ORD Antics
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ORD Antics
ORD Antics [25 Jan 2006|07:56am]
scax_e_one
I received a pretty funny email from a flight attendant friend of mine recently. I asked her if anything funny/interesting has happened at her workplace. Here's her response:
"So many stooooopid things have happened at work as of late that I can't even remember which one I was gonna tell you about. The most recent is that a FA got drunk on her layover and beat up the bartender THEN the cops when they came to arrest her. They flew in a lear jet with a new crew to fly back in the morning.
The other thing was that a supervisor sent out a letter to congratulate all the other sups for issuing soooo many letters of charge (in ord) over 2005. He accidentally sent it to allll ord FAs as well. Classic."
Here's what an article in the Chicago Sun Times had to say about the latter incident she mentioned. Thus far, there's no newspaper account of the former incident.
From: Chicago Sun Times
Author: Francine Knowles
A union at United Airlines is blasting an e-mail from a company supervisor, sent to other managers and mistakenly to local flight attendants, that praises an increase in disciplinary letters sent to workers.
The Association of Flight Attendants, whose members have been battered by pay and benefit cuts as the airline has worked to emerge from bankruptcy, said the e-mail is proof UAL Corp.-owned United encourages supervisors to discipline flight attendants without reference to just cause.
The e-mail, dated Dec. 14, noted, "This morning, we issued the 400th LOC & yet, we have two more weeks before the year is over. In 2004, we only reached 251 and this latest 'milestone' truly reflects everyone's focus and hard work. Just wanted to let you know!"
The e-mail is "confirmation after years of denial by management that United Airlines measures the performance of flight attendant supervisors by the number of disciplinary letters of charge they issue," said the union's United Master Executive Council President Greg Davidowitch in a letter sent to the airline's labor relations Vice President Peter B. Kain last week.
"The image of managers and supervisors high-fiving each other over every new letter of charge is despicable," Davidowitch said. "... Like bad cops handing out trumped up traffic tickets in order to meet the desk sergeant's quota, pushing supervisors to meet discipline milestones taints the results."
Davidowitch told the airline there will be consequences, without providing specifics of what that might be.
The incident further damages morale at the airline, said locally based union spokeswoman Sara Nelson Dela Cruz.
"Morale is already low from terminated pensions, pay cuts, longer working hours and problems with executive pay and bonuses," she said. "It signals once again the inability of this management to successfully run the airline. For a long time, people have thought this management thinks of their employees as the enemy. That's what this e-mail confirms."
United Airlines spokesman Jeff Green said the e-mail was "an isolated inappropriate incident," and that the matter has been addressed with the supervisor.
"There's absolutely no quota system in place," he stressed.
Green added the airline has a high number of flight attendants on leave, and its policy requires flight attendants to verify their leave status and send information to substantiate that status. If they don't respond, that can trigger a letter of charge, he said.
scax_e_one
I received a pretty funny email from a flight attendant friend of mine recently. I asked her if anything funny/interesting has happened at her workplace. Here's her response:
"So many stooooopid things have happened at work as of late that I can't even remember which one I was gonna tell you about. The most recent is that a FA got drunk on her layover and beat up the bartender THEN the cops when they came to arrest her. They flew in a lear jet with a new crew to fly back in the morning.
The other thing was that a supervisor sent out a letter to congratulate all the other sups for issuing soooo many letters of charge (in ord) over 2005. He accidentally sent it to allll ord FAs as well. Classic."
Here's what an article in the Chicago Sun Times had to say about the latter incident she mentioned. Thus far, there's no newspaper account of the former incident.
From: Chicago Sun Times
Author: Francine Knowles
A union at United Airlines is blasting an e-mail from a company supervisor, sent to other managers and mistakenly to local flight attendants, that praises an increase in disciplinary letters sent to workers.
The Association of Flight Attendants, whose members have been battered by pay and benefit cuts as the airline has worked to emerge from bankruptcy, said the e-mail is proof UAL Corp.-owned United encourages supervisors to discipline flight attendants without reference to just cause.
The e-mail, dated Dec. 14, noted, "This morning, we issued the 400th LOC & yet, we have two more weeks before the year is over. In 2004, we only reached 251 and this latest 'milestone' truly reflects everyone's focus and hard work. Just wanted to let you know!"
The e-mail is "confirmation after years of denial by management that United Airlines measures the performance of flight attendant supervisors by the number of disciplinary letters of charge they issue," said the union's United Master Executive Council President Greg Davidowitch in a letter sent to the airline's labor relations Vice President Peter B. Kain last week.
"The image of managers and supervisors high-fiving each other over every new letter of charge is despicable," Davidowitch said. "... Like bad cops handing out trumped up traffic tickets in order to meet the desk sergeant's quota, pushing supervisors to meet discipline milestones taints the results."
Davidowitch told the airline there will be consequences, without providing specifics of what that might be.
The incident further damages morale at the airline, said locally based union spokeswoman Sara Nelson Dela Cruz.
"Morale is already low from terminated pensions, pay cuts, longer working hours and problems with executive pay and bonuses," she said. "It signals once again the inability of this management to successfully run the airline. For a long time, people have thought this management thinks of their employees as the enemy. That's what this e-mail confirms."
United Airlines spokesman Jeff Green said the e-mail was "an isolated inappropriate incident," and that the matter has been addressed with the supervisor.
"There's absolutely no quota system in place," he stressed.
Green added the airline has a high number of flight attendants on leave, and its policy requires flight attendants to verify their leave status and send information to substantiate that status. If they don't respond, that can trigger a letter of charge, he said.
