Flight Attendants at United Airlines Reach ‘Historic’ Tentative Labor Agreement After Years Of Negotiations
The union representing 28,000 flight attendants at United Airlines announced on Friday that it had reached an ‘historic’ tentative labor agreement with the Chicago-based carrier after years of negotiations that, at times, had been extremely testing.
Few details of the deal have yet been revealed as union leaders from across the airline will now have to review the hundreds of pages of the contract before deciding whether they should put the agreement to a member vote.
In a short statement, however, the Association of Flight Attendants (AFA-CWA) said the proposed deal would lead to ‘industry-leading’ pay with economic improvements totaling 40% in the first year alone.
Flight attendants at United have not had a pay raise since 2021 when their contract became amendable and the AFA had complained that United was deliberately stalling talks to rescue payroll expenses.
In the last couple of weeks, however, the union has been involved in intensive negotiations with United close to the airline’s headquarters in Chicago.
As news of a tentative deal started to circulate it was even rumored that the AFA national President, Sara Nelson, had arrived in Chicago to make sure the deal got over the finish line.
As well as the 40% economic improvements in the first year of the contract, the union has also boasted that it had secured ‘industry-leading retro pay’ for the years that flight attendants had gone without a pay raise.
This is a significant development as United had reportedly refused demands for retro pay despite similar conditions being written into new contracts at other major U.S. carriers like American Airlines and Southwest.
The union said on Friday that local leaders will meet on May 29 and 30th to discuss the details of the tentative agreement and decide whether it should be put to a vote of its members.
In the last few weeks, the union cautioned its members not to reject a tentative agreement just because it was the first offer, explaining that it would not suggest a deal unless it didn’t believe it was the best it could gain.
Although details of the tentative agreement are scarce, it will be interesting to see whether the union has secured any form of boarding or ground-duty pay.
The union had suggested that flight attendants should be paid whenever they are at work, but United had wanted to keep the status quo in which crew members are only paid from the time that a plane pushes back from the gate to the point it arrives at its destination.
AFA had refused to accept many of the concessions that United was reportedly demanding, but the union was under pressure to close a deal, given the changing political landscape.
