AFA NATIONWIDE STRIKE RESOLUTION

Fact Sheet and Issues
November 17, 2004
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Nationwide Strike Resolution

• The governing body of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA unanimously approved a resolution calling for a nationwide strike to draw attention to attempts by the nation's air carriers to bust unions and destroy contracts. Delegates representing flight attendants from all 26 AFA airlines approved the resolution by acclamation during the first day of the Union's annual convention.

• The resolution provides, subject to our membership ratification process, that if one of AFA's flight attendant groups has its contract rejected the Union will strike the entire airline industry in solidarity with our members who find themselves directly in the line of fire.

• Our entire profession is under attack. The airlines are using the bankruptcy process not just to reorganize, but to destroy our contracts, our pensions and our careers.

• Our response is to stand together, and we have called on the leadership of this Union to launch a nationwide strike if one of our contracts is rejected through the bankruptcy process.

• The Membership at the each of the seven carriers in bankruptcy will vote to approve strike action within the next few weeks. We expect the balloting to be completed by the December Holidays.

• Seven AFA Carriers in Bankruptcy as of November 16, 2004:
• United Airlines
• US Airways and US Airways Express carriers:
• Piedmont
• Allegheny
• PSA
• Hawaiian Airlines
• ATA Airlines

• These strike preparations should send a clear message to industry executives: they cannot expect their workers to bank-roll a bailout for their failed business plans.


Legal Issues

• Our attorneys advise us that a strike is a legally permissible response to the rejection of our contracts.

• The law is clear: if there's a legal strike at one carrier, workers at other carriers have the legal right to support that strike by engaging is secondary work actions at their own carriers.


A Message for Management

• Airline management needs to understand that there are consequences to their actions: we will not allow them to destroy our contracts without a fight.

• The strike will employ our trademarked CHAOS strategy. We may strike one flight, or dozens. We may strike one city, or the entire country. We may strike for one day, or stay out for a week. Management won't know. The media won't know. And, more importantly, the traveling public won't know where, or when, or even how we will strike.

• The current assault by airline management has evolved from seeking to cut costs on the basis of proven economic need into a destructive 'race to the bottom' that threatens to cause the collapse of wages, benefits and working conditions across the industry.

• The bankruptcy process has emboldened airline management to use the court process to achieve cost reductions that are unfair and unnecessary.

• Several carriers, notably US Airways and United Airlines, have used the Bankruptcy Code to circumvent negotiations with their employees' unions and have signaled their intention to eliminate their pension plans. In the case of US Airways, management has already asked the bankruptcy court to approve rejection of our contract.

• The AFA Board of Directors called upon management at the airlines in bankruptcy to withdraw and refrain from filing bankruptcy court motions seeking to reject our contracts, and instead to pursue good faith bargaining with AFA.

• The AFA Board of Directors also put management on notice that the abrogation of an AFA contract by any single airline, with or without court permission, will trigger a strike, subject to approval by AFA members at that carrier.

• In the event of a strike, the union will call on all AFA and other flight attendants, as well as all other airline employees, to stand up together against management's greed.

• Through this extraordinary effort, we seek nothing less than to prevent the destruction of our careers and our industry.


Management is Over-Reaching

• Management is over-reaching. Greed has replaced need on their corporate agenda.

• Under the guise of the bankruptcy law, management has initiated a race to the bottom that reaches far beyond the carriers currently in bankruptcy. If they are not stopped the cuts they seek will spread, even to the healthy carriers.

• Using the bankruptcy process, airline management has, in some cases, driven wages back to levels not seen since the early 1980s. That may not sound too bad, but over that same period inflation has eroded nearly 90% of the value of those wages. Our members cannot live on 10% of their real wages from over two decades ago.

• In the early years of our profession flight attendants had no pensions. That's because we were forced to quit when we turned 30. We fought to rid the industry of that kind of discrimination decades ago. Yet today, management at many of our airlines seeks to terminate our pensions. They would like to take us full circle, but we've been there before and we refuse to go back.

• The current crisis in the industry results from a combination of years of bad decisions by management – overcapacity, inefficiency, failed business plans. It also reflects a total lack of public policy. The White House, through the ATSB helped to drive United Airlines into bankruptcy. The total absence of public policy allows the marketplace to destroy good, well-paying careers and replace them with minimum wage jobs. That's simply wrong.


What is CHAOS(TM)

• C.H.A.O.S. – Create Havoc Around Our System (TM) is a strike action that may take many forms. It may call for a mass walkout for a day or a week at a time, with no advanced notice to the company or to the passengers. We may strike the entire system for 15 minutes, or strike all of the odd numbered gates in one city for a day, and in another city the next day.

• As AFA did with the success at Alaska Airlines, we may ask Flight Attendants to walk off individual targeted flights at random and with no warning.

• C.H.A.O.S. is a strategically planned and targeted set of actions designed to maximize our impact to put pressure on management, while at the same time attempting to minimize our risk.


Railway Labor Act (RLA)

• The law governing labor relations in the airline (and rail) industry is called the Railway Labor Act (RLA). The RLA is a different law from the National Labor Relations Act, which governs most other industries in the United States. The RLA is designed to deal with the unique nature of the transportation industry.

• The 30-day cooling-off period that is a part of the normal negotiations process under Section 6 of the RLA does not apply in this situation as a strike is a legally permissible response to the rejection of our contract by management pursuant to bankruptcy court approval of the company's Sec. 1113 motion.

• The Supreme Court of the United States has reinforced on a number of occasions the unique authority that the RLA grants to strikers. Among those rights is the right to engage in a secondary strike. When there is a legal primary strike at one carrier, the workers at another carrier may legally honor that strike by engaging in a “secondary strike” at that other carrier.



Can I be fired for participating in C.H.A.O.S.?

• United cannot legally fire Flight Attendants for participating in a legal strike action. AFA will not instruct Flight Attendants to begin strike actions until we are satisfied that the legal justification for a strike has been met.

• When we conducted a CHAOS strike at Alaska Airlines, not a single flight attendant lost her/his job, and when the company tried to fire some of the strikers the court reinstated those flight attendants with back pay.

• If management illegally fires a Flight Attendant for participating in C.H.A.O.S. activities, AFA will go to court and fight to get your job back.


How would I be notified that I am to strike?

• We are not on strike at this time; only take action if you are notified by AFA to take a specific action. You must refrain from taking CHAOS strike action on your own, without express direction from the union. How you will be notified depends on where or when the strike is to occur, and on how the strike is staged.

• If a specific flight is to be targeted, the Flight Attendant crew will be contacted by an AFA representative, either upon check-in at the airport or by telephone. If you are out on a trip, you will be contacted by telephone at the hotel.

• If all flights are going to be struck, anticipate a major media announcement from AFA.

• If a strike is called, you will be notified by the most appropriate means for that strike activity. When that happens AFA's instructions will be made clear to everyone involved.

• When the time comes, there will be no possible way for you to get on a plane and not know that a strike has been called for your flight. We are not on strike at this time; only take action if you are notified by AFA to take a specific action.

• AFA will also ensure that you are advised of when to return to work.


What should we say to passengers who have questions about CHAOS?

• When you are working, don't discuss CHAOS with anyone onboard the aircraft, including passengers, deadheading crew, pilots or fellow Flight Attendants. If a strike involves one of your flights you will be given instructions for what announcement should be made. You are never to walk off an aircraft if there are passengers onboard unless a minimum crew remains with the passengers per the F.A.R.s. The remainder of the crew may leave the aircraft only when all passengers have deplaned. Safety must never be compromised.