First of all, if EA's unions had such large nads as Strikeforce has indicated, how do you explain the fact that EA's unions also allowed foreign nationals?
The history here is long. The foreign national cabin crews were inherited when Braniff International first acquired Panagra back in 1967. As part of the purchase agreement, Braniff agreed to retain Panagra's cabin crews who were based in South America. When Eastern purchased the Latin American Division from Braniff, the foreign nationals were grandfathered into the acquisition agreement as well. The process repeated itself when AA purchased the division from Eastern.
The same thing occurred at United, when UA purchased Pan Am's Pacific Division. Pan Am employed foreign national cabin crews all over the world, but as it related to the Pacific Division, the crews were based in Bangkok and Singapore. Therefore, a letter of agreement was reached between UA's flight attendant union (AFA) and the company, which stipulated that all foreign nationals had to be furloughed prior to any flight attendant on the AFA seniority list. Additionally, United inherited Pan Am's LHR cabin crew base when the London routes were purchased in 1991. Pan Am's LHR crews were represented by the same union as Pan Am's U.S. counterparts. As such United's LHR crews are represented by AFA. During the mid-1990's, United wanted to increase the number of language speaking cabin crews on international flights. AFA dug its heels in on the issue, contending that increased language speakers undermined the flight attendant seniority system.
United circumvented the AFA by opening crew bases in CDG, FRA, HKG, NRT, TPE, and SCL Since the contract language stipulated that any newly opened bases required AFA-represented cabin crews, those six, plus LHR were staffed by a mix of local residents as well as Americans...but working under the same collective bargaining agreement as United's AFA represented cabin crews in the U.S. SCL was UA's smallest crew base, which reached a peak of 50 flight attendants. When UA downsized MIA and closed the SCL station, the base was closed. Both CDG and TPE were closed after 9/11 as well. Today, most of the former CDG-based flight attendants commute to either FRA or LHR, while most of the former TPE-based F/A's commute to NRT.
With all that said, on the United side, the foreign nationals in BKK and SIN have all been furloughed since UA has approximately 2,100-AFA represented flight attendants currently on voluntary furlough. So while United does still currently maintain 4 foreign bases (LHR, FRA, HKG, and NRT)...all staffed with a combination of both American and local nationals. Crews based overseas are NOT regarded as foreign nationals. Americans are allowed to transfer to overseas, but the local nationals are not allowed to transfer to the U.S. since they do not possess green cards. I believe that no transfers have been permitted into HKG since it reverted back to Chinese jurisdiction.
That's probably more information than you care to hear, but the history of foreign nationals, foreign crew bases and how they came to be, is quite fascinating...