MSP flight attendants from multiple carriers rally together on worldwide day of action

February 14, 2024 by

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

Filed Under: Labor Voices, Organizing, Union Events Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Rail workers rally, call for Biden to act on sick leave, crew sizes

December 14, 2022 by

Rail workers and supporters rally at BNSF’s Northtown Yard in Fridley.

Federal lawmakers may have blocked them from going on strike, but freight rail workers aren’t giving up the fight for paid sick leave, safe crew sizes and respect for their essential work.

U.S. rail unions staged rallies yesterday in the Twin Cities, Duluth and elsewhere, looking to keep the spotlight on issues that, workers say, plague their industry.

Gathered near BNSF Railway’s Northtown Yard in Fridley, union members called out freight lines for putting greed before the health and safety, and they recounted grim experiences with rail bosses’ new business model, so-called “Precision Scheduled Railroading” (PSR).

Implemented by most carriers over the past decade, PSR is a ruthless template for squeezing more profits out of rail operations and workers, locomotive engineer Joel Mueller said.

“Railroad workers are at a breaking point,” he told more than 50 supporters who joined the midday rally. “We work 12-hour days, and we are on call seven days a week, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.”

Robert Dickerson, a member of Waseca-based SMART-TD Local 64, brought his sons Alexander (L) and William to the rally. “I’ve worked this job the whole time they’ve been alive,” he said, “but I do not encourage them to work for the railroad, sad to say.”

Mueller, who serves as statewide chair of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET), said most railroad workers can’t take a day off without scheduling it weeks in advance. “We go to work sick because a lot of times the alternative could be dismissal or discipline from the railroads,” he said.

Twelve unions representing over 115,000 rail workers had hoped to gain paid sick leave in joint contract negotiations with the carriers this year. Ultimately, the benefit was left out of a tentative master agreement that the Biden administration helped mediate.

When members of four unions voted to reject the contract and authorize a strike in November, the eight other unions pledged not to cross their picket lines. That prompted President Biden to seek congressional support for imposing the contract’s terms and undercutting workers’ right to strike legally.

Congress granted the request. A companion bill adding seven paid sick days into the master agreement passed in the House but fell eight votes short of passing the Senate.

Now, rail unions and some lawmakers are urging Biden to use his executive powers to force railroads, as federal contractors, into offering workers paid sick time. Former President Barack Obama issued a similar executive order on Labor Day 2015, but it left out contractors covered by the Railway Labor Act.

“We need an executive order from the Biden administration to protect our members,” Mueller said. “That means sick days.”

Rail workers also are holding out hope for federal action to address another of their top demands: keeping two crew members aboard trains. Railroads are looking to technology to cut their labor costs, but that comes at a risk, Mueller said, noting some trains now stretch up to three miles long.

“It’s important that we have another set of eyes and ears in the cabin of the locomotive,” he said.

The Federal Railroad Administration is holding public hearings this week on newly proposed rules establishing minimum crew sizes for trains, and rail unions are monitoring the process closely.

Pat Dwyer, a member of SMART-TD Local 1000, recalled once having a severe allergic reaction to food while operating a freight train. The second crew member not only averted disaster, Dwyer said, but potentially saved his life.

“Two people on a train is deathly important, and people don’t understand that,” Dwyer said. “Sometimes you need another guy on the train – even if you don’t like him – to keep you awake, to keep you focused.”

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