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This Thursday, December 13, United Flight Attendants around the world will stand together in solidarity, with one voice to object to management’s decision to succumb to the pressures of Wall Street and to cut Flight Attendant staffing to match levels previously established at American and Delta airlines.
This Thursday, December 13, United Flight Attendants around the world will stand together in solidarity, with one voice to object to management’s decision to succumb to the pressures of Wall Street and to cut Flight Attendant staffing to match levels previously established at American and Delta airlines. The mere suggestion that pre-plating food for business class passengers can, in any way, replace a dedicated safety & service professional simply fails to recognize the value Flight Attendants bring to our airline.
Management tells us they care about us, about our passengers and that we all have a core set of corporate values, that serve as a filter, if you will, through which all decision making must pass. And while these core values are the foundation on which they would like for us to make our decisions, their actions seem to contradict these values. We all understand that we have jobs to do. Management has a job to make money for their shareholders by pushing us and our passengers are far as they can. But just because management can do something, doesn’t mean they should or that doing so is necessarily the right decision. We’ve all been around long enough to see firsthand many of these cost-cutting decisions end up not working in the long run.
Enough is enough already.
One of our collective greatest skills is that we make things work, that we care. We’re problem solvers, we think outside the box, we find solutions with limited resources. But our good nature, our caring about doing the right thing, our belief that our passengers deserve better gives management an opening to take advantage of our good nature – if we allow this to happen.
Using our strength as entrepreneurial thinkers, we also have the power to oppose these types of decisions. All that is required is a display of solidarity that we will not make this bad decision work for management – and that our passengers, our reputation and our airline will suffer as a result of that mistake.
We are in times of record profits now and we obviously want United Airlines to succeed. A race to the bottom of onboard service and safety levels is counterintuitive. There’s no excuse for cutting onboard staffing today, but there is every reason for United to up its game to make it impossible for other airlines to compete. Customer service, safety and security should not be compromised
What must be recognized is the power we have that comes from standing together. Look at what we’ve been able to accomplish standing together in our planning for December 13th, wearing our red pins and coming together as a collective demanding the changes we expect to see implemented to better service the passengers in our care.
We have only to look at the world around us to see an incredible movement of resistance to drive change going on right at this very minute. Workers in France, coming together to accomplish their priorities serve as one such example. The nuances of their fight, whether we agree or disagree with some of their actions, may not be directly related to our fight. But where the commonality lies is in their coming together, standing strong and opposing the decisions that are negatively impacting their lives. By coming together they have been enormously effective in driving the change they seek.
The power of our collective comes at a cost and requires an investment in our personal and collective future as well as of our time. If this isn’t worth coming together for, then what is? Change will not come if we sit back, complain and take no serious action. We need skin in the game, a personal stake and to step up, take a stand and shout out that this is not acceptable and we will not merely stand silently and accept these changes that are not in the best interest of our passengers, our company or our collective future.
As we approach our Day of Action, ask yourself how much you are willing to invest in our future. When will it be enough that you’re ready to push back? Where will you draw your line in the sand and stand with your flying partners to say “enough is enough”? We’re looking forward to seeing you on Thursday, December 13, 2018 somewhere in the world as we stand together and say, “This stops here. This stops now.”