the members, and all that entails, has taken a back seat to the representational election for the past three years. And once this campaign is over, AFA will then turn its attention to the United/Continental merger and that representational election, leaving us hanging, just exactly the way that US Airways and America West flight attendants have been disregarded since their merger. The pattern is clear, Janette. It is undeniable and with this lawsuit you have confirmed what many PMNW flight attendants have known all along.
o Delta's refusal to informally resolve grievances or settle them without resort to arbitration violates the RLA duty to confer and resolve disputes with expedition.
And how long has this been going on, Janette? Have you been postponing formal arbitration talks out of the desire to informally resolve grievances through some sort of secret back door meetings? Is this anything like AFA International President Pat Friend's secret meetings with former NWA CEO Doug Steenland back in 2007, shortly before TA3 was reached, and subsequently rammed down our throats in a Teamster-like election? And if all of this is true, Janette, then why, pray tell, have you failed to inform your membership about what has been going on? Isn’t one of your primary job functions to act as spokesperson for the MEC? Shouldn’t you have been communicating these issues (if they are, in fact, true – which is highly doubtful) all along, rather than dropping this bomb on us just weeks before the election?
o By holding conferences only with employees of the Company's own choosing rather than AFA, Delta is interfering with the collective right of former Northwest flight attendants to designate AFA as their representative.
Now come on Janette, you've have had many opportunities to hold conferences with the company as a representative of the Northwest flight attendants. For example, remember when the company tried over and again to engage with you - yes you personally - regarding the seniority integration? And what was your response? Something like, “I’ll get back to you” (And we all know what that means).
o Delta is creating, maintaining, and assisting agencies of collective bargaining through the use of its own internal employee groups, with whom the Company treats concerning the rules and working conditions of flight attendants in place of AFA, the duly-authorized representative for pre-merger Northwest flight attendants.
This one is just completely laughable - are you actually suggesting that internal employee groups are negotiating with the company, and if so, what exactly are they negotiating? And by the way, how many side letters have YOU negotiated so far without first informing the NWA flight attendants, and did we get to vote on any of those side letters, or did you just sign them without our DEMCRATIC input? And how much language in our current agreement did AFA negotiate away without even telling us?
o Delta is refusing to confer with AFA as required with respect to disputes arising out of AFA grievances and Delta's mounting contractual breaches.
If true, these 23 words tells us that the world's so-called biggest, strongest, and most experienced flight attendant union doesn't have the clout or testicular fortitude to drag Delta to the table, Or maybe it's a little simpler than that. Perhaps, Janette, it's time to move the whole AFA kit-n-caboodle down to Atlanta and open some offices there - you know, our headquarters, where you should be conferring on a daily basis with our employer? Or would that mess-up your commute? Why ARE the AFA offices still in Minneapolis, Janette? Has anyone informed you that the company headquarters are now in Atlanta?
o Delta has implemented unilateral changes to the rules and working conditions of the Northwest flight attendants without following the RLA's procedures for altering agreement provisions.
Are you serious, Janette? What work rules has the company changed, Janette? With this lawsuit, are you trying to get the 2 and a half to 8 hour call reinstated, just to show how “tough” AFA is and hopefully win a couple more votes in the election? Do you know what is really incredible about this lawsuit, Janette? It illuminates nothing more than AFA’s duplicity and arrogant self-involvement. After all, AFA has been goading the company into giving us unilateral extra-contractual raises and now we see that you and AFA would have sued them for that too! So it turns out that Delta management was correct all along when they said they were not able to pay us more than what the contract allows.
o Delta's numerous violations of the AFA agreement has led to an increase in grievances aimed at addressing the Company's breaches of and changes to flight attendant rules and working conditions. While insisting that issues must be resolved through the formal grievance process instead of informally, Delta as ground the work of the System Board to a halt at times through its frequent unilateral cancellation of hearing dates. Delta has also sharply reduced the number of its employees assigned to interact with AFA. Thus, Delta has caused the grievance process to become overwhelmed, making it virtually impossible to resolve disputes.
Janette, you should know, but perhaps you don’t, that AFA and AFA alone controls how many grievances it files. Any increase in grievance filings, therefore, is strictly a measure of AFA’s level of motivation. After all, Janette (in case you forgot) the AFA Grievance Chair DIDN’T EVEN FILE THE GRIEVANCE OVER THE SECOND ME-TOO VIOLATION, when pilots got substantial pay raises. A Northwest flight attendant had to write up the grievance, because YOU AND AFA FAILED TO DO YOUR JOBS. And what happened to that Grievance Chair, who has also lost our Reserve flight attendants money and time off because of his incompetence with regard to the Reserve Proration issue, among numerous other inadequacies? You and your MEC not only failed to remove him from office for complete and utter dereliction of his duties, but YOU REELECTED HIM TO HIS POSITION!
Jose Arturo Ibarra
