Letter dated November 8, 2013 from Laura Glading, President of Association of Professional Flight Attendants (APFA) to Roger Holmin, President of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA at US Airways.

1. Association of Professional Flight Attendants
Proudly Representing the Flight Attendants of American Airlines
Office of the President
November 8, 2013
Roger Holmin
Association of Flight Attendants-CWA
501 Third Street, NW, 10th Floor
Washington, D.C. 20001
Dear Roger:
During the course of our discussions over the past seven months about how our
organizations will welcome the American-US Airways merger, our team has exercised
discretion and exhibited tremendous patience as your union's internal political problems
substantially delayed the process. This week though, your posturing has forced us to
respond.
The E-Line you sent to your membership on November 5 is disingenuous and misleading.
It creates the completely false impression that APFA is dragging its feet in trying to
combine our work groups in a mutually beneficial way. We do not appreciate nor will
we tolerate your attempt to re-write history.
In preparation for the merger of our employers, we agreed to work together to achieve a
solution that puts flight attendants first and casts personal political agendas aside. On
May 31, 2013, APFA and AFA-CWA signed off on an agreement in principle. By midJuly, working together, our unions crafted a near-complete Strategic Partnership
Agreement and we were on track to meet our joint target date of August 1. By actively
participating in drafting the agreement, you were a key player in that process.
Unfortunately, you then brought the discussions to a halt. For two and a half months
APFA waited while you dealt with political turmoil within your union. AFA-CWA
finally came back to the discussions on October 9, with you as the chief spokesperson.
Unfortunately, AFA began the meeting by saying you wanted to "hit the reset button,"
reneging on the agreement and throwing away months of hard work by both our teams.
1004 West Euless Blvd. • Euless, Texas 76040
Tel: (817) 540-0108 • Fax: (817) 540-2077

2. Roger Holmin
November 8, 2013
Page 2
Perhaps this is standard negotiations protocol at AFA-CWA, but frankly we were
dumbfounded.
To address your E-Line specifically:
-­‐
You falsely accused APFA of stalling or refusing to meet to continue our
discussion process, citing cancellation of an October 18 conference call and a
meeting scheduled for November 1.
-­‐
As you well know, the intent of our October 18 conference call was to inform you
of action the APFA Board of Directors was about to take regarding the agreement
in concept our unions had reached regarding integration of our Flight Attendant
seniority lists. On October 16, our Board did pass a resolution consistent with our
discussions, and the following day we sent the resolution to your attorney Joe
Burns which we trust he shared with you. This made the call unnecessary. Mr.
Burns did not disagree.
-­‐
We were scheduled to meet on November 1 to continue our seniority integration
discussions. However, as we previously had explained very clearly, since APFA
has not quite completed the research necessary for our next meeting, we needed to
postpone. There should be no reason for you to expect otherwise.
APFA has a packed schedule between the daily tasks of running a union and the added
commitments in the antitrust case. As you may know, APFA President Laura Glading has
been named as the only witness who will testify on behalf of labor in the trial. We are
sure you agree that completing the merger should be everyone's top priority at this time.
With that in mind, we propose meeting at least two consecutive days during the week of
January 13. Of course, if the lawsuit settles before or during trial, we will be able to meet
much sooner. At that meeting, we should be able to complete our discussions and
hopefully reach agreement on all of the outstanding issues, including representation,
seniority integration and a process for negotiating an industry-leading joint collective
bargaining agreement.
Our goal is to achieve a solution that will allow all of our members to benefit from the
merger as soon as possible. Your members deserve that as much as ours do. To that end,
it is our intention to file for single carrier determination as soon as practicable to expedite
the unification of our two Flight Attendant work groups and move to bargaining.
We should not be side-tracked by an unending war of words. To that end, kindly refrain
from public statements that make this process needlessly contentious.
Finally, we are disappointed that AFA-CWA has refused to assure us in writing that it is
has not accepted and will not accept AFA membership authorization cards from
1004 West Euless Blvd. • Euless, Texas 76040
Tel: (817) 540-0108 • Fax: (817) 540-2077

3. Roger Holmin
November 8, 2013
Page 3
American Airlines Flight Attendants pending the merger. You had agreed to such a letter
in our October 9 meeting, but without it we must assume that AFA-CWA intends to
violate its own anti-raiding policy. That would be a tremendous disappointment not only
to Flight Attendants but to the larger labor movement. As you and your leaders at the
AFA International and CWA know, the only winners in intra-labor fights are
management.
Respectfully,
Laura Glading
Lenny Aurigemma
Mady Gilson
cc:
Veda Shook
Sara Nelson
Rick Knuth
Diane Tucker
Joe Burns
Larry Cohen
1004 West Euless Blvd. • Euless, Texas 76040
Tel: (817) 540-0108 • Fax: (817) 540-2077