United flight attendants call for strike vote in contract negotiations with American Airlines

July 16, 2024

United flight attendants call for strike vote in contract negotiations with American Airlines

from Gary Leff on 16 July 2024

As American Airlines meets with its flight attendants union in Phoenix this week to negotiate a new collective bargaining agreement, without even the help of federal mediators, United Airlines flight attendants are now ready to turn up the pressure in their own negotiations.

The deal with American is close to being finalized and is expected to be announced next week at the latest – four and a half years after the last contract became amendable.

Pandemic aside, United’s flight attendants’ contract has been open for just as long. But their union has largely kept a low profile. They strategically let American’s flight attendants go first so they could negotiate under American’s contract—and so that if American’s negotiations turned into a strike, another union’s workers would suffer for their gains. (The chief negotiator for AFA-CWA, the umbrella union for United’s flight attendants group, was even loaned to the rival American Airlines flight attendants’ union.)

United Airlines’ flight attendants union will vote on whether to authorize a strike.
These are flight attendants who have given their union permission to go on strike.
However, they will not allow a strike.

According to the union, United is delaying a new contract to save money on the increased wages while negotiations continue. However, the union will demand back pay to make up for it. Southwest flight attendants have achieved this, and there will be back pay in the American deal as well (how much, we will most likely find out in a few days).

The truth is that the flight attendants’ union at United has intentionally not moved to speed things up for negotiating reasons.

This vote to authorize a strike is just the next step in the negotiations. It is largely a symbolic vote that suggests that the flight attendants are willing to see the negotiations through to the end. The union would not call the strike without knowing that it would win overwhelmingly.

Many flight attendants will vote for a strike even though they know it is a positioning tactic for negotiations and not an actual strike vote.
By saying that they would authorize a strike, they are toughening their rhetoric and hoping to gain an advantage in the negotiations.
Voting against a strike would be tantamount to capitulation to negotiations.

Even if 99% of flight attendants vote for a strike, many of them do not really support a strike However, you do not want to tell the company this.

Once the union has its strike authorization vote, it is a long way from going on strike. The National Conciliation Board must first declare an impasse in negotiations, followed by a 30-day cooling-off period, and only then is “self-help” allowed. A strike can still be prevented by the President.

The National Mediation Board has made it clear throughout the negotiations with American Airlines that it does not want to create an impasse – and certainly not before a presidential election. The Democratic-majority body does not want to leave the president in an impossible situation. It also wants to be appointed in the future, and you don’t get that by making things difficult for presidents.

In the past 20 years, there have been only two major strikes at U.S. airlines – among Northwest mechanics in 2005 and among Spirit Airlines pilots in 2010 – and none at all in the past 14 years.

A threat of a strike is simply part of the process and does not necessarily end in a strike – although this is always possible, but in this case not until 2025.