United has previously said to the AFA leadership that the company will take legal and disciplinary action in the event flight attendants participate in illegal job actions. The AFA announcement today is an inappropriate attempt at a mid-contract pay raise by threatening actions that the AFA knows very well it is not entitled to initiate under the law. Sadly, it is the union s own members who could end up paying a significant price for these irresponsible actions. United said AFA negotiators have not offered any justification for a huge pay raise on top of their current industry leading pay and have not explained why the AFA is asking flight attendants to jeopardize their careers. United flight attendants have no legal right to strike or engage in any other collective self-help since they are bound by a current labor contract extending until 2006.
Flight attendants can jeopardize their careers by striking or engaging in illegal self-help.
United cannot stand by and allow illegal work actions that will adversely affect the traveling public. The current situation is exactly the opposite of the Air Wisconsin contract arbitration case. In the Air Wisconsin case, AFA successfully insisted that the United Airlines and Air Wisconsin flight attendant groups be merged under AFA merger policy. In the present case, AFA refuses to do precisely what it insisted should be done in the Air Wisconsin case.