United Airlines flight attendants haven’t seen a raise in four years. Their contract became amendable during the pandemic, which wasn’t a great time to start negotiations, so things have taken a long time.
The parties are in federal mediation, and mediators have adjourned negotiations for the year. Flight attendants only just revealed their wage demands. They had been slow-walking their bargaining, waiting for American Airlines flight attendants to get a new contract first. The union even lent their top negotiator to the rival union at American, figuring that the deal struck there would be a baseline for their own contract (and if anyone had to strike to get it, better the members of a different union).
To keep crew members fired up, the union sent out a communication to members listing all of the items that United has sought to change in their favor in the new contract. For instance,
the airline wants to cover health care costs for flight attendants who are active and fly.
and they want to use a computer to construct schedules based on flight attendant preferences and seniority, rather than pre-constructing 'trips' that flight attendants bid on.
Some of the changes detailed are strong preferences for the airline, others are starting points in negotiation to trade away in exchange for higher pay. Some of ‘reasonable’ and others won’t seem to be. The trick here is that in order to get comparable pay, there needs to be comparable work rules. And how much of where things are in negotiations is the union’s fault is unclear – the union voted to fire its contract negotiating team.
One thing seems clear from the union’s list of bargaining line-item complaints is that United wants more control over flight scheduling, and there are some unusually generous provisions in the current flight attendant deal that the airline thinks should be more like industry standard if flight attendants are going to get similar pay or even higher pay than cabin crew at other airlines.
These are being portrayed as ‘concessions’ but the union is asking for very significant concessions like wage bumps of about 30% and more in future years. Here’s what they asked for:
They are asking for 3% – 4% more than what American Airlines flight attendants just won.
The bigger percentage increases are for more senior crew, who already earn more.
And they are asking for bigger future raises, too. American flight attendants get future-year raises of 2.75%; 3%; 3%; and 3.5%. United flight attendants are asking for 4%.
And they want these raises year after year. Traditionally there’s a fixed end date to the contract, and wages are frozen until there’s a new contract. That’s why American flight attendants had gotten their last raise in January 2019. Many American flight attendants now worry that their next deal will take four years to negotiate, during which they’ll be without raises.
One area that’s particularly piquing for flight attendants in United’s as is a move to adopt a ‘PBS’ or a preferential bidding system for schedules. That’s a crew scheduling system used in the airline industry to assign work schedules to pilots and flight attendants. It uses a computer algorithm to create schedules based on individual preferences, seniority, and operational needs. You see it in use at carriers such as American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, and JetBlue Airways. For instance, Delta’s unionized pilots use it. Here’s the version some crew don’t like:
Crew members submit their preferences for days off, trip types, destinations, layovers, and other criteria.
The system processes bids in order of seniority, meaning more senior crew members have a better chance of getting their preferred schedules.
The system has to ensure that schedules meet legal requirements, such as rest periods, and that flights are adequately staffed.
Flight attendants complain that preferences aren’t genuinely considered, especially for less senior flight attendants, compared to manual bidding systems where schedulers directly assigned trips. The algorithms and logic behind PBS are often not transparent, leading to frustration when preferences aren’t met. PBS also doesn’t accommodate nuanced preferences well, like avoiding certain pairings or long layovers in specific cities.
Today, United uses a traditional line bidding systems, where pre-constructed schedules are bid on by crew members in order of seniority.
Ultimately, United flight attendants are demanding higher pay than at any other airline. At the end of the day they’re going to get a contract that’s competitive with American Airlines, perhaps 1%-2% more. But in order to offer more compensation than cabin crew at American, United needs its flight attendants to be at least as productive as those at American.
And the AFA-CWA union sees themselves as having less leverage now with Trump’s election. The incoming President will ultimately get a majority on the National Mediation Board, which has to vote to allow an airline union to strike (declare an ‘impasse’ starting the clock on a ’30-day cooling off period’ prior to parties engaging in ‘self-help’). They believe a Trump-majority NMB would be less likely to allow a strike, and that United will know this, although even the Biden-majority Mediation Board never signed off on an airline strike.
This story appeared on View From the Wing.
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