United Airlines flight attendants haven’t had a raise in five and a half years. The value of their pay has fallen in real terms by more than 20% since then, eaten away by inflation.
- Their last contract was ratified in August 2016.
- Their last (2%) raise was in September 2020.
- And their contract became amendable on August 28, 2021.
Since then, negotiations were delayed by the pandemic. Their own union slow walked negotiations, preferring to see American Airlines flights attendants negotiate a new contract first to set a higher bar for their own bargaining (they even lent their chief negotiator to the rival union at American for the duration).
They came to an agreement, but it turned out that the AFA-CWA misread their own member flight attendants. Though the union advised they had presented the best deal they could get, 71% of United flight attendants rejected it. The contract didn’t allocate money in ways that matched their priorities.
The good news is that the long, drawn out process looks finally on the cusp of coming to a close. The union sent an update to cabin crew today, telling them that:
- Negotiations this week made significant progress
- A final agreement is close, and they expect to finish it during their March 24-27 session with the airline
- Things went so well that “we are postponing our scheduled Membership Action Day on March 19th.”
Meanwhile United sent a similar upbeat, encouraging note to flight attendants as well today.
According to United’s Vice President of Labor Relations Nathan Lopp, they too expect a new tentative agreement soon. It will include signing bonuses, which will be finalized at the March 24-27 session. And they promise that “pay for EVERY flight attendant at EVERY level would be top of industry” for the duration of the agreement and report they made progress on “sit pay” (airport waiting time – not just boarding time).
Here’s their readout of this week’s bargaining:
During this session, we made progress on several other areas that the AFA has indicated are priorities for you, including wage rates and alignment on language for redeye rules and for sit pay.
Our discussions centered around the pathways to delivering those priorities while preserving our industry-leading pay proposal and ensuring the overall agreement remains balanced, competitive and financially sustainable for our airline.
Our goal remains the same: reaching an industry-leading agreement that reflects the critical role our flight attendants play in United’s success and one that delivers meaningful improvements.
The next session is scheduled from March 24-27, when we expect to finalize signing bonuses and other remaining items. While there is still work to do, we are encouraged by the progress made this week and remain confident we’re on track toward a new tentative agreement.
This suggests that, as in past communications, cost additions in this contract compared to the one that was rejected by flight attendants will come with offsets elsewhere in the agreement.
That’s consistent with the union’s position earlier that the total cost of the contract was as high as it could go, and consistent with the idea that the problem was the specific things the union was asking for not being well-matched to the priorities flight attendants had. The union had promised sit pay. They hadn’t gotten language flight attendants cared about for layover hotels.
Seeing both sides speak out so positively about where they’re ending up – and that things are close to winding up – is refreshing. And if it’ll mean the CEO of American Airlines has to drop his talking point about United benefiting from old labor agreements that had lower costs, well, that will be another great benefit.
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