I have to divulge something rather long about US Airways.
Please know that US Airways is managed by America West, a company that does not care about employees or passengers. They are not about to cave into any deal that favors employees. The status quo as it is today is the perfect situation for management; with the east and west pilots at each others throats. The good thing is that this division and animosity keeps the company's bottom line of preventing a fair contract for all pilots. Flight attendants as well as other customer contact employees are considered low-life employees. Nowhere is this more evident than in the abuse that AWA management enaged in with its AWA flight attendants. Low-Life - expendable managers and supervisors are also put in positions to execute a revolving door (hire & fire) style of labor relations. As opposed to Southwest Airlines, as read in the original article, making employees as well as passengers miserable is very high on the agenda. US Airways does not really want to be an airline, they just want to be asset that can be sold to or easily merged with another airline. Key point is to make sure that the airline stays attractive with cheap labor costs. Delta has not been able to shed Comair, due to its high labor costs, therefor one way to finally achieve attrition is to be hostile to employees (which is hard to do because of strong unions) or to shrink the airline down to nothing - which is currently being done. US Airways has cheap labor costs, and will do anything to keep it that way. One way is to keep a grip on the weak AFA66 union and to crush / (do business the west style with AFA (east)).
I went to US Airways aka America West as a flight attendant after it merged with US east. By the day of graduation, I was ready to walk out because I read the deplorable contract that AWA F/As had in place. I really was so shocked at the horror of the contract content that I had made up my mind about leaving. I just didn't have a good feeling about AWA. Everyone in my class begged me to stay. I stayed because I told myself "well, it's gonna change in a year," but almost 6 years later, no contract proposal has been completed with the company, to the point that it has become a complete standstill. Of the 20 people set for graduation, one was fired right after graduation, one no-showed on the first day, one was fired during the first week, one was fired in the first month following a disability, four were fired within the first 3 years, two left disgruntled, two others quit, one moved to the ramp as he couldn't stand in-flight, and more got fired during this year. Today (5 years later) six are left.
I noticed that AWA has a notorious habit of firing an average of 5 F/As a month almost immediately after starting there. This explains why the amount of total flight attendants hired at AWA is 9531 (with actually there being only 2368 on the roster.) I can say for certainty that at least half of the 7163 have been fired. At a rate of 3-10 a month it is very possible.
The workplace harassment is huge. It is the norm to harass and discipline people progressively for the smallest issues with one only goal - "get them one step closer out the door." I have seen people steel money like there was no tomorrow. One of my friends paid his kitchen remodeling with liquor money. That same friend told me that one of his female friends showed him a full car trunk with envelopes of sales money the day that she was fired. Another friend of mine, was put on final notice at end of 2009. During his last four months, prior to going cashless, he stocked up on sales money to survive after the inevitable was about to happen. Yes, for at least three months he didn't turn in a dime. I remember running into flight attendants at Charlie's in Phoenix, joking about and discussing issues at US Airways, with some saying that someone needed to bring in a semi-automatic and wipe the office staff out. Yes, that was the sentiment around. So many employees are so disgruntled that do things like calling in sick just because they are tired of the bs and prefer to stay home. A lot of flight attendants refuse to volunteer over a 14 hour duty day, because a few times those who volunteered, wanted to stop at 18 hours, only to then being told by schedulers that once a flight attendant volunteers, the schedulers can keep them for as long as they want. So no un-volunteering even after 20 hours, because you were trying to be nice with the devil. I was also very vocal on the in-house AFA66 discussion board. One time, a flight attendant was suspended, waiting to be fired for missing an SBS message regarding request to go to do a drug test. There was an uproar about it. I read the policies and procedures for east and west in the IEM manual, and noticed that there was language specific for the east to make sure to read the CBS messages. It was carefully outlined. For the west, they totally forgot to outline it. I posted all responsibilities for west crews per IEM, highlighting the fact that that they completely missed to include reading SBS messages as part of the process. Within days of realizing this F/up, the company changed the notification procedure for drug testing. I believe that this F/up helped the F/A keep the job. It was stuff like that, that management was famous of pulling out of their a....es, all with one goal, getting people fired somehow - someway. People who have been working for 30 years got suddenly accused of forgetting to check in for their flight. Seriously, management would pull the "maybe you were really out of your mind that day" phrase. Yeah right, after 15 years of checking in with a computer to their assignment, they suddenly forgot how to do it. Oh yeah, I forgot, they were just out of their mind that day; no way that the and old Windows 2000 machine that looks like it was picked out of the trash somewhere with less than 1gig of memory would fail. This happened to so many people that I started taking pictures of my check-in with my iPhone, every time I checked in for assignments. Insane, isn't it? But US Airw(AWA) had already done so many things to me and that I was just waiting for them to pull this same stunt on me. I can say that I was a different person while at US Airways. US Airways aka AWA steels the ethics from people. Even I have to admit that I participated in stuff that I had never done before. I wondered sometimes if it was me or just a reaction to all the hostility at that company. I can say that I was pretty disgruntled for all the horrible things that management and scheduling used to do to us.
Today I can say that it was US Airways, after returning to my first airline job. (Yes I got rehired after management here ran across an old resume from 20 years ago, and tried to find me over the internet because they were needing people but didn't like to hire just anyone. I guess that a good reputation got me back in here without even having to do an interview. I came in and the manager just proceeded to fill out the employment paperwork. I love these people here. I don't ever feel sick enough to go to work. In fact, I showed up for work an hour after an internal surgery, despite being told that I must stay home, cannot drive for 24 hours and needed to rest and take heavy pain-killers after the anesthesia was to wear off. Everything was fine that day. The severe pain started the next day, but I still went to work as there was genuine desire to be at work. I work with high ethics and no longer have the attitude of giving a #### about the company. I am able to enforce rules ordered by managers without backlash from complaining customer. I get full support and respect from them. A stark contrast to US Airways, where no-matter what you do, they manage to twist stuff around with the whole goal issuing discipline with the hopes that something sticks.
When US Airways managers had a difficult time making anything stick, they actually went as far as to attack even the sacred FMLA law, calling me in for MF days. They had the nerve to intimidate me into not calling in sick, refusing to accept doctors notes and refusing to take their own written FMLA documentation - where it clearly said in the instructions "CALL IN AS YOU USUALLY DO." I am not kidding, the FMLA Rules issued by US Airways medical administration stated it exactly like that. The supervisors wouldn't have any of it, they went as far as to say that "the FMLA law was written in general for all businesses and that they really didn't apply as written to the airlines." I kept repeating that the document was issued by US Airways. But it was like talking to a wall. I was told that I "needed to know the day before going to bed if I was to get sick the next day." Well, the medication taken at night, at times had severe side-effects, thus preventing me from having a functional day. What really outraged me was that the supervisors absolutely refused the doctors notes. One of those supervisors, who had to turn into a #### upon orders from higher-ups, since left the company. I am sure because of evil things like that, that she was forced to do. I am sure that anyone with a heart would cave in after being part of this evil machine for so long. I couldn't imagine having a life full of enemies and people that hated me. I couldn't do it.
Even the most evil of supervisors like Amy did not last more than 7 years. Some other evil ones like Gerri left to other departments, because she was unable to do line checks. So much for knowing what is all entailed in the F/A job; being judgmental about F/As, yet not having the ability to fly (NOT EVEN AS A PASSENGER) in order to do the line checks due to the fear of getting stuck during cancellations. She told me herself that she just wanted to be able to go home every night. Good going. I feel pitty for her being unable to do something not even close what flight attendants have to endure daily basis. Yes, many supervisors left. Since the arrival of Brenda Van Sandt (a NWA buddy from Hector Adler), who replaced another evil base manager by the name of Linda, who happened to be forced to retire, supervisory staff have been leaving in large quantities. In fact, at least 5 left in May resulting in a huge staffing crisis at the office. Supervisors with good hearts that also try to be fair have a very short lifespan in the office. But it is amazing to see even the more evil ones leave at such a rate as in May.
Yes, everyone that dreams of a flight attendant job - don't do US Airways to yourself - at least not when you go to the west side of things. I am not sure how things are on the east. I have heard though in the past that supervisors are afraid of flight attendants. Don't know if it's true.
Bottom line is that America West runs the place. And they run it with a goal to crack down on strong employees and to keep things as divisive as possible. If there is a change in management on the east, it is done with the purpose of spreading the hostile AWA culture across the system. That is why the big shots have hired former NWA managers that didn't make the cut at DL. As some of you know, NWA did a lot of horrible things to it's employees (from F/A contract stripping a la force and replacing striking mechanics with scabs).
US Airways left a bitter taste in my mouth, even more so after finding out about some unbelievable unethical things that they did to me. They thought that I would never find out the truth. But luckily, I persisted in getting to an important source. I also got smart and used Arizona's One-Party Notification rule with intercepting phone conversations and conferences. With two lawyers lined up, one for a class action for FMLA violations and the other separately, waiting for a release of two EEOC cases, I hope to break the corrupt little team that leads in-flight all the way to Hector.
While I am happy and thriving at my current job, I have made it my goal to break this group of unscrupulous managers at US Airways. That is the only goal - to find accountability for those that believe they are above it all.
Those who had adverse situation while in FMLA, please contact me. Those on the outside that want to get in, go to Southwest instead. I turned them down many years ago after getting hired. You are looking at 15-20 years on reserve if you go to US Airways, of course that can change depending on how fast they manage to spin the revolving door. Those who are happy at AWA/US lucky you... just keep in mind the 7000 so alone on the west that somehow fell on the attrition list.
Life does get better after US Airways.
