Alaska Airlines flight attendants will vote to ratify a new tentative agreement next month, more than two years after negotiations first started. The Association of Flight Attendants-CWA (AFA) approved the terms of the contract last Friday and circulated the details to their 6,900 members. Alaska workers have criticised the deal for being near-identical to a proposal voted on in August, which union members firmly rejected.
Voting for the tentative agreement is expected to open on February 11 and close on February 28 with the results likely to be published on the same day as voting concludes.
Just five months ago AFA leadership travelled to roadshows across the country in a bid to convince Alaska flight attendants to support the union's last pay deal. The efforts proved futile, with 94% of eligible employees casting ballots and over two-thirds of members rejecting the proposal outright. The consensus was that the agreement did not match industry leading wages and failed to sufficiently address the low pay of newer flight attendants.
AFA messed up and they knew it, explaining in a press release that they would circulate a survey to all Alaska flight attendants to create revised terms. Those same workers would likely have been surprised when they read the new deal and found that base pay has remained completely unchanged. The only real improvement is small pay increases to those with more than 13 years of service.
The new deal does not address either of members’ main two grievances: there’s no industry leading pay, nor is there a mechanism to support junior flight attendants on lower wages. Christina Frees, a Seattle-based flight attendant with 13 years experience said the deal seems "not an overall improvement at all”.
Given this frustration, why has AFA been so quick to present a new deal to members that looks exactly the same? It's largely due to the fact that this is the union's last chance to approve an updated pay deal before Alaska formally merges with Hawaiian Airlines, kicking off a new round of negotiations likely to last years. In other words, Alaska Airlines flight attendants have no choice: either accept the slight increase in pay or get stuck with the existing agreement for who knows how long.
AFA has more or less acknowledged this dilemma, sending round an ominous memo that read, “The choice before us is clear; your vote will either solidify the enhancements secured in TA2 [the tentative agreement], or it will indicate your desire to retain our current contract without any improvements in pay and working conditions”. Frees described the deal as putting Alaska staff “between a rock and a hard place”.
Rather than fighting for a better deal for their members, AFA has adopted a ‘take it or leave it’ approach to its negotiations with Alaska, with the added exasperation that this process will all be repeated later in the year. It is perhaps unsurprising, therefore, that a recent poll by USTN found that 71% of US flight attendants are disappointed with how union leaders have handled pay negotiations.
The most surprising element of Alaska’s tentative agreement is the lack of pay improvement for junior flight attendants. AFA should be aware of the extent to which some members are struggling financially. It has been widely reported that many flight attendants have been forced to get second jobs to make ends meet, with some even qualifying for state welfare. Yet, the only gain from six months of negotiations is a pay increase for senior flight attendants. Advocating for a deal that completely ignores junior members’ experience over the past two years perhaps demonstrates why over two thirds of US flight attendants believe leaders are out of touch.
Previously, unions were the pioneers, securing deals that the non-unionized airlines were obliged to follow. However, in the past couple of years, the roles have reversed. For example, if Alaska flight attendants agree to the latest deal, they will finally receive compensation for time spent loading and unloading the aircraft, but Delta has offered boarding pay to its non-unionised cabin crew since 2022.This model has slowly been replicated by other unionised carriers, with American Airlines staff securing boarding pay in September 2024. This trend helps explain why many flight attendants are questioning the value of their union membership, with 66% telling USTN’s poll that the benefits of being in a union are declining.
At a time when aviation unions are facing intense scrutiny, AFA’s decision to present a lacklustre deal seems incredibly tone deaf. The terms are disappointing but beyond that it's undemocratic to force members to vote for a deal that their own leaders do not fundamentally believe in. As the merger with Hawaiian gets underway, staff at Alaska will have to wait a while longer to get the deal they feel they deserve.
Kommentare