iam representation four years later

7/21/2019 IAM Representation Four Years Later

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The International Association of

Machinists (IAM) won arepresentational election after the

merger of the former Atlantic

Southeast Airlines and Express Jet

Airlines for the newly combined group

of flight attendants at Express JetAirlines on December 21, 2011 .



The original Express Jetflight attendants were

represented by the IAMand the former Atlantic

Southeast Airlines flight

attendants were

represented by AFA.



The IAM campaigned on democraticelections, transparency, supportive

staff, aggressive representation, and an

industry leading contract comprised of

higher wages and better working

conditions.

A union that values it’s members!



We are still

waiting!

Four Years Later



Democratic Elections

There is nothing democratic about elections within the

IAM

Recent Elections held by both the International and the

District were contested and a rerun supervised by the

Department of Labor was ordered.

To prevent those members who would have won in the

first election the IAM filed trumped up charges against

them called Article L’s and suspended them, preventing

them from running for office in the new election.



Democratic voting and processes have been problematic

with the IAM. IAM refuses to allow electronic voting andcontinues to use paper balloting which are easily tampered

with. In addition, all crafts/classes in a District vote for all

positions including positions specific to each class/craft.

XJT has one General Chair and one Vice Presidentspecifically for the flight attendants. The XJT and VP

candidates that the flight attendants overwhelmingly

voted for both lost the election due to the votes of these

other crafts/classes made up of mechanics, ramp, gate and

food service workers



Above are the actual results from the last District election scheduled to be rerun in 2016 with

supervision by the DOL. Our Bases are ATL, CLE, IAH, EWR, and ORD. GC Sara Gonzales 61 vs

Kate Romanausky 118. Sara was on the district ticket and won the ramp , mechanic and food

service vote but lost the flight attendant vote. Kate won the flight attendant vote. Only 1

Atlanta vote was submitted properly and counted. The recording secretary did not send in theothers which would have been in Kate’s favor. Sara was awarded the election. We feel she

should represent those who actually voted for her not us. Our voices were dismissed! Same

thing happened with our VP. Marche Cooper 92 vs Nicole Fears 82. Nicole was elected. IAM

Fail, IAM Democracy in action!

Ms. Gonzales then filed an Article L against Kate preventing her from holding any union position.

The members filed many Article L’s against Sara for lack of proper representation but they wereall dismissed



These other groups have very little interaction with the

majority of the flight attendant group, yet, they chose ourrepresentatives based on the District slate and a larger

combined voting membership. In addition, the XJT flight

attendants are two separate groups with two separate

contracts. They refuse to provide for equalrepresentation of both sides and only support one

General Chair (original XJT) who is in charge of all things

contract including negotiations, leaving former ASA flight

attendants without a voice. Our members have been hurtby this due to lack of working knowledge of the contract.



The IAM then appointed two special representatives to

assist this GC after numerous complaints from the flightattendants. The members did not have a vote on these

appointments and one of the special representatives is

linked to the scandal of the Delta card signing campaign.

The members expressed their dismay but the IAM has and

continues to ignore our concerns and complaints, instead

telling us we are ungrateful and they will close our locals if

we continue to complain. How about allowing us tochoose our representatives? Some democracy please!



We have not experienced any better results with local

elections fondly referred to as “ballot gate”. Local

elections have been protested as well and currently the

Atlanta local election will be rerun. Complaints from local

elections range from missing absentee ballots, postage on

wrong side of envelopes, candidates having access to theabsentee ballots, illegal campaign materials in envelopes

and a flight attendant no longer employed by the company

on the ballot just to name a few. Let’s not forget, that to

get on the ballot, you must attend local lodge meetings.That is not an easy task for flight attendants but does limit

the pool of potential candidates.



DEMOCRACY IAM Sty le



Transparency ?

Almost everything is a secret with theIAM or you have to jump through hoops

to get the information. You want to know

what happened at the last meeting?

How about contract negotiations? Good

Luck!



Supportive Staff?

Unanswered emails and phone calls at all

levels of District and International

Representation. The Locals do better

depending on the member and the officer.

Not our idea of support.



There is nothing aggressive about our

representation!

The Official Book Of IAM Representation!



If you are a rep and friendly with the GC, you

will not have to fly nor will you be subject to

volunteering your time for the greater good.You will be generously rewarded for your

time. If you are not friendly with the GC, you

will be required to sit in the crewroom for upto 8 hours per day and receive 6 hours pay.

You will not be paid for all the hours you

work, other than those crewroom sits. Youwill not be paid to answer the phone. Is it

any wonder that our reps work so many

hours in addition to union time?



Is it any wonder that they are unavailable to

assist you on most days? Why would any labor

union demand that local reps not be paid fortheir time? To lose money including per diem

while performing the very duties of the

union?After all, don’t they promote fair wagesas a way to promote themselves? Maybe they

should look in their own backyard first. Maybe

the reps need to form a union to better their pay

and working conditions.



The majority of your dues go to the District

and International levels to support selling

false promises to other workgroups such

as Delta who don’t even want them.

Organizers are paid the big bucks, political

contributions (for which you have no say)and six figure salaries to those at the

District and International. There is no

money at the local level for committeemembers or to assist flight attendants in

need of a helping hand.



Industry Leading Contract

Higher Wages, Better working Conditions

The IAM appoints members as

negotiators. Many of our negotiatorshad less than 5 years on the job and little

to no experience negotiating a contract.



They did appoint a seasoned

negotiator to oversee our team.Unfortunately, this person is not a

flight attendant.



In four years, there has been very

little movement on a joint contract.Negotiations did not begin until

October 2012.



“Negotiations We have repeatedly addressed the

slow pace we have experienced in negotiationssince the Company filed for mediation over a year

ago. We are still aggressively pursuing the

scheduling of new negotiations dates. We are

hopeful that we will be communicating new

negotiations dates very soon.”

Negotiations abruptly stopped in 2014. We

get the same old tired memo month after

month.



Even though they could not move us forward on

a contract, they wasted no time altering the

contract we currently have. In January 2013,they signed a LOA which gave back 75 uniform

points in exchange for saving those who are

chronically late by adding a few minutes graceto duty in. Those points were extremely

valuable to us ($4.20 per point or as much as

$315) and worth far more than a few minutesgrace. We were never consulted nor asked if it

was something we supported.



They also changed our training and premium pay,

work rules and reserve rules. Our company

offered us the same rest rules as the pilots but our

GC turned them down and now lobbies congress

for those same rules. Once again, they have not

bothered to include us in these decisions. We havehad more contract violations and terminations

than any other time in our past.

Don’t even talk to us

about the jumpseat!



While they were busy in negotiations they

stayed at the very posh “Westin” hotel while we

as crew stay at the Comfort Inn.

We each pay $60.00 a month for this pleasure.



Four years later and we are

worse off than ever beforewith no relief in site. Broken

promises, shattered hopes,blatant lies and empty

wallets.



Four Years Later

No new joint contract

No Reciprocal Jumpseat UA

Loss of Uniform PointsNo Voice in Negotiations

No Voice in Reps

Unequal Representation

Are you sure you want what we have?



Where will you be in four years?

Not much change forecast in our

future.



We are not anti-union. We are about an

informed choice. Once a union is voted in, it isalmost impossible to remove them. There are

good unions out there just as there are unions

like ours.

iam representation four years later

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