A Flight Attendant Perspective on

Union Representation
IAM Four Years Later

The International Association of

Machinists (IAM) won a
representational election after the
merger of the former Atlantic
Southeast Airlines and Express Jet
Airlines for the newly combined group
of flight attendants at Express Jet
Airlines on December 21, 2011 .

The original Express Jet

flight attendants were
represented by the IAM
and the former Atlantic
Southeast Airlines flight
attendants were
represented by AFA.

The IAM campaigned on democratic

elections, transparency, supportive
staff, aggressive representation, and an
industry leading contract comprised of
higher wages and better working
conditions.

A union that values its members!

Four Years Later

We are still
waiting!

Democratic Elections
There is nothing democratic about elections within the
IAM
Recent Elections held by both the International and the
District were contested and a rerun supervised by the
Department of Labor was ordered.
To prevent those members who would have won in the
first election the IAM filed trumped up charges against
them called Article Ls and suspended them, preventing
them from running for office in the new election.

Democratic voting and processes have been problematic

with the IAM. IAM refuses to allow electronic voting and
continues to use paper balloting which are easily tampered
with. In addition, all crafts/classes in a District vote for all
positions including positions specific to each class/craft.
XJT has one General Chair and one Vice President
specifically for the flight attendants. The XJT and VP
candidates that the flight attendants overwhelmingly
voted for both lost the election due to the votes of these
other crafts/classes made up of mechanics, ramp, gate and
food service workers

Above are the actual results from the last District election scheduled to be rerun in 2016 with
supervision by the DOL. Our Bases are ATL, CLE, IAH, EWR, and ORD. GC Sara Gonzales 61 vs
Kate Romanausky 118. Sara was on the district ticket and won the ramp , mechanic and food
service vote but lost the flight attendant vote. Kate won the flight attendant vote. Only 1
Atlanta vote was submitted properly and counted. The recording secretary did not send in the
others which would have been in Kates favor. Sara was awarded the election. We feel she
should represent those who actually voted for her not us. Our voices were dismissed! Same
thing happened with our VP. Marche Cooper 92 vs Nicole Fears 82. Nicole was elected. IAM
Fail, IAM Democracy in action!
Ms. Gonzales then filed an Article L against Kate preventing her from holding any union position.
The members filed many Article Ls against Sara for lack of proper representation but they were
all dismissed

These other groups have very little interaction with the

majority of the flight attendant group, yet, they chose our
representatives based on the District slate and a larger
combined voting membership. In addition, the XJT flight
attendants are two separate groups with two separate
contracts. They refuse to provide for equal
representation of both sides and only support one
General Chair (original XJT) who is in charge of all things
contract including negotiations, leaving former ASA flight
attendants without a voice. Our members have been hurt
by this due to lack of working knowledge of the contract.

The IAM then appointed two special representatives to

assist this GC after numerous complaints from the flight
attendants. The members did not have a vote on these
appointments and one of the special representatives is
linked to the scandal of the Delta card signing campaign.
The members expressed their dismay but the IAM has and
continues to ignore our concerns and complaints, instead
telling us we are ungrateful and they will close our locals if
we continue to complain. How about allowing us to
choose our representatives? Some democracy please!

We have not experienced any better results with local

elections fondly referred to as ballot gate. Local
elections have been protested as well and currently the
Atlanta local election will be rerun. Complaints from local
elections range from missing absentee ballots, postage on
wrong side of envelopes, candidates having access to the
absentee ballots, illegal campaign materials in envelopes
and a flight attendant no longer employed by the company
on the ballot just to name a few. Lets not forget, that to
get on the ballot, you must attend local lodge meetings.
That is not an easy task for flight attendants but does limit
the pool of potential candidates.

DEMOCRACY IAM Style

Transparency ?
Almost everything is a secret with the
IAM or you have to jump through hoops
to get the information. You want to know
what happened at the last meeting?
How about contract negotiations? Good
Luck!

Supportive Staff?
Unanswered emails and phone calls at all
levels of District and International
Representation. The Locals do better
depending on the member and the officer.
Not our idea of support.

There is nothing aggressive about our

representation!
The Official Book Of IAM Representation!

If you are a rep and friendly with the GC, you

will not have to fly nor will you be subject to
volunteering your time for the greater good.
You will be generously rewarded for your
time. If you are not friendly with the GC, you
will be required to sit in the crewroom for up
to 8 hours per day and receive 6 hours pay.
You will not be paid for all the hours you
work, other than those crewroom sits. You
will not be paid to answer the phone. Is it
any wonder that our reps work so many
hours in addition to union time?

Is it any wonder that they are unavailable to

assist you on most days? Why would any labor
union demand that local reps not be paid for
their time? To lose money including per diem
while performing the very duties of the
union?After all, dont they promote fair wages
as a way to promote themselves? Maybe they
should look in their own backyard first. Maybe
the reps need to form a union to better their pay
and working conditions.

The majority of your dues go to the District

and International levels to support selling
false promises to other workgroups such
as Delta who dont even want them.
Organizers are paid the big bucks, political
contributions (for which you have no say)
and six figure salaries to those at the
District and International. There is no
money at the local level for committee
members or to assist flight attendants in
need of a helping hand.

Industry Leading Contract

Higher Wages, Better working Conditions

The IAM appoints members as

negotiators. Many of our negotiators
had less than 5 years on the job and little
to no experience negotiating a contract.

They did appoint a seasoned

negotiator to oversee our team.
Unfortunately, this person is not a
flight attendant.

In four years, there has been very

little movement on a joint contract.
Negotiations did not begin until
October 2012.

Negotiations abruptly stopped in 2014. We

get the same old tired memo month after
month.

Negotiations We have repeatedly addressed the

slow pace we have experienced in negotiations
since the Company filed for mediation over a year
ago. We are still aggressively pursuing the
scheduling of new negotiations dates. We are
hopeful that we will be communicating new
negotiations dates very soon.

Even though they could not move us forward on

a contract, they wasted no time altering the
contract we currently have. In January 2013,
they signed a LOA which gave back 75 uniform
points in exchange for saving those who are
chronically late by adding a few minutes grace
to duty in. Those points were extremely
valuable to us ($4.20 per point or as much as
$315) and worth far more than a few minutes
grace. We were never consulted nor asked if it
was something we supported.

They also changed our training and premium pay,

work rules and reserve rules. Our company
offered us the same rest rules as the pilots but our
GC turned them down and now lobbies congress
for those same rules. Once again, they have not
bothered to include us in these decisions. We have
had more contract violations and terminations
than any other time in our past.

Dont even talk to us

about the jumpseat!

While they were busy in negotiations they

stayed at the very posh Westin hotel while we
as crew stay at the Comfort Inn.

We each pay $60.00 a month for this pleasure.

Four years later and we are

worse off than ever before
with no relief in site. Broken
promises, shattered hopes,
blatant lies and empty
wallets.

Four Years Later

No new joint contract
No Reciprocal Jumpseat UA
Loss of Uniform Points
No Voice in Negotiations
No Voice in Reps
Unequal Representation
Are you sure you want what we have?

Where will you be in four years?

Not much change forecast in our

future.

We are not anti-union. We are about an

informed choice. Once a union is voted in, it is
almost impossible to remove them. There are
good unions out there just as there are unions
like ours.