Hawaiian AFA’s hundreds of open grievances
Generally, unions’ grievance processes are used to address disagreements between the union and the company about discipline or the application of the union’s contract. AFA often touts its grievance process as an effective way to raise flight attendant’ issues. But AFA’s track record at Hawaiian Airlines and other carriers shows otherwise.
In April 2023, the president of the Hawaiian Master Executive Council (MEC), which oversees union issues at the company level, wrote that there were hundreds of open grievances, with some cases dating more than a decade. In a June 2023 update, the president further shared their “frustration with the entire AFA grievance system,” including “the glacial pace at which many of the cases were handled. This goes back for decades.”
Hawaiian AFA leaders had more to say about the slow pace and inefficiency of AFA’s grievance process:
Widespread Neglect: In an April 2023 update, the Hawaiian AFA Grievance Committee stated, “one of the biggest most pressing issue[s] I believe we all face has been the inaction by the previous MEC Grievance Committee Chairs in processing grievances in a timely manner.”
The update also noted, “I will be as clear as possible here, there was no concerted effort over the past few years to actually clear up this MEC pile of grievances expeditiously.”
Flawed Processes: In June 2023, the MEC President said, “This was not the fault of any of the individuals working on grievances, but rather the procedures and processes that they were working under.” These “procedures actually lent themselves to being okay to have [open grievances] sitting out there for years.”
For example, a grievance originally filed in November 2012 was not resolved until July 2023 when it was denied by an arbitrator. Some affected flight attendants had even retired by the time their grievances were resolved.
Hawaiian flight attendants are not the only AFA-represented members who have experienced a slow and ineffective grievance process.
For example, after United flight attendants waited seven years to resolve a grievance about profit sharing, AFA’s claim was dismissed by an arbitrator who found that AFA’s grievance was filed too late. The grievance process not only left United flight attendants in limbo for years, but, according to AFA, flight attendants lost out on millions of dollars in profit sharing.
At Alaska, AFA filed a grievance in 2014 after the airline implemented a change to its maternity leave policy allegedly in violation of the AFA contract. At the time, AFA said: “This new policy places a tremendous amount of pressure on pregnant Flight Attendants, who are often relatively junior, to continue flying in order to obtain pay and medical coverage.” That grievance was still open without an arbitration date 10 years later.
Many promises are made by AFA organizers during a campaign, including about the union grievance process. Delivering on those promises is a lot harder.
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