What does AFA representation look like today?

What AFA Representation Looks Like at the Largest Airline in the World (Same old sub-standard contracts, same old attacks on fellow flight attendants)

Remember back when AFA was promising the Delta flight attendants an "industry leading contract" because we were (at the time) the world's largest airline?

Remember when their campaign slogan was "Opportunity, Unity, Respect"?

Remember back in January of 2011, when, upon taking office, AFA President Veda Shook promised us a new, re-energized and "better" AFA that was focused on its members?

Remember when AFA promised us things would be great under their representation?

Well, AFA now has a post-bankruptcy track record, including at the current largest airline in the world (United Airlines), and it's worth taking a look at what they have achieved.

The post-bankruptcy "industry leading contract at the world's largest airline" has a domestic top-out hourly pay rate of $43.73. Flight attendants at United require 14 years of service to achieve that pay scale. In comparison, the top of scale pay at Delta (after completing only 12 years of service) is $47.58. In January 2013, the Delta top of scale pay will rise to $49.96 per hour. The United rate? Still $43.73. United flight attendants will receive incremental raises over the next few years that will eventually bring their hourly rate to $46.86 per hour by March, 2015. So, for the next 2 1/2 years, Delta flight attendants will earn from $3 to $6 per hour MORE than their United counterparts, and yet AFA is still selling the notion that the United contract is "industry leading".

As recently as last week a former AFA-NWA LEC president (never elected, but appointed to office by Pat Friend), claimed in a blog (ironically titled "Common Sense Should Prevail") that "AFA achieved an industry-leading contract for United". In that same blog, the former AFA officer, who previously campaigned heavily against a former Northwest union (and has called fellow flight attendants "members of al-Qaeda" and likened company leaders to Hitler and Satan), now proclaims that he is willing to accept "any union, even the Pink Flamingo Union" to represent his interests. This is exactly the kind of "common sense" that does not represent the best interests of the Delta flight attendants. . . or of flight attendants anywhere . . . although if there were some Pink Flamingoes seeking to organize . . . Nope, no this brand of "common sense" wouldn't even serve their best interests.

Meanwhile, AFA at United/Continental has set its sights on doing what it does best: creating unnecessary and unproductive drama and attacking its own members. Follow the links at the bottom of this email to see charges AFA has recently filed against some United flight attendants. The big "crime" that these flight attendants committed? Nothing more and nothing less than exercising their rights to free speech and free association.

Essentially, they supported the IAM campaign for representation of the combined United/Continental flight attendants during the merger of those two carriers.

Because these flight attendants have chosen to stand up to AFA's corruption and incompetence, and because they have expressed their opinion that IAM is better suited to represent the interests of the United flight attendants, AFA has filed charges against them under Article X of the AFA Constitution. Normally, Article X charges are reserved for cases where AFA officers act counter to the best interests of the union, but in a broad attempt to quash free expression, AFA is now using this Article to sanction ordinary line flight attendants. Sound familiar? See any parallels?

It wasn't so long ago, that we endured the protracted AFA campaign that failed to lay out one single idea, one solid platform item, but sought instead to divide the flight attendants and attack those who didn't conform to their dogmatic ideology. That ideology and those tactics are still alive and well at AFA represented carriers.

And that "new day" Veda promised her members? It's the same old day; Rome is still burning. The only thing that's changed is the name of the AFA president holding the fiddle. And the United flight attendants continue to suffer with missed Opportunity, failed Unity and utter dis-Respect from their own union.

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Sincerely,
Jose Arturo Ibarra

AFA Charges link here.