Flight attendants picket for chance to return to sky
10:52 PM CDT on Friday, September 8, 2006
Time is running out for former Trans World Airlines flight attendants who want to go back to work for American Airlines Inc.
Several dozen flight attendants, furloughed by American between October 2001 and July 2003, picketed their union's Euless headquarters Friday, trying to pressure the union and the airline to extend their right to be recalled to their old jobs.
The contract between American and the Association of Professional Flight Attendants provides that furloughed attendants will be called back first when American begins hiring flight attendants again.
However, the contract limits the recall rights to five years from the time an attendant is furloughed. The first 1,100 to 1,200 attendants, furloughed in October 2001, will fall off the recall list next month.
"We think it's unconscionable to deny us the right of recall as vacancies occur," said Dixie Daniels, a Salt Lake City resident who began her TWA career in 1975.
As of July 31, American had about 3,800 flight attendants on furlough, including more than 2,900 TWA attendants who came to American as a result of the Fort Worth-based carrier's purchase of TWA in April 2001.
Although many TWA flight attendants had been longtime employees at their former airline, the American union put their names at the bottom of their seniority list, meaning the ex-TWA workers would be furloughed before any American attendants hired before April 2001.
Most of the flight attendants furloughed in October 2001 were not former TWA attendants, but employees added in the months after the TWA merger and before the furloughs. But the majority of the attendants furloughed between 2001 and 2003 came to American from TWA.
The president of the flight attendants' union, Tommie L. Hutto-Blake, has talked to American about the impending furloughs. However, a statement Friday from the union didn't offer any hope to those about to drop off the seniority list, and American didn't express any enthusiasm for extending the date.
In a statement, Ms. Hutto-Blake expressed "deep regret" that the attendants would begin losing their rights this fall.
She said the union has "continued to fight for an extension for its members. AA management is simply not interested without opening our entire collective bargaining agreement."
The contract can be amended in May 2008, although the two sides could begin talking sooner.
American spokesman Sue Gordon said the airline is acting in accordance with the terms of the collective bargaining agreement with the union.
"I don't think it's fair to say that we're actively pursuing changes to it," she said. "I think it would probably be safer to say that if this was something that the APFA wanted to change, we would do that in the course of negotiations."
If talks did start, "I think there would be other things that we would want to discuss if we were to look for any negotiated agreement," Ms. Gordon said. "It would be something broader than this issue."
Although the ex-TWA workers are low in seniority at American, their pay was based on years on the job. That would make them more expensive for American than hiring new attendants.
The picketers said the airline should do what's right. Tim Hunter, who began flying for TWA in 1986, noted that the U.S. government gave American financial help after 9/11.
"You have a moral and ethical obligation – the union and the company – to do this" for the furloughed employees, he said.
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