UAL Pilots Picket at SFO,
Flight Attendants Rally at UAL Annual Meeting

United Airline pilots Capt. Jeff Greco (L), FO Colin Tessier and FO Erika Westwood. Photos by Carl Finamore.

Several dozen United Airline pilots represented by the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA) picketed United Airline terminal doors May 8. The pilots distributed literature exposing enormous bonuses paid to UAL executives while employees suffered substantial reductions in pay and benefits and elimination of pensions. The pilots were supported on the picketline by the Machinists (IAM) and Flight Attendants (AFA-CWA).

Captain Jeff Greco said that pilots were being impacted by cuts in their pensions and the shifting of their pensions to the federal Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation during United’s bankruptcy. Because the airline industry mandates that pilots retire at age 60 but the PBGC sets the retirement age at 65, some retirees are without pension coverage.

California Rep. George Miller and Hawaii Senator Akaka have reintroduced legislation to address the issue.

Greco added that the recently signed “Open Skies” agreement would allow foreign-owned carriers to begin operating domestic flights, which would undermine the rights of workers for U.S.-based airlines. The Open Skies agreement includes language allowing the foreign carriers to continue flights even during a legal work stoppage.

Members of the Association of Flight Attendants (AFA-CWA) picketed the UAL Corporation’s annual meeting in Chicago May 10 to protest the excessive $40 million compensation package paid to CEO Glenn Tilton.

Flight attendants and other airline workers picketed to alert shareholders that the “shared sacrifice” that management talked about throughout the airline’s bankruptcy remains a sacrifice for workers who are not sharing in post-bankruptcy “rewards.”

“Executives must follow through on their promise of shared rewards. No one does better unless everyone—employees, passengers and shareholders—does better,” said AFA-CWA United spokesperson Sara Nelson.

Many United executives now are receiving equity incentive payments while airline workers have seen their pay and retirement security slashed. United emerged from bankruptcy protection in February 2006.

Flight attendants, pilots and other airline workers also picketed outside the International Aviation Symposium in Phoenix, Ariz., last month to focus attention on their frustration with Phoenix-based US Airways.

AFA-CWA members at US Airways and America West are angry over the lack of progress in contract negotiations for a merged agreement. “The failure of US Airways management to recognize the value and worth of flight attendants on the job and at the bargaining table is an ‘age-old strategy for disaster,’” said Gary Richardson, president of AFA-CWA’s Master Executive Council for America West.

Mike Flores, president of AFA-CWA’s Master Executive Council for US Airways, reminded management that “there is no such thing as a ‘full-service, low-cost airline.”

“That only works if you find employees willing to work for nothing and customers willing to pay for nothing,” he said.

Meanwhile, the United States Senate has begun work on drafting FAA Reauthorization legislation. Stan Kiino of AFA District Council 11 said that the union’s priority is to finally guarantee the most basic workplace safety and health protections for AFA members through the Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA).

More information and updates can be found online at www.afanet.org/ and www.alpa.org/.

FO Charlie Ward (L) and FO Mark Virtue picket at SFO.