Delta AFA Flight Attendant Hotline 4/16/2007

Today is Monday, April 16th and this is an updated hotline message for all Delta Air Lines flight attendants. SLC based flight attendant and AFA supporter, Paul Tanner reporting...

Let Them Eat Cake?

While Joanne Smith was playing the part of social gadfly with Russell Grantham from the Atlanta Journal Constitution the AFA activist team was researching a problem with ADAY seniority negation. Apparently ADAY preferences for days less than 3 days have only been run at the discretion of the scheduler and not as per policy written on page 58 of the Fly Right handbook. Two bid assist people and Dave Watson, the new head of scheduling, have verified this deviation of procedure.

When certain flight attendants are denied the trips they preference it can add up to the loss of money for that person. This is a direct negation of seniority and we have no recourse back to scheduling for this.

Now David Watson has announced that there will be a review of policy that should fix this problem. However, just like many of the communications from management, the answer just raises more questions.

How can we be assured that the new policy won’t be ignored like the old one? What is our recourse if it is? Finally, how can we verify that scheduling is doing the right thing now that a new "enhancement" to scheduling doesn’t allow us to look at each other’s schedules unless we take an active role in allowing it?

It seems that this latest enhancement is just another layer of cloudiness that obscures the day-to-day operations of scheduling. Many flight attendants wish that the energy in adding this to the software would have been spent instead enhancing things we really want, like a more transparent Aday awards process viewable from ecrew to go. The simple fact is that scheduling can do whatever they want. We have no legal recourse without a contract. Imagine if the flight attendant group systematically ignored a piece of policy in the course of our duties. What if we only signed in at our discretion? What if we only carried our red books at our discretion? Scheduling needs to be held to the same standards of performance that we are.

This it the management team that claims they will protect our seniority in the event of a merger, but they can’t even protect it in the assignment of an Aday trip. It’s time that Delta flight attendants get their seniority protection in writing.

Can We As Activists Take Credit for Some of the Positive Changes?

It has been refreshing to see the company react in a positive way to some of our concerns and we here at Activist Central can’t help but feel that we are the reason for some of those. While we do appreciate the fact that management recognizes the problems within Inflight, it is important to remember that these changes have no guarantees. As past history has shown, they can be reversed at any time. We would like to have these changes legally binding in an agreement with management. Rest assured that the activists are continuing our push for legal recognition of our rights. We are you and you are us. We are flight attendants working alongside you and feeling the challenges that you feel. We are not a removed group of invitees hand-picked to represent you. We are not soliciting the contribution of thousands of our hard-earned dollars to take out an advertisement thanking management for doing the job they were hired to do.

While we do appreciate competent management, we don’t feel it necessary to recognize their efforts to them in a very expensive, public way. We believe simple, mutual respect is a better path to a healthy, prosperous Delta.

Operation Recruit Momentum Continues

The addition of many Regional Chairs to our ranks has helped in increasing the numbers of Base and Phone Mobilizers as well. But that doesn’t mean we couldn’t use more. Our ability to move past the recruitment phase into a successful election and contract requires as much support as possible. The sooner we have that support, the sooner we can move on. If you feel that you would like to step up and help involve our peers please contact us at deltaorganizing@deltaafa.org. And as always, I offer up my personal email, afa4dal@mac.com, as a means to communicate quickly with the steering committee. A prompt response to all emails is my goal. Please continue to stay informed at www.ItsTimeDelta.net and www.deltaafa.org. Also feel free to print, share, and forward this email with your flying partners.

That’s it for this week’s hotline. Stay safe and stay focused.

-- To Listen To The Hotline, Call 1-800-424-2401, Press 1 Then 720 # --

Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, AFL-CIO
501 Third Street, NW
Washington, DC 20001
202-434-1300

Delta AFA Hotline: 1-800 424-2401, press 1, then 720#