TWA Flight Attendants Continue Fight for Seniority - Union Dodges Responsibility

Online, October 8, 2010 (Newswire.com) - CONTACT:
Nancy McGuire
Coalition for Union Principles
Phone (314) 496-1936
coalition4unionprinciples@gmail.com

TWA Flight Attendants Continue Fight for Seniority
Union Dodges Responsibility

On Wednesday, American Airlines announced they will recall 545 flight attendants to active employment status. All 545 are former TWA employees. There are about 800 more TWA attendants that remain on the recall list waiting to return to the job after more than 7 or 8 years of unemployment.

"We are grateful to American for the recall, and the company can expect the returning TWA flight attendants to go above and beyond the call of duty to deliver excellent customer service for which they have become known" said Nancy McGuire, a former TWA Flight Attendant.

The flight attendants who will be returning to the job have between 33 and 44 years service in the airline industry. They will be returning to the bottom of the seniority list, below other American attendants who have as little as 9 years of seniority. That's because when American purchased TWA, American's flight attendant union, the Association of Professional Flight Attendants (APFA), refused to credit the TWA attendants with any seniority and placed them in the position of new hires at the bottom of the seniority list, where they were first in line to be laid off.

Seniority is the bedrock principle of organized labor in the airline industry. It governs issues from bidding for assignments to the order in which employees are laid off and recalled. APFA stands alone among all other flight attendant unions in the way they have treated the TWA members. All unions except APFA recognize the seniority earned at the previous carrier when two airlines are combined.

In the recent United / Continental merger, the larger union at United, the Association of Flight Attendants, has agreed to honor all seniority earned by the Continental attendants, even though they belonged to a different union as was the case in the American / TWA deal.
At US Air and America West, both flight attendant groups retained all previous seniority at the combined company. Even at non-union Delta where the decision was left to management, all Northwest flight attendants were given credit for seniority on the combined seniority list.

There is irony in APFA's decision to deny the TWA attendants any seniority. Many of the TWA attendants are directly responsible for some of the benefits APFA enjoys today. The TWA attendants were at the forefront of the labor movement in fighting for pensions, health and safety regulations, the abolition of age and marriage restrictions, gender equality and weight restrictions that transformed a short term job into a career.

The TWA attendants vow to continue their struggle to right the injustice that APFA perpetrated against them. They successfully lobbied for the new federal law sponsored by Senator Claire McCaskill (D-MO) that prevents what happened to the TWA attendants from happening to any other workers in the future. "While we are grateful that Congress addressed the problem going forward, the McCaskill amendment did not protect any of the TWA flight attendants' seniority. Senator McCaskill had previously brokered an agreement to extend the recall rights for the unemployed TWA workers, who should never have been laid off in the first place." McGuire stated.

"It's like being a senior in high school when two schools are combined. The larger high school said to the seniors at the smaller school, you have to go back to first grade and wait until there are spaces in a first grade class so you can start all over again. If no space opens up in five years, you are permanently out of luck. For that we should be grateful?" says Ms. McGuire.

"We call on Congress to correct this gross injustice and stop giving credit to the rogue, independent union - the Association of Professional Flight Attendants - that stole our seniority. Congress must finish the job and close the loophole by requiring the basic fairness of applying earned seniority in mergers and acquisitions to the TWA flight attendants that all other flights attendants receive."

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Coalition for Union Principles, P.O. Box 31112 St. Louis, Missouri 63131