Posts tagged AFA-CWA
American Airlines Union President Faces ‘Embezzlement’ and ‘Cover-Up’ Allegations Amid Mounting Dissent
January 10, 2025 // Formal charges have been filed by one of the American Airlines flight attendant base Presidents against their union President, Julie Hedrick. These “Article VII Charges” allege ‘willful violation’ of the union’s constitution including improper use of union funds for personal enrichment. This includes the allegation of having the union lease her an apartment without first certifying that she lived outside the area (the union can lease apartments for its officers to stay at in Dallas only if their primary residence is elsewhere).
Acting Labor Secretary Julie Su Criticizes Donald Trump’s Labor Record at IOP
October 22, 2024 // Though Su declined to address the former president by name, she argued that “hypothetically,” opposition to overtime pay, sexual harassment, and support for Elon Musk are incompatible with a “pro-worker” position. “I don’t care how many McDonald’s drive-throughs you pretend to work at,” Su said, referencing Trump’s Sunday visit to a Philadelphia McDonald’s where he served fries and answered questions through the drive-through window. Su was joined by Sara Nelson, the president of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, AFL-CIO to discuss the future of the American Labor Movement. Brett Story and Stephen Maing, directors of “UNION”— a documentary film that followed the unionization of Amazon workers in Staten Island, New York — were also on the panel.
SkyWest Airlines facing federal lawsuit over alleged ‘fake company union’
August 14, 2024 // SkyWest Airlines, the largest regional airline in North America, is facing legal action over an alleged “fake” company union that the airline operates and the allegedly retaliatory firings of flight attendants who were engaged in union organizing efforts. A lawsuit was filed by the Association of Flight Attendants (AFA-CWA) in October 2023. The US Department of Labor also filed a lawsuit last month against the company over the “company union”, alleging SkyWest Inflight Association (SIA) did not perform its legal duties as a representative agency and barred two employees from running in an election for leadership positions due to their support for an independent union at the airline.
How More Than 200 Employees Have Been Forced Into a Union Only 8 of Them Voted For
January 18, 2024 // The union filed an application for an election when the company was in its infancy and there were only 14 eligible voters. At the time of the election, there were nearly 100 flight attendants, but through a loophole in the law, only the original 14 were allowed to vote, and of them, eight voted for the union. Since then, the company has continued to grow. Now, Avelo Airlines’ 200-plus flight attendants are saddled up with a union voted in by eight people. Think of that: More than 200 people have been forced into an affiliation with an entity that only eight of them embraced.
Video: UAW President Shawn Fain testifies in front of Congress
November 14, 2023 // UAW President Shawn Fain testified in front of the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) during a hearin called "Standing Up Against Corporate Greed; How Unions are Improving the Lives of Working Families." It featured Fain, Teamsters President Sean O'Brien and AFA-CWA International President Sara Nelson.
Student Activists Are Turning Their Attention to the Labor Movement
June 22, 2023 // Last year, the Young Democratic Socialists of America’s Red Hot Summer program trained hundreds of young people to organize their workplaces and helped launch union drives representing thousands. This year’s program hopes to be even bigger, writes YDSA’s cochair. Student workers across the country are engaged in an unprecedented wave of labor organization. Spurred on by the support of organizations like the Young Democratic Socialists of America (YDSA), of which I am cochair, undergraduate student workers have launched union drives on nearly thirty public and private campuses in the United States. These workers are fighting for increased pay, improvements to scheduling and hours, sick pay, and better health care. They are also fighting for issues that go beyond bread and butter, like removing Israeli products from dining halls.
Delta flights attendants race to unionize: ‘We’re the people behind the profits’
August 4, 2022 // Workers are racing to gather union authorization cards signed by a supermajority at Delta to trigger a union election over the next few months, as signatures are only valid for one year. The aim is to allow the airline’s 23,000 flight attendants to vote on whether to unionize with the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA (AFA-CWA) and will face fierce opposition from an airline that has fought previous efforts. “Delta is a company that has long union-busted, has deep roots in union-busting, and it is integrated into everything the company does,” said Sara Nelson, president of the AFA-CWA. Only about 20% of the workforce at Delta is represented by a labor union, consisting of pilots and dispatchers, compared with 86% of the workforce at American Airlines, 85% at United, 82% at Southwest, 86% at Alaska and 48% at JetBlue.