WE NEED CHANGE NOW !
The Members of TWU Local 556, the Union of Southwest Airlines Flight Attendants, need change now. It’s time to make it right, because it’s been wrong for way too long.
Never before in the history of Southwest Airlines have Flight Attendants’ working conditions deteriorated so rapidly, crippling our quality of life, devaluing our role, and creating a loss of spirit.
Resolution can wait no longer. A new Collective Bargaining Agreement must be put in place that addresses the many issues plaguing Flight Attendants – issues that can no longer be ignored or their scope “narrowed,” as doing so impacts the ability of these safety professionals to do their jobs to help ensure passengers’ safety and comfort.
TWU Local 556 expects Southwest Airlines
to agree to a new CBA that:
- Pays Flight Attendants for time worked.
- Allows Flight Attendants time to safely rest when not working.
- Gives Flight Attendants control over their personal schedules when not at work, allowing them the liberty they deserve.
- Provides access to food and a safe place to sleep when traveling on the job.
- Fixes the technology failures that disproportionately impact frontline aviation workers and passengers.
- Creates a modern Reserve system that meets the needs of personnel and the operation, and ends the unsafe practice of 24-hour on call.
- Provides benefits that actually help Flight Attendants, like health insurance when we need it, including when we’re injured on the job, battling cancer, or just had a baby.
TWU 556 Members feel exhausted, denigrated, and disenfranchised from their roles and the Company. Enduring the realities of the pandemic as front-line workers, Flight Attendants have worn smiles behind their masks even as they tolerate verbal and physical abuse, while Company leaders got to work safely from their home or office.
Southwest Airlines cannot kick the can down the road anymore. Real change has to be made now. It’s time to make it. And it’s time to Make It Right.
LATEST NEWS
Statement from Lyn Montgomery, president of TWU Local 556, on July 27, 2022:
TWU Local 556 Negotiating Committee has made the decision to file for mediation in its Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) negotiations with Southwest Airlines.
Under the Railway Labor Act (RLA), which governs the negotiations, contracts do not expire but rather become amendable.Members of TWU Local 556 have worked under our current CBA for almost four years after it became amendable, despite repeated attempts by the Union to engage in productive bargaining with management.
The RLA provides for the prompt and orderly resolution of collective bargaining disputes in the railroad and airline industries, imposing a duty on the parties “to make and maintain agreements….to avoid any interruption to commerce or to the operation of any carrier…” Inherent in this is the responsibility of both parties to come to the negotiating table and engage in collective bargaining through direct negotiations.
In filing for a federal mediator from the National Mediation Board, TWU Local 556 is demanding productive dialog with Southwest Airlines in the process of negotiations. Any agreement reached by the TWU Local 556 and Southwest Airlines in mediation will then be voted on by the membership of TWU Local 556.
Pursuing all avenues for resolution – including legal actions such as filing for mediation and member activities including aninformational picket the Union will conduct on September 27 – will help make clear the need for a new CBA that modernizes the working conditions of almost 18,000 flight attendants.