An employment verification letter from American Airways is circulating on Reddit and accumulating consideration as a result of how low beginning wages are for some newly employed flight attendants. The letter, which states {that a} new American Airways flight attendant may have a projected annual wage of $27,315 ahead of incentives and taxes are accrued, has sparked conversations about truthful wages for flight attendants and the way inflationary worth hikes are making existence unaffordable for plenty of American citizens—although the economic system and exertions markets glance excellent on paper.
The union that represents American Airways employees, known as the Affiliation of Skilled Flight Attendants, verified the authenticity of the letter, The Gentleman Report reported, which is issued for doable landlords or different products and services the place flight attendants wish to check their employment and revenue.
Whilst the wage indexed within the letter is above the federal poverty line of $15,060 for a single-person family, that determine doesn’t mirror the actual value of dwelling on a countrywide stage, which will also be a lot upper in main metropolitan spaces.
The union has additionally been calling out the low beginning pay, which for a single-income family meets the qualification standards for the federal Supplemental Vitamin Help Program (SNAP), or food-stamp advantages, in numerous states together with Massachusetts and New York.
The union could also be calling consideration to a rising factor of “company greed” by means of drawing comparisons between the wages an flight attendant can earn versus what the corporate’s CEO, Robert Isom, earns.
The beginning wage for a brand new flight attendant is set $27,000 according to yr, which is only a fraction of the CEO’s $31.4 million earned remaining yr—an quantity 1,162 occasions more than the income of a brand new attendant.
American Airways didn’t right away reply to Fortune’s request for remark.
To make certain, a concoction of demanding situations lie between the union representing American Airways’ flight attendants and control. Below a federal legislation known as the Railway Hard work Act, employees and union individuals within the airline and railroad industries aren’t allowed to move on strike with out permission from the federal government. Federal mediator teams, just like the Nationwide Mediation Board, may just authorize such permission by means of pointing out an deadlock in negotiations between American Airways and the union team, or by means of permitting the union to pursue a possible strike.
The remaining contract the union negotiated was once signed in 2014, in step with a November replace by means of the affiliation, and employees had been with no carry since 2019.
“Flight attendants are frontline employees left shouldering the load of inflation with out the repayment had to stay tempo with the trade,” the affiliation wrote in a observation, and added that attendants’ high quality of existence “might be advanced with a brand new collective bargaining settlement.”
Just lately the union has been pushing for a brand new contract to boost hourly wages, becoming a member of flight attendants from different airways, together with United Airways, Alaska Airways, and Southwest, which can be making an identical calls for.
Making sure flight attendants are correctly paid is particularly essential taking into consideration their paintings type contains many hours of unpaid paintings. On moderate, full-time flight attendants most effective get about 75 hours of hourly pay each and every month, and pay frequently most effective formally starts as soon as the aircraft’s doorways shut, slightly than repayment that still accounts for hours after they wish to be on the airport or at the aircraft right through the boarding procedure.
“Probably the most aggravating portions of the flight revel in is right through the boarding procedure,” the union wrote in a Would possibly 20 abstract, including, “but we aren’t paid for this paintings.”
Securing boarding pay, the union wrote, “is the most important step in addressing this historical inequity”; different airways have particularly been making the ones adjustments, albeit slowly. In June 2022, Delta Air Strains instituted boarding pay for flight attendants, providing employees part their hourly fee right through boarding, after going through threats of a union marketing campaign. Delta, on the other hand, is the one main U.S. airline whose flight attendants aren’t unionized.
The union is now proposing a 33% pay carry with a cap at $91 according to hour right through the primary yr of a brand new contract, with pay raises of five%, 4%, and four% for the remainder years of a four-year settlement. It’s additionally calling for retroactive pay raises in keeping with how a lot attendants labored right through the remaining 5 years of negotiations.
American Airways “refused to budge off a best fee of $76 according to hour, plus boarding pay and different enhancements,” the union wrote within the abstract, however the corporate incorporated advantages like boarding pay, upper 401K matching contributions, and benefit sharing at the identical system as pilots in its most up-to-date contract proposal to the union.Subscribe to the CFO Day-to-day e-newsletter to stay alongside of the developments, problems, and bosses shaping company finance. Join loose.
