Sara Nelson’s flight attendants union AFA-CWA doesn’t allow crewmembers to directly elect its Master Executive Council officers and international officers.
This is something that cabin crew at United, Alaska, Frontier, Spirit and American’s wholly-owned regional carriers know – they vote for officers of their local council only, and it’s the insiders who elect the union’s top leaders. It’s not something that crew considering a union at Delta, for instance, probably realize.
Ms. Nelson took the issue to its annual board of directors meeting late last month. She lost on voice votes. She said this was “about putting power in each individual member’s hands.” Instead, union power will remain in the hands of insiders.
Nelson argued for these changes to make the union more democratic. The implication, of course, is that she believes AFA-CWA is undemocratic.
This is another loss in a long string of errors and failures for the flight attendants union head. Nelson declared that the only way to get boarding pay – calculating flight attendant pay including time spent boarding – was to organize non-union Delta and non-union SkyWest. She was wrong. The only airlines that now do boarding pay are… Delta and SkyWest.
Yes. We’ve negotiated boarding pay over the yrs & our contracts have controls on when boarding can start, but this was gutted during the bankruptcies. The only real way to get this done is to organize Delta & SkyWest Flight Attendants (we are) & make this an industry-wide demand.
— Sara Nelson (@FlyingWithSara) February 12, 2022
The first unionized flight attendants to get boarding pay will be at American Airlines… represented by a different union. Sara Nelson has never gotten this for her members even once non-union Delta started doing it her team didn’t win this. Eventually United’s AFA-CWA will have to have a me-too contract with boarding pay, copying American.
.@DeltaAFA doesn't deserve the intimidation and bullying from @Delta. We all must stand with the workers and call out the union-busting tactics of Delta executives. pic.twitter.com/Zr4cIUCULo
— Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (@RepRashida) January 24, 2024
She endorsed rule changes to ban lap infants fromairlines, pushing kids out of planes and into cars, making them less safe. That wasn’t included in FAA Reauthorization.
Her own union reports that it has overwhelmingly failed to help United flight attendants feel valued at work or have their issues resolved.
Ms. Nelson advocated arming flight attendants with tasers to keep passengers in line. She also wanted to make leisure travel illegal during the pandemic, permanently ban alcohol from planes, and argued that mask mandates should become entrenched like inflight smoking bans and TSA liquid rules.
Five years ago the New York Times dubbed her “America’s most powerful flight attendant.” Times have changed. She reportedly used to be able to bark orders at the former chairman of House Transportation. She was passed over to the lead the AFL-CIO. And now she doesn’t even get her way within her own union.
Her last major victory was securing massive pandemic-era taxpayer subsidies for airline shareholders, most of which didn’t even go to companies employing her members. Now it appears to me she’s lost face inside her own union, failing to secure changes she publicly endorsed.
Sara Nelson is perhaps the single worst thing to ever happen to aviation in this country, save the horrific terrorist attacks on 9/11 and other plane crashes.
She has certainly not made flying any safer for passengers or flight attendants. She has not spearheaded, or even supported, any measures which would do anything other than increase her own personal power and “prestige.”
And her unholy alliance with pro-terrorist, pro-Hamas forces like Rashita Tlaib and other Jew-haters automatically disqualifies her from even being considered a human being.
FA should be paid from the time they are expected to be at the gate for their first flight (start time) until 20 min after their last flight. It is not their fault if the incoming flight is delayed or the flight they are on can’t take off, or worse cancelled. Why the union thinks it is ok to let FA deal with frustrated passengers for free is criminal. Alternatively, flights can have a fixed fee, but delays become additional pay. Sure. Changes to the HR /payroll system would be needed, but fair is fair.
Neal Z’s rant is unhinged. And I say that as someone who in 2001 was at the WTC on 9/10, was flying on a US airline on 9/11 and then outside of the country until around 9/18 when I got back into JFK and then immediately thereafter back to DC.
Agree with Neal Z. Nelson is a left wing, Democratic Party activist more than a union head who might succeed in obtaining deserved benefits for FAs.. BTW, unions usually do not bring efficiencies, innovations, cost savings, or better customer service to businesses…only higher costs that businesses always try to pass on to customers in higher fares and prices. DL is the airline I most often fly unless another provides a better routing to where I ultimately want to go. Service is usually pretty good. As for AA and its FA issues, it will declare bankruptcy again when its new FA contract goes into effect (yes, pretty pathetic that AA FAs have been flying without a contract for about 5 years, I think.
@GUWonder… and some of your best friends are Jewish, right?
First, there is no one in the House, Senate or in a senior position in the US government that is “pro-terrorist, pro-Hamas”. No one. Just like those voting for aid to Israel are not “pro-genocide”. We need to turn down the rhetoric here; it’s not helpful.
This post is unfair to Sara Nelson. It is a common tactic of non-union employers to grant benefits that the union wants to undermine unionization. Unions won the 5 day work week; then it was extended to all workers. Unions won paid health care; then it was extended. Unions won paid vacation; yup, you guessed it.
We don’t remember this history, and I’m not saying unions are without fault, but give credit where credit is due.
I’m no fan of Nelson herself but direct elections would have been fabulous and she was completely right on this one.
Neal Z continues with his unhinged ways.
I would rather have Sara Nelson as a union head than the hard hat and police union types who were into bashing anti-war protesters back in the day and have their contemporary equivalents still.
Which Trump-supporter/Biden-opponent does Señor Leff want to see be Sara Nelson’s replacement? Or is there just this desire to do the US Chamber of Commerce and Club for Growth’s biz of seeking to weaken labor unions so businesses can more easily and extensively run over employees over the longer term?
I am not a fan of labor unions, but they are useful in a world where employers’ money not only talks but talks so very loud.
Mike, if the people in the house refuse to at least condition our taxpayer aid on a rules to not carry out genocidal acts, doesn’t that at least make them lukewarm on genocide?
People like her are the very reason FAs don’t make good money. But lefties like GUWonder will defend her to the end- they like her politics. NTM unions like hers care more for those politics than the workers they ostensibly support. Follow the money.
Cairns and other defenders of racism find systematic opponents of racism to be “lefties”. Speaks volumes about what kind of people they are.
As I said above, I am not a fan of labor unions. I am a fan of the rights of people to lawfully assemble and jointly petition whomever they want without big money bags and privileged thugs being able to silence, abuse and disappear them and thereby concentrate and consolidate power of the big money bags and privileged thugs in such a way that can be used against one or all.
Eric Michael Walker want more evidence about how our Houses of Congress are messed up? Just look at who wants to punish International Criminal Court officials for not instinctively bending the knee and kissing the feet of the rogue Netanyahu regime. All because of the ICC subjecting Netanyahu and some other well-deserving rogues to orderly justice under the rule of law applicable to this kind of situation.
The US Government and privileged establishment players today remind me of the “German-friendly” Swedish government and Sweden’s establishment players during the Holocaust. Back then it was sort of like this in Sweden:
“Germany is too civilized and advanced a nation to do that.” And where was the “mainstream media” then? Sort of like it is with the “mainstream” and right-wing media in the US today.
And people who would try to distribute pamphlets about the crimes of Nazi Germany would literally get abused for daring to try to inform others that Germany was behaving in barbaric ways and what Germany was doing to Jews and others. Meanwhile Sweden kept on supplying the German barbarism machine and let Nazis pass through the country and even vacation in the country to “get some action” with the local women.
History is a lesson about the present too.
Sara Nelson is out for Sara. She’d like an administration position and cozies up to the left. Does she not realize how polarizing Tlaib is??? The last person she should be associated with is Tlaib. She supports Palestinian/Hamas terrorists. Why would anyone working on airplane support terrorists????? Because Sara does NOT work on the planes, she is an administrator who is jockeying for position……….
Defender of racism? WTF does race have to do with this? Why do lefties make everything about race?
@GU Wonder
Unfair to Sweden. The best thing Swedish leaders could do for Swedish Jews was not get invaded. Exactly who would have been around to offer any help? Remember Wallenberg?
Oh STFU GU. What you pretend to know is annoying. What you won’t answer or admit is even more so.
I want to say to Jack the Lad that during the 1930s and even years into WW2 Sweden’s policy was literally against the entry of Jewish refugees trying to escape the Nazis. The exception was from when Norwegian Jews were allowed into Sweden starting in 1942. And even that overdue opening to Jewish refugees was bungled. Then in 1943 Danish and Swedish fisherman and some others smuggled Jewish refugees en masse from Denmark and then sent people from the shore into southern Sweden — including near my family’s land. That time things worked out more smoothly for Jewish refugees wanting into Sweden. Wallenberg was not posted to Hungary until what, 1944? For people from more humble backgrounds before a shift in Swedish policy from 1942 but even thereafter, distributing pamphlets against the Nazis in southern Sweden was an invitation to get abused by “German-friendly” and other Swedes who claimed that Germany is too civilized to be barbaric and innocents too die in wars. Sweden was no paragon of virtue during the 1930s and for much of WW2. Antisemitism was rampant in the country during that time.
About cairns, cairns lack manners so resorts to vulgarities.
Here you go again GU. Internet no-nothing history and below the belt insults. I feel sorry for you.
Delta & Skywest both are paying boarding pay in an attempt to block the union. Hasn’t made up for my lack of hourly pay though. Hi Sara and AFA
Maxine should try to give up the gaslighting effort and effort to have her cake and eat it too. Although what else but that can we expect from Lord T-rump-supporters when their Lord is a liar-in-chief — that too one found guilty on 34 felony counts (for what amounts basically to fraud) by a jury vetted by his own hand-picked lawyers.
If Sara Nelson were positioning for a position in a Presidential Administration during or immediately after this election year, Nelson is not doing what it takes to get there. Nelson’s actions just go to show she isn’t posturing for that and that just maybe she sticks to her guns when it comes to principles. Such people don’t come across as being cheap frauds, and yet that is in large part why they are subject to attacks from hypocrites and fraudsters who have genuine issues with her values and political positions but resort to what is tantamount to a smear campaign against her and/or those who support her.
Given how much attention Nelson gets in some parts, I suspect that some of Nelson’s critics have the hots for her; and I suspect that some of her critics are jealous that she may be considered more physically attractive than they are. Either way, it’s sort of interesting to see how people are as can be expected.