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discrimination

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PamA1962

Active Member
MY apologies I am not familiar with Union Laws and how the NLRB does not protect people in the Airline Industry because of the RRLA. Yesterday changes were made to our Joint Collective Bargaining agreement, Can the company and union do this? Can they allow a change to benefit in seniority, When this was not the original agreement? Can seniority be considered discrimination when many employees have been over looked? Completely change an agreement in its entirety? Thank you
 


Zigner

Senior Member, Non-Attorney
Please speak with your union rep about this matter. If you do not get a satisfactory answer, then you should speak with a local attorney who has experience with union matters in your field.
 

PamA1962

Active Member
Please speak with your union rep about this matter. If you do not get a satisfactory answer, then you should speak with a local attorney who has experience with union matters in your field.
Thank you for your reply, I have reached out to the union and have received no replies as well as my company, I filled with the EEOC and have an interview I am waiting for my date to speak to them, In the mean time would it benefit me to consult with a lawyer and which kind would I consult with. Thank you again!
 

FlyingRon

Senior Member
First off, it's just the RLA, but you are right, your job is covered by that not the NLRA (which is what operates the NLRB). There's a separate National Mediation Board that handles RLA claims. However, you've not given any details here to even guess as to what the legal issues might be. Seniority issues are a detailed section of the law (my father spent a good amount of his career as a labor attorney specializing in that).

What you almost certainly do not have is a discrimination complaint. Senority doesn't make you a protected class. The question is whether the change is in violation of the collective bargaining agreement and laws related to that.

Are you a flight attendant on American by any chance?
 

Taxing Matters

Overtaxed Member
MY apologies I am not familiar with Union Laws and how the NLRB does not protect people in the Airline Industry because of the RRLA. Yesterday changes were made to our Joint Collective Bargaining agreement, Can the company and union do this? Can they allow a change to benefit in seniority, When this was not the original agreement? Can seniority be considered discrimination when many employees have been over looked? Completely change an agreement in its entirety? Thank you
The EEOC enforces the federal laws that prohibit an employer with at least 15 employees from discriminating against its employees on the basis of race, color, national origin, citizenship, religion, sex, age (if the employee is at least age 40), disability, and genetic test information. Your post does not give enough information to conclude that there is any discrimination occurring here based on one of those characteristics. You mention seniority provisions in your collective bargaining agreement (CBA) but you didn't say what was changed — how things worked before and how they will work after the change. And that's important to determining if there is any illegal discrimination. The law allows employers to make certain distinctions between employees are are based on age or would tend to impact older employees more because those things are have a logical basis for them. Also, the law allows for some flexibility when the rules are provided for in a CBA under the idea that the union protects the employees interests so that the rules are fairly negotiated.
 

PamA1962

Active Member
First off, it's just the RLA, but you are right, your job is covered by that not the NLRA (which is what operates the NLRB). There's a separate National Mediation Board that handles RLA claims. However, you've not given any details here to even guess as to what the legal issues might be. Seniority issues are a detailed section of the law (my father spent a good amount of his career as a labor attorney specializing in that).

What you almost certainly do not have is a discrimination complaint. Senority doesn't make you a protected class. The question is whether the change is in violation of the collective bargaining agreement and laws related to that.

Are you a flight attendant on American by any chance?
Yes I am is there a way we can private chat?
 

zddoodah

Active Member
I am not familiar with Union Laws and how the NLRB does not protect people in the Airline Industry because of the RRLA.
I'm not sure it matters, but I have no idea what "RRLA" refers to. I'm also unsure why, "because of the RRLA," you believe that "the NLRB does not protect people in the Airline Industry." Care to elaborate?


Yesterday changes were made to our Joint Collective Bargaining agreement, Can the company and union do this?
They did do it, so it is axiomatic that they can do it. As far as legality goes, parties to an agreement are generally free to modify their agreement. Whether there is something in the particular CBA between your unidentified union and your employer or the by-laws of your union that might prohibit such a modification (or require a vote of membership) obviously isn't something anyone here could know. One would need to review the CBA and the union by-laws to answer that.


Can they allow a change to benefit in seniority, When this was not the original agreement?
This seems to be the same question asked in a slightly more specific manner, so the answer is the same.


Can seniority be considered discrimination when many employees have been over looked?
Giving preferences based on seniority is inherently discriminatory, but it's not illegally discriminatory.

As previously suggested, you need to confer with your union rep and/or a labor attorney about your concerns.
 

PamA1962

Active Member
I have
First off, it's just the RLA, but you are right, your job is covered by that not the NLRA (which is what operates the NLRB). There's a separate National Mediation Board that handles RLA claims. However, you've not given any details here to even guess as to what the legal issues might be. Seniority issues are a detailed section of the law (my father spent a good amount of his career as a labor attorney specializing in that).

What you almost certainly do not have is a discrimination complaint. Senority doesn't make you a protected class. The question is whether the change is in violation of the collective bargaining agreement and laws related to that.

Are you a flight attendant on American by any chance?
I would not like to disclose my personal health information on this forum
 

Zigner

Senior Member, Non-Attorney
I have

I would not like to disclose my personal health information on this forum
Nobody asked you to...but now that we know that this is a health-related concern, it's all the more imperative that you speak with an attorney.
 

cbg

I'm a Northern Girl
The bottom line is that discrimination on the basis of seniority is not inherently illegal, but you have not provided enough information for us to say if there is any illegal discrimination in what has happened to you or not. It's perfectly fine if you're not comfortable putting more information up in public - it's your right to keep that private. But in that case you will need to speak with a local attorney who can assess the information you're not comfortable putting here.
 

PamA1962

Active Member
The bottom line is that discrimination on the basis of seniority is not inherently illegal, but you have not provided enough information for us to say if there is any illegal discrimination in what has happened to you or not. It's perfectly fine if you're not comfortable putting more information up in public - it's your right to keep that private. But in that case you will need to speak with a local attorney who can assess the information you're not comfortable putting here.
let me try and explain this was posted by a union representative


the company forced the union to make a decision that they knew would piss off one or the other group of FA’s. Classic union busting technique. If you still have questions on why or how the decisions were made, contact your base president or email the national officers. I’m hoping that nationals sends out a hotline also on the whys and how’s (with relevant contract sections that were discussed and used) so it reaches the masses but until then, I think Scott did a great job on explaining.

Good day,

Today, the company gave the manpower plan for May. We will have a 78.5 % reduction in the need for working flight attendants. This equates to 1,297 less FAs needed for the operation in Charlotte from last year. 786 flight attendants decided to take a leave or retire. As you can see, we are still way over staffed. The company had several options to address this and we rejected their attempts to violate the contract and ultimately got pushed into a corner on how we wanted to handle this. The decision was made to allow our most senior flight attendants to hold a no-bid line of zero hours and be pay protected to 70 hours as the contract allows. We wanted this to be done through a bidding process where you would bid to hold this option, - if your seniority could hold it, you would be awarded it. This would have satisfied the argument that seniority was not upheld. The company procrastinated on providing us with the staffing needs and said, they don’t have time for the possibility of a bidding window on this, quite simply, time ran out. The other ideas to spread the flying out evenly were not feasible because the computer would not process a PBS run and reserve bidding would also not be possible. The computer and bidding system would shut down and the reprogramming would require a significant amount of time and testing, this was tried, and the system failed each time. The decision was made to award the lines of flying to the lower half of the seniority roster and give the upper half a zero line with a 70-hour guarantee.

While some have speculated this is a violation of seniority, we believed this was consistent with the contract and protecting seniority. Think of it this way, if you were scheduled to work an AB330 aircraft with 8 flight attendants. When you get to the aircraft, it has been downsized to an AB321. The more senior flight attendants have the option to get off and be pay protected. They can “double dip” and pick up another trip. This is how our contract protects the most senior flight attendants. Downsized AC, the most senior get to go home with pay. Now we are having a downsized airline, so the most senior flight attendants are getting to go home with pay protection and the ability to “double dip”. This is protecting seniority. Some are posting other options that were explored and ruled out because of the computer limitations and violations of several parts of the contract. There was no easy answer and the company procrastination forced us into making this decision. We expressed our outrage on yet another company failure being pushed on the union to take the fall. Make no mistake, we explored every option and the company pushed us into making it look like the union did this. This is the company doing what they have done from the start of this crisis, reacting instead of being proactive. The lack of supplies and procedures to protect us, the delay in instituting a notification task force, the continuation of discipline points without acknowledging a global pandemic, and now a failure to have a staffing plan or any as-semblance of a trip package. All of these things were requested by the union way before this situation got out of control. I wouldn’t be surprised if the masks they give us cause a rash. They have let us down again.
 

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