Flight Attendant abuse

kiowa

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Aug 27, 2002
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I recently heard that flight attendants who took a voluntary furlough last year have been told they are permanently furloughed. I realize there is no union to protect them but this is completely wrong if it''s true. Can anyone confirm or deny this out-of-seniority abuse?
 
It is my understanding that they can only come back if a position is available. The airline does not guaranteed that a position will be available at the end of the voluntary time period. Since more layoffs are planned for FAs any re-hiring is a long way off. Basically the way I understand the situation is the voluntary furlough time has been extened. The airline will not ''bump" lower senority FAs who did not take a voluntary furlough, so a higher senority FA whole took a voluntary furlough to help the airline and co-workers can come back to work. This seems unfair that a person who took a voluntary furlough, to assist the airline, and lower senority FAs kkep their jobs, can not get their job back when the time commitment of the furlough has expired.
 
incredible! Delta used to be known as an airline with good management that took care of it''s employees. -no more-
 
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On 7/16/2003 10:56:36 AM deltaflyboy wrote:

It is my understanding that not everyone on voluntary furlough is now permanently furloughed, only those with employee numbers that fall in the new furlough dates released recently...the ones with high enough seniority dates are still free to return at the end of their furlough timeframe, that is how a F/A explained it to me when they came through Ops the other day...

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But the question is will they get their base? I''ve heard some very senior west coast based flight attendants took leaves after the big cutbacks and when their leaves were over they could not return to the bases they left.
 
If my memory serves me right, we were all mailed a packet describing the leaves and voluntary severance packages after 9-11. Flight attendants taking the voluntary leaves signed something to the effect that they would only come off leave if there were positions available at that time.

Unfortunately, we have been in a furlough situation and no positions are available. As these leaves expire, the flight attendants are put on a furlough list. When we begin recalling, the senior ones will be recalled first.

Flight attendants on furlough have five year recall rights including the ones moving from VLT to furlough status.

Management has established a website, conducts conference calls, and publishes a newsletter to try to keep furloughed flight attendants in the loop.

It greatly saddens me that we have people out on furlough and people that will soon be furloughed. However, this economy is not rewarding companies that cannot become an efficient provider like Jet Blue, Southwest, and AirTran. Only the lean, efficient companies will be here in the next five years. If Delta does not take steps to streamline and become more efficient, all of us will be out of work. Keeping staff overages on the payroll will not make Delta efficient, drains our financial resources, and reduces the possibility that there will be a company to which our furloughed coworkers can return.

Hopefully, we will be able to make adjustments so we can survive in this new economy and get everyone back to work.
 
It sounds like the voluntery leave was much better for DL than the FAs who opted to take the leave. I am sure everyone assumed business would be better by now. Now what has happened more Sr. people are out of work much longer than planned, and Jr. people are still working. A guess the big question is what does a position mean? A vacant position, or one held by a less Jr. person. I don''t like to see people out of work either, but dosen''t senority count for anything. If this is all true, and word gets out to the FAs, maybe the union vote will be YES neext time
 
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On 7/17/2003 8:09:19 PM Singleflyer wrote:

If this is all true, and word gets out to the FAs, maybe the union vote will be YES neext time

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Assuming for argument''s sake that what you say is true, why would a junior flight attendant vote "yes"? Wouldn''t they would vote "no" to keep the status quo so they could keep flying? Where there are two sides to an issue, someone is generally happy with the status quo. On this issue, it is the most junior non furloughed flight attendants.
 
My information is that all FA''s that took vlt1 leaves were offered positions back at some point past. It may not have been in their previous or desired base but they did have the opportunity to return. The decision to wait for their "perfect place" did not materialize and they were put on furlough.

Corrections accepted if I''m wrong.