Union says new contract better than alternative for flight attendants
BY BOB COX
rcox@star-telegram.com
The union representing American Airlines flight attendants strongly urged its members Thursday to ratify a proposed new contract and not follow in the footsteps of the airline's pilots.
If members of the Association of Professional Flight Attendants vote down the proposal, the union said, it is now clear that the bankruptcy judge will allow American to impose far less attractive terms.
In an unsigned message posted on the APFA website, the union leadership said Wednesday's ruling on American's motion to throw out the pilots contract was a "blistering indictment of the labor unions" and their legal and economic arguments.
Although the ruling by U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Sean Lane sent American back to rewrite its plan, "the remainder of the ... decision validated each of American's arguments for its business plan and dismantled each of the unions' cases against it."
If the flight attendants vote down the proposed contract, the APFA said, they do so at their own peril. Voting ends Sunday.
"We can now say with certainty that the Section 1113 process will leave flight attendants worse off than the [proposed contract]. There is little doubt that the end result, should we reject, will be 2,000 furloughed flight attendants and many more on reserve," the message said.
APFA leaders did not respond to requests for further comment on the posting.
One airline industry analyst said APFA members would do well to heed the message.
"They need to look at this from the standpoint of the individual flight attendant," said Henry Harteveldt, an analyst with Atmosphere Research Group in San Francisco. "I think this is very good offer. It's better than they had initially."
On Thursday, American sent a revised term sheet to the Allied Pilots Association outlining changes it will propose in a new motion to be filed with the court today seeking to throw out the existing contract.
American spokesman Bruce Hicks said the revisions address the specific objections Lane gave in his decision. Rather than virtually unlimited authority for domestic code-sharing, the new proposal retains the same language agreed to by union leaders in the contract voted down by its members last week.
And rather than near-unlimited power to furlough pilots, the proposal retains the terms of the existing contract limiting the number of pilots American could lay off.
