American Airlines Flight Attendants Union Brings Back Strike-Threat Pins — But Still Will Not Say What It Wants

American Airlines flight attendants are going to WAR with the carrier again. They’re donning their red union pins that were distributed as part of the (W)e (A)re (R)eady campaign during contract negotiations. They signaled a readiness to strike although the National Mediation Board never allowed them to do so.

Now, the union is telling flight attendants to wear their pins again because American Airlines isn’t making enough money. They aren’t even connecting this here to profit sharing. They won the profit sharing formula used at non-union Delta Air Lines, but they’re receiving far less because American Airlines doesn’t earn very much profit.

• They voted no confidence in the airline CEO
  
• They’re “speaking up when leadership is taking our airline in the wrong direction.”
  
• Wear the red pin and people will pay attention.
  
• They, they say, their “voices cannot be ignored.”

But I can’t figure out what their voices are saying?

1. The union does not say what direction the airline should be going in.
   
2. Nor do they say what their demands are. Fire the CEO? Buy new planes? Serve better food? They aren’t even demanding increased flight attendant staffing on widebodies!

A month ago speculation about the future of Robert Isom had reached a fever pitch. Chatter inside the company was a constant distraction – everyone was talking about how much time the CEO had left, and their guesses on who would replace him. That seems to have died down?

Of course, speculation is mostly uninformed and we don’t know what the board is doing, although my base case has been that he keeps his job, if only because this board has no history of holding management accountable. In some sense the problem at American Airlines is the board itself.

It’s just not clear what the union is trying to accomplish here – solidarity for what? What are the things they even want, in asking flight attendants to wear their red WAR pins again? And what do those pins even signify now, since I actually have seen quite a few crew still wearing them nearly two years after achieving their new contract. Some may be expressing general unhappiness in their jobs, while others just never got out of the habit or removed them.