More than 27,000 American Airlines flight attendants are at war again with management at the world’s largest airline.
After a fierce and ultimately successful fight that raged for more than 18 months over new uniforms that are believed to have caused symptomatic reactions among thousands of AA employees, flight attendants quickly donned their battle gear again late Thursday.
The battle ensued as soon as American Vice President of Flight Service Jill Surdek issued a new attendance and performance policy for all AA flight attendants set to go into effect Oct. 1.
That is an important date because it is when legacy flight attendants from American Airlines and legacy FAs from U.S. Airways will be fully integrated into one operating unit with one set of rules — a move that comes some six years after the two carriers merged to form the world’s largest airline and Doug Parker became CEO of the combined airlines.
The attendance and performance policy Surdek unveiled late yesterday will apply to all FAs from both legacy flight attendant groups.
As soon as AA flight attendants saw the new policy, they started pushing back hard against what they say is an unfair, punitive and inhumane new set of rules.
AA management, however, has a different view. A spokesman for AA said today: “We believe the new policies provide ample latitude for our flight attendants to live their lives while allowing for attendance accountability.”
The new attendance policy is centered on a complicated system that assigns flight attendants one or more points for various attendance infractions, such as taking more than two contractually-allowed personal days, or reporting late for work, or being a no show for a scheduled trip, or being sick during critical times for the airline. The “critical periods” include July 1 -7, Thanksgiving (Wednesday prior through Sunday after), and December 22 to January 3.
An accrual of 4 to 6 points during a rolling 12-month period would trigger a performance review. An 8-point accrual would result in a final warning and 10 points would lead to termination.
Within hours after the new policy was disseminated to rank and file flight attendants, one FA wrote Surdek and said: “This attendance policy, as written, is punitive, offers no human factor, and is being received by flight attendants as cruel and unusual . . . if a pipe bursts in our house, a tire goes flat or some other Act of God occurs, it’s not easy to jump on a plane for three days and forget that you are going to come home to a catastrophe.”
Lori Bassani, president of the Association of Professional Flight Attendants (APFA) that represents American’s flight attendants, also dispatched a letter and a Presidential Grievance yesterday to Lucretia Guia, vice president of labor relations and deputy general counsel at American Airlines.
Bassani said of the new attendance and performance policy: “It is our position that the company (American Airlines) has no right to make these unreasonable changes, which will be disastrous to our flight attendants and to the company’s operations. We have directed our legal counsel to immediately pursue the attached Presidential Grievance.”
A spokesman for American said the company hopes to work out its differences with APFA without the matter going to arbitration, which could last weeks or months.
But whatever comes of the Presidential Grievance, American Airlines (NASDAQ: AAL) today said it intends to unilaterally implement the new policy on Oct. 1.
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