Association of Flight Attendants Update

Transcript

Sara Nelson:The biggest challenge for labor-management relations today is really an issue of trust between the management and the employees, because what we saw over the last 10, 15 years was this drive all towards cost-cutting, and that has nothing to do with the reality of the human beings who run these airlines every day. So workers have come to work with a sense of pride in what they individually bring, but there has not been a real vision about how we're all working together. And that can't just be sort of platitudes about what we can do together. Workers have to really recognize that the management is taking actions to recognize their role at the airline and to help them participate in the success that we're helping to create. So there is such distrust because it has been about taking everything out of the worker's hide or blaming the worker, as opposed to recognizing what a critical component they are to the airline's success and recognizing that we are a travel industry of people. You know, this industry is fully about people. And if you're not treating the people who are interacting with your customers in that way, with that respect, then the customers are not going to feel the respect either. And so that is the fundamental thing that has to really shift. and change in this industry? The uncertainty under United's board is not necessarily slowing contract negotiations. What it is doing is creating a distraction at exactly the wrong time. So the first time that these negotiations started to move was when Oscar Munoz was announced as CEO. And we went from really the problem of running an airline simply for the share price and for the shareholders over the last 5 years and maximizing that share value, as opposed to understanding that we have to run The operation and the airline first and foremost in order to create that share value, right? So when Oscar Muñoz came in, he really recognized that there needed to be a move beyond the merger and that United needed to be united. And so for the first time, we saw a shift at the negotiating table because we saw a management that was actually interested in reaching an agreement. So where these hedge funds are really missing, you know, missing the mark here is that they're distracting Mr. Munoz from implementing his vision. And if the negotiations are slowed in that way, that's simply because he is having to put time and energy into addressing this issue rather than implementing his plan, which I believe leads very quickly to a flight attendant contract that could be ratified. It's very important that the employees are recognized and have something to count on. They do the work every single day, and so there is a recognition that within the contract itself there needs to be What's the difference between profit sharing and profit sharing? Profit sharing is really about having a guaranteed, guaranteed base pay and benefits that people can count on, they can live their lives by, and they can plan their lives by. The profit sharing is really more of a respect issue, that we're not just going to base your variable pay in times of trouble, but we're actually going to share in the success that we help create too. So it's a little bit like icing on the cake, but a cake is not a cake without the icing. And so the airlines really have to provide that profit sharing in order to be honest about the fact that the employees are a part of making that success? So I think that we have a lot to work on together, labor— in labor-management relations. We are seeing a result of what has happened in recent years in our contract negotiations. There has been, you know, things have been difficult to talk about in contract negotiations. We have been through a time of concessions. Nobody wants to talk about those things. But the fact that we have not been honest with employees and had an honest dialogue, or that has— there's been an attempt to diminish that, has really resulted in furthering the distrust and allowing then a platform like social media to run away with the message, as opposed to the very rich problem-solving that can take place in negotiations where you have 2 parties that actually want to reach an agreement. So I think that, you know, I think that there was a shared experience there on the part of labor and management. And labor, that falls on the shoulders of labor leaders much more than it does on management, although the end result then is that management has to spend more time at the table because employees are simply not going to accept an agreement that doesn't recognize that they want to have a say in what that agreement means. And so while the union really has to run that program during the process, if management doesn't respect that and allow that to happen, we all lose because we do not come up with a product that is meaningful to the employees that allows us to move forward.

Copyright policy: All transcripts on this site are the copyright of CAPA - Centre for Aviation. Our reproduction policy is as follows: you may quote up to 400 words of any transcript on the condition that you attribute the transcript to CAPA - Centre for Aviation and link to the original video page. All other use is prohibited. While we aim for 100% accuracy in the transcript, there may be some minor transcribing errors.