Flight attendants marched Feb. 13 during a solidarity action at MSP’s Terminal 1.
An estimated 100,000 U.S.-based flight attendants are working under expired union contracts, and their collective frustration boiled over yesterday at Minneapolis-St. Paul and dozens of other airports worldwide.
American Airlines, Southwest, United and Sun Country flight attendants – all working under expired contracts – marched outside Terminal 1 during the Flight Attendant Day of Action rally at MSP Airport. Employees of Delta Air Lines and its regional carrier Endeavor Air joined the rally too.
“The industry is hurting right now as far as flight attendants go and their wages,” American Airlines flight attendant Todd Smiertelmy said. “We’re all looking for our money. Give it to us.”
U.S. carriers have largely returned to profitability since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the airline industry anticipates serving a record number of travelers in 2024.
Flight attendants have seen the increased interest in travel firsthand, United flight attendant Brittany Kaiser said, but they also have seen “more issues that are arising constantly in flight or, mostly, during boarding, which is the time when we’re not getting paid.”
United expects its flight attendants at the gate well before a scheduled departure to prepare the cabin for flight. But like most other airlines, the carrier does not consider flight attendants to be on the clock until the cabin door closes.
“We’re helping get people to their seats, get the bags up and make sure the bags are correct; we’re prepping for the flight, counting meals, double checking to make sure we have all our supplies, setting up for the flight,” Kaiser said. “We’re not paid for any of it, but we’re required to do it.”
Getting paid for boarding the airplane is among the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA’s top priorities in bargaining a new contract covering 25,000 United flight attendants like Kaiser, who is based in Houston, but the process has been slow moving. Their last contract expired in 2021.
It’s been five years without a contract – or wage scale increase – for Smiertelmy and other members of the Association of Professional Flight Attendants, the union at American Airlines. And flight attendants at MSP-based Sun Country, members of Teamsters Local 120, saw their last union contract expire in 2014.
“It really hurts morale, I can tell you that,” Smiertelmy said, adding that talks with American have long since reached a “stalemate.”
The two sides are in federal mediation, but the union has a pending request before the National Mediation Board – its second in the last two years – to be released into a 30-day “cooling off period,” after which they could legally go on strike under the Railway Labor Act. Smiertelmy, who lives in Minneapolis but is based out of Chicago’s O’Hare Airport, was among several flight attendants carrying “Ready to Strike” signs at the MSP rally.
“We don’t want to strike,” Smiertelmy said. “We want the company to sit down and have serious talks with us and just share a piece of the pie.”
Local 120 and Sun Country entered mediation in December and have a second session scheduled next week. In bargaining last year, the airline’s “final offer” was rejected by 96% of union members who participated in the vote.
Even flight attendants with a current union contract said their airlines aren’t doing enough to make the job sustainable, particularly for new hires. Endeavor’s Trina Johnson, a local executive council president of AFA-CWA, said her union is trying to bargain a letter of agreement with the Delta subsidiary that would improve working conditions for its 1,400 flight attendants.
“Regional flight attendants live at poverty level,” Johnson said. “Most of them have a very difficult time in the first five years that they fly trying to pay rent and buy food and even commute to their bases.”
Their unions may bring different issues and priorities to the bargaining table, Sun Country’s Tanya Devito said, but flight attendants share a common demand for more respect for the work that they do.
“It is invigorating to have all of these flight attendants coming together, but it’s also very sad because it says that (airlines) are not taking us seriously, that everybody is waiting for a contract,” she said. “It says they don’t value us.”
– Michael Moore, Union Advocate editor
Union Advocate 