UNITED Flight Attendants Living In CARS?! Fleet Votes YES To STRIKE

[Music] United Airlines flight attendance voted to authorize a strike Wednesday but a walk out may not happen for context the United Airlines Fleet is demanding a double- digigit base pay increase pay for time at work on the ground retroactive pay schedule flexibility and work rule improvements job security retirement and more now this is where it gets sticky United flight attendants filed for federal mediation over 8 months ago and have been working under an amenable contract for nearly 3 years so if they want to go forward with the strike flight attendants would need to get a release from the talks with management so will they walk off the job or not here to dive in further as Ken Diaz president of the United chapter of the association of flight attendants welcome Ken thank you for having me so help us understand this overwhelming decision to strike and what's really at stake here well United flight attendants have been in negotiations for three years with management um we've made very minimal progress I would say that we've only agreed to about 20% of our entire contract um it's been stalled and that's why we applied for federal mediation um we've been in talks with the mediator for six months we started in March um we have not come to any agreements in these 6 months and flight attendants are working without having a raise in the last three years we helped this Airline through the pandemic the government helped this airline industry survive and yet flight attendants are still left with nothing I mean we have new hire flight attendants that can't afford to pay rent that are living in cars and I say that seriously because it is actually happening I mean the average new hire flight attendant makes 23 ,000 and they can't survive on that so we are trying to get improvements for our flight attendants and United is making billions of dollars in profits and they are giving exorbitant millions of dollars to the executives and here we are three years later making no progress in these negotiations and that's why we called for a strike vote and quite frankly it was overwhelming it was 99.99% with over 90% of our FL tenants taking part in this vote and that sends a clear message that we're United and and we want this airline to be successful we want it to be a world-class Airline but not with leaving flight attendants behind yeah you can't be a worldclass airline leaving flight attendants behind with the amount of legs that they run help us understand how much you know the working conditions what are the flight attendants dealing with that they're negotiating for that management isn't budging on so obviously um um wages are the United knows what the wages are in the industry so so they have promised us industry leading wages they have not proposed industry leading wages to us we're trying to find work life balance with with flexibility for flight attendant so that our families are just as important than anyone else's families and the time that we're away from our families is tremendous I mean United Airlines sometimes I don't know if the traveling public realizes we get paid until that aircraft pushes back from the gate and then the pay stops when we come back um and we land and we come to the gate the time that we spend at work um doing our safety checks during boarding in between flights we're not compensated our hourly wages during that time and we're trying to seek improvements to our retirement security um many of us lost our pensions during the bankruptcy in the early in 2005 and we're trying to um negotiate better working conditions for our flight attends the amazing thing and this is the third negotiations I've ever been involved with the amazing part of these negotiations are every single proposal that comes across the table from United Airlines is asking us for concessions this isn't concessionary bargaining this Airline is making millions and it's time for improvements just as we're seeing across the industry American Airlines flight attendance Southwest Airlines flight attendance Alaska Airlines flight attendants even though they voted down their tenant agreement um just a few weeks ago by a 2 to1 margin we're we're seeking the same improvements that the rest of the industry has gotten we've seen what the pilot groups have gotten and and we're we're not we're not willing to to go for concessions just to get a raise we're not going to pay for our raise that that's not an improvement for United flight atts absolutely I think about flight attendance I fly a lot a lot of the times the person who is the Des agent announcing the flight is the same person doing the service on the flight these are people who are the public face of the company in many ways and are dealing with customers most complicated problems trying to get from A to B it's it's a taxing job and this idea that seemingly people who are doing the most work the most labor in our economy are making the least it's a consistent problem and I think a lot of workers can get Hope from seeing you know United Airlines flight attendant with willing to strike for you know what is basic working condition improvements when they deserve a lot more than even what they're asking for so how do you see this as a part of you know the larger fight for labor are you seeing more support for strikes and less people saying oh no well it's going to be hard to fly because of the flight attendance and instead saying well United had three years to fix this problem this strike is really the company's issue yeah I mean the the detriment that we have as flight attendant we work under the railway Labor Act so um we work under different conditions than other um labor units in the country that we don't get the ability to strike when our when our contract is due it just becomes amenable and the corporations in the airline industry have used that to delay delay delay because every every month and year that they delay they're saving money but we're losing money and and I I believe in the larger labor movement what you're seeing across the country is labor labor is speaking up with one voice now that corporations are so greedy that they're forgetting that it is the Frontline employees of all these different industries that bring in the profits to these corporations and the workers want to share in those profits and and I don't think we're asking for unreasonable things I think we're we've earned it we've we've helped save this Airline many times through bankruptcy through concessions during bankruptcy through the pandemic when this airline industry didn't know who was going to survive the government gave money we we lobbied the government to help these Airlines survived the pandemic and now we're just like tossed aside like like we're nothing and and flight ATT tenants I mean it's resounding that you can get that percentage of flight attendants saying if we have to strike that we will we don't want to we we absolutely don't want to but we do want United Airlines to get serious and negotiate the improvements that United flight attendants deserve we're seeing safety become an increasingly common issue for Airlines and flight attendants and Airline workers especially with what we saw happen with the Boeing uh 757 wheel exploding at Delta taking two workers lives how much are safety concerns a part of these negotiations among you know the flight attendance safety concerns are are are very very high on our list um safe we are safety professionals I mean we have 911 coming that you know people can't forget that you know it was flight attendant of the first to die on that day um I had family members on that day so so we're working in an industry where safety has to be Paramount the our passengers have to feel safe our crews have to feel safe when they come on board those aircraft and that's why we're very very involved in in talks with the company regarding safety we're we're keeping a prize of what's going on with the Boeing situation and safety is Paramount to our job because um let's face it we have to know that we're safe we're in a safe aircraft so that our passengers can feel safe flying with us thank you so much for joining us today we appreciate it thank you Ken I will add any safety that's fought for by these Airline workers is safety that passengers will enjoy as well so we appreciate your work Ken thank you thank you very much [Music]