American Airlines and its flight attendants union were summoned to a rare Saturday meeting in Washington, D.C. by the National Mediation Board.
After talks this month failed to yield a contract that both parties could accept, the union told flight attendants to prepare to strike. The Mediation Board had not scheduled additional bargaining sessions. The union said the talks that already occurred were a last ditch effort. They believed they would be released into a 30-day cooling off period and then allowed to strike.
There was much speculation that this was going to happen on Saturday. I offered the reasons I did not think that was a likely outcome. The Mediation Board did not tell the parties that they were being released to ‘self-help’.
Instead, the Association of Professional Flight Attendants told its members that negotiations continue.
American already increased its financial offer during negotiations. That alone gives the Mediation Board the fulcrum around which they can claim that no impasse has been reached.
Airline strikes are rare in the United States. There have been two in the last 20 years – Northwest mechanics in 2005 and Spirit Airlines pilots in 2010. They are damaging to the economy, and to the President’s popularity, since the President can order a delay to the strike. President Clinton headed off strikes both by American Airlines pilots and flight attendants during his time in office.
The National Mediation Board is politically-appointed, with a current majority selected by the President. Allowing a strike would put the President in an untenable position, forced to choose between his labor constituency and median voters in states like in Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Arizona where American has major hubs. Airfares would spike during the strike, removing a significant portion of inventory from U.S. air travel.
It’s taking too long to reach a deal – with both parties and circumstances beyond everyone’s control at fault. Now it seems we’re more likely to reach a deal without a strike.
- The move by the Mediation Board to extend negotiations increases the likelihood of a negotiated settlement, but potentially reduces the bargaining leverage of flight attendants. (We do not know exactly what was said.)
- The flight attendants union – which has significantly curtailed its demands – faces the weakest of the large carriers from which to seek the most lucrative contract first. That’s a tall order. Flight attendants are far more likely to do incrementally better than Delta.
- It’s taking an excruciatingly long time to reach a deal. The last raise flight attendants received was January 1, 2019 and inflation has substantially eroded the value of their pay since then.
- A contract was first delayed by the pandemic. The union wouldn’t have wanted to negotiate terms then (the deal they’d have gotten would not have been good).
- Union leadership started bargaining with a position far outside the zone of possible agreement, and then had to wait until union officers were re-elected to walk that back.
- Given how much time has gone by, they’d have been much better off American’s offer to pay flight attendants more as an interim measure while negotiations continued. Taking that deal wouldn’t have reduced the union’s ability to strike, and the Mediation Board isn’t releasing them now to do so in any case it seems.
Of course, even if the flight attendants union reaches a deal with American Airlines, we’ll have to see whether it’s one that they can sell to their members – after years of making promises about what they’d achieve which will likely far outstretch any actual agreement.
@ Tim I broadly agree with you but with some nuance. I think you blame APFA for going in with “pilot like demands” – I mean every negotiation 101 course says you start at the highest possible number that you can make ANY logical justification for. “Hey the pilots got a 35% pay rise so we should too” is a pretty logical justification without nuance. So I think its pretty unfair to blame APFA for doing exactly what every negotiating expert would tell them to do, holding on to that ask for so long is another question…
As much as pay rates are a sticking point, I think the larger point of contention in these negotiations has been retro pay. The argument is pretty simple: If they don’t get retro pay, then the airline has incentives to keep drawing out negotiations and workers just get stiffed for it. I’d also add there is little reason to say that some work groups should get retro pay and that some shouldn’t – given that it is paying people for past work and not about future retention/ attraction.
On the UA front, they don’t really have to match Delta’s pay. They are known for having the best work rules and the best flight benefits. Delta on the other hand is known for having the most productive workforce because of its “worse” work rules, thus allowing them to pay more. I know plenty of FAs at both of these airlines and this tradeoff is very well understood. Actually one of the biggest reasons that FAs will accept lower pay at UA over DL is because DL can fire at will, the contract at UA requires there to be a cause and that they go through the furlough process – though I would note even through COVID DL didn’t end up firing FAs which is pretty commendable.
I’ve only flown on American a few times and was not overly impressed. OK, I wasn’t impressed at all. But after reading all of these comments and having been in management positions most of my adult life (NOT airline, thankfully!), I had to ask the obvious question, would I want to work for AA and the answer was a resounding “hell no!” With all the publicity, these negotiations are getting (I’m in Dallas with lots of friends and neighbors working in the airline and news snippets here and there), AA certainly will be hard-pressed to hire a new FA’s if it comes to that. No one is going to eagerly go running to work for a company that has little no respect for them! Low wages is only the tip of the iceberg here!
Typical union tactics to keep the natives fired up. Sadly, their hapless members continue to support them. Just like the “good ole days” at AmWest/USAir,
American did have a successful strike in 1993. Shut down the airline for several days. Then 911 happened. With the small raise we got, we were asked to give it back to help the airline survive. Their motto being ” pull together win together ” So we did give it back being promised we would get our money back once we started making a profit. Guess what, we never got it ! So now fast forward to COVID. Once again we’re on the frontline getting sick, being mistreated by passengers, being told we had to get the vaccine or we couldn’t fly. We’re asking for a cost of living pay, retro for the money we gave back and were promised. Pilots got large raises and retro pay. Why are we not treated with the same respect? Our CEO took 30 million in profits alone . We got 1% minus taxes. Please put the real truth out there
Not retro Pay – NO WAY!!! I will STRIKE! I did in 1993, and I’ll do it again!!!!! My Union Speaks for Me!!!!
Andy,
the notion that DL employees have no job security while unionized employees including do is wildly blown out of proportion.
Feel free to provide actual data on what percentage of employees at AA, DL and UA are fired and you would see that there isn’t that big of a difference.
DL DOES enforce service standards while unionized FAs have succeeded at keeping performance out of a contract – and the result is that DL leads the US industry in premium service and is very close to WN for economy service – with free bags the big differentiator between DL and WN. AA and UA both perform well below average for economy service and AA is well below average for first/business.
There are plenty of AA customers that would love to have AA FAs be subjected to service standards but no union will allow it.
And, ultimately just about any human will choose higher pay to be motivated to work better. DL doesn’t have onerous standards – they just expect their employees to treat people w/ respect. DL employees simply make more than their peers in part because of profit sharing which in a service company is heavily driven by the quality of service.