Southwest Airlines is something of a mess for customers these days. It’s also becoming something of a mess for flight attendants – the one true strength left at the airline. Employees at Southwest are unique among airlines in appearing not to be unhappy at their jobs.

Their enthusiasm makes flights more enjoyable for customers and makes customers loyal – even as hard as management is currently trying to light that loyalty on fire (checked bag fees, curbside check-in fees, seat fees, expiration of travel credits, devaluation of Rapid Rewards).

The flight attendants union – which represents about 20,000 flight attendants and has long embodied the premise that a customer-facing work group could be unionized and still provide exemplary service – appears to be in the midst of an internal scandal, based on documents and correspondence reviewed by View From The Wing. Transport Workers Union Local 556 faces allegations of retaliation, misconduct, and misuse of internal union procedures.

• On January 16, 2024, while the union was still negotiating its latest contract, charges were filed against four flight attendants for supposedly advocating decertification of the union. Two months later the charges were withdrawn, with the complainant citing the need to avoid division and misuse of union resources.

  

  In a March 19 e‑mail titled “URGENT: Withdraw of Article XIX Charges” he said the process would “divert our collective focus” and asked that the case be dropped. In response, the union reported that charges “have been rescinded.”

• However, two weeks later, a union officer gained access to the original charges and is accused of refiling them nearly word-for-word under her own name, reinstating disciplinary charges. A union officer is accused of improperly sharing the withdrawn confidential documents.

  

• The member who filed the original complained calls it “my original writing/penned, not a template.” Screenshots show the union officer writing about their re-using the text because the Executive Board had already deemed it proper. Trial notices went out, ordering the four attendants to appear at a Dallas hotel.

• Last month the copy‑and‑paste job became public to flight attendants on Facebook. One of the targets filed counter‑charges accusing officers of retaliation, misrepresentation, and misuse of confidential union records.

The union officers are accused of violating multiple sections of TWU’s Article XIX—including misrepresentation, willful harm to union members, and unauthorized disclosure of internal documents in furtherance of an effort to silence discussions around potentially changing union representation, which could be found to constitute federally protected under the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act.

As a result, one of the targeted flight attendants is demanding immediate exoneration for the group, formal disciplinary proceedings against the union officers, a full audit of resources used in the process, and public acknowledgment of the misconduct.

• At stake for Southwest flight attendants is their ability to freely debate union representation without fear of retaliatory discipline.

• The Labor‑Management Reporting and Disclosure Act guarantees union members the right to debate and campaign for different representation without reprisal. Discipline aimed at stifling that speech can trigger Department of Labor action and even personal liability for the officers involved.

• Under TWU’s constitution it appears that using recycled, withdrawn language may violate bans on misrepresentation and wrongful harm. And under the Railway Labor Act, airline unions owe members a duty not to act arbitrarily or in bad faith. A disciplinary trial built on rescinded allegations appears tailor‑made for a lawsuit over the union’s duty of fair representation.

Ironically, the alleged retaliation may fuel the very movement the union hoped to quash. In fact, there is a GoFundMe for creating an independent union – the Southwest Airlines Flight Attendants Association. That’s hardly unprecedented.

• American Airlines flight attendants are currently represented by their own independent union.
• United flight attendants are represented by the Association of Flight Attendants, which is part of Communication Workers of America which is itself affiliated with the AFL-CIO. (TWU is also affiliated with the AFL-CIO.)
• Delta flight attendants, whose pay and benefits have set the standards that United, American and others have negotiated against, are non-union.

However, getting to 50% of flight attendants signing decertification cards seems like a stretch – especially in the midst of chaos at the airline, and after what’s broadly considered a succesful contract negotiation.

Unfortunately, flight attendants are paying for all of this. Legal fees come out of dues. An audit, currently being demanded, would make those costs public. So the union would be best off dropping ‘copy-paste trials’, holding an open Article XIX hearing on the counter‑charges (even if just for truth and reconciliation), and publishing an accounting of legal spend on the matter. That would end the story inside the union hall rather than risking spilling over onto a federal docket.

I reached out to TWU Local 556 for comment and they offered “TWU Local 556 does not comment on internal Member issues, nor does the Union endorse the communication of internal Member issues by other parties.”