United Airlines Flight Attendants Doorstepped By Pushy Union Reps At Airport Gates In Bid To Get Them To Accept Controversial Contract

United Airlines flight attendants are reportedly being doorstepped at airport gates by pushy union reps who are desperately trying to convince crew members at the Chicago-based carrier to vote in favor of a controversial tentative labor agreement.

Union officials are apparently lying in wait for flight attendants at airport gates, cornering them, giving them a sales pitch about the benefits of the proposed contract, even as crew members are potentially preparing for their next flight.

The tactic was revealed by a flight attendant in a secret flight attendant group on Facebook and later leaked on the social media site Reddit.

“Today, at the gate, AFA [The Association of Flight Attendants] came at our entire crew, trying to corner us like we were clueless and just the right pitch to fall in line,” the clearly annoyed crew member wrote in their anonymous post.

“Some of us were clearly trying to stay out of it, standing off to the side, not engaging, but that didn’t stop them from pushing,” the post continued.

Last month, the Association of Flight Attendants secured a tentative labor agreement for 26,000 of its members at United after more than five years of hard-fought bargaining.

Voting is set to get underway on July 7, and in the lead up to the ballot opening, union reps have been busy trying to educate flight attendants about the benefits of the contract, while also dispelling rumors and myths that have spread like wildfire.

If flight attendants vote in favor of the contract, then pay rises and a slew of other improvements will kick in the very next day, but insiders say it’s just too close to call whether disgruntled crew members will fall in line with the union’s call to approve the agreement.

During negotiations, the union had talked up its desire to bring in a new concept of ‘ground duty pay‘, which would mean that flight attendants were paid whenever they were at work.

That would seem like a fairly reasonable demand, but at present, flight attendants are only paid from the moment the plane pushes back from the gate to the point it arrives at its destinations.

The union has secured ‘boarding pay’ at half the hourly rate but not ‘ground duty pay’ – no explanation has yet been given for this discrepancy.

“When they asked how I felt about boarding pay, I said: ‘We want ground pay, like you told us to fight for,'” the flight attendant wrote in her post shared on Reddit.

“And she had the audacity to respond, ‘Well, who else even has ground pay?’ Uh, I don’t know… maintenance, gate agents, ground crew? And she seriously goes, ‘well they don’t go anywhere.'”

“I’m sorry, what? So, the fact that we fly is a reason to be paid less than those who stay on the ground? That’s the most backwards, tone-deaf response I’ve heard from someone who’s supposed to represent us.”

Some flight attendants believe crew members at both American Airlines and Southwest Airlines have secured better-paying contracts in the last couple of years and want the union to go back to the bargaining table to secure a better deal.

The only way for that to happen, however, is for the agreement to be voted down.

“Not one person from our crew was happy on what AFA was pushing today,” the post continued. “Whether we spoke up or stood back, we were all thinking the same thing: HELL NO.”

Other issues that have annoyed flight attendants include potential changes to the hotels that crew members stay at during layovers, as well as a requirement to be ‘on call’ during layovers.

A spokesperson for the union, however, points out that many of these issues have been taken out of context and that the tentative agreement is the “largest step forward in the history of our careers.

A statement added: “It’s richer than any other contract at United or any other airline, and there’s a lot of misinformation or misunderstanding out there.”

Clearly, the union is keen to educate as many flight attendants as possible about the contract before the vote opens on July 7. Some crew members just aren’t particularly happy about how the union is going about doing this.