Now that American Airlines is huddling with its flight attendants union in Phoenix this week to wrap up a new contract, without even the help of federal mediators, United Airlines flight attendants are ready to turn up the heat in their own negotiations.
American’s deal appears close to done and should be announced no later than next week – four and a half years after the last contract became amendable.
Excluding pandemic time, United’s flight attendants contract has been open just as long. However their union has stayed mostly quiet. They’ve strategically let American flight attendants ‘go first’ so they could bargain with American’s deal as a baseline – and so that if American’s negotiations went to a strike, it would be a different union’s employees suffering for their gains. (The lead negotiator for AFA-CWA, parent union of United’s flight attendants group, was even lent out to the rival American Airlines flight attendants union.)
The United Airlines flight attendants union will conduct a strike authorization vote.This is flight attendants authorizing their union to strike.But it does not allow a strike.
According to the union, United is stalling on a new contract in order to save money on the increased wages during the time it takes to negotiate. However the union will be asking for retro pay to cover this. Southwest flight attendants achieved this, and there will be some retro pay in the American deal as well (we’ll learn in a matter of days, most likely, just how much).
The truth is that the flight attendants union at United has intentionally not sped things up until now, as a bargaining tactic.
This strike authorization vote is just the next step in bargaining. It is mostly a symbolic vote, suggesting that flight attendants are willing to go the distance in negotiations. The union wouldn’t call it without knowing they would win overwhelmingly.
Many flight attendants will vote for a strike knowing that it is a positioning tactic for negotiations, not an actual vote to strike.
By saying they’re authorizing a strike, they ratchet up the rhetoric, hoping for leverage in negotiations.
Voting against a strike would be capitulating in their negotiations.
Even though 99% of flight attendants will vote to authorize a strike, many of those do not actually support a strike but do not wish to reveal this to the company.
Once the union has their strike authorization vote, they’ll be nowhere near close to a strike. The National Mediation Board first has to declare an impasse in negotiations, which is followed by a 30-day cooling off period, and only then is ‘self-help’ allowed. A strike can still be forestalled by the President.
The National Mediation Board has made clear throughout American Airlines negotiations that they do not wish to declare an impasse – and certainly not before a Presidential election. The Democratic-majority board doesn’t want to hand an impossible situation to the President. They also want to be appointed to things in the future, and making things hard for Presidents doesn’t accomplish that.
There have been only two major U.S. airlines strikes in the past 20 years – Northwest mechanics in 2005 and Spirit Airlines pilots in 2010 – and none in the last 14 years.
A strike threat is simply part of the process, and doesn’t generally end in a strike – although it always could just in this case not until 2025.