This APFA National Officer Election boils down to one thing: philosophy

Do flight attendants want to fight for their interests, or do they want to "work together" with management?

This APFA National Officer Election boils down to one thing: philosophy.

On the Glading/Geiss side you have the "working together" relationship with management. This cannot be denied. It started with John Ward, continued with Tommie Hutto-Blake, and survives today with Laura Glading. It will not change under Liz Geiss.

On the other side of the fence, we have others, including myself, who feel that the "working together" relationship has single-handedly decimated our workgroup and undermined our union from the inside out. This truth cannot be denied.

The Glading/Geiss slates BOTH agree that suing the company was wrong. They BOTH feel that flight attendants should have just tucked their shirts back in and walked away. This is exactly why they BOTH supported spending millions in membership dues defending the company. To BOTH of these candidates, it didn't matter that the executives were grossly enriching themselves with OUR money. When asked how flight attendants benefited by having their dues money spent defending the company, neither Glading nor Geiss can answer the question.

We felt that standing up for ourselves, regardless of the odds, was the better choice because it showed that the company, while able to spoon-feed concessions to flight attendants, could not get ALL the flight attendants to say thank you. It's not easy fighting a global corporation on a rank-and-file salary, but we did it. And not only did we fight a global corporation, but we also had to fight a national union. To us, the ending of the story is irrelevant. The fact that we can walk through any terminal in the system holding our heads high knowing that we didn't take it lying down is reward enough.

Some say that this election is about "experience" because the incumbents have been serving the members for years (in some cases decades) at APFA. We feel that all these years of so-called "experience" have delivered us nothing but a painful experience for almost nine years with still no end in sight. Glading and Geiss like to credit their years of service to the membership as a reason for voting for them. I like to think that having worked for a labor strategist for the past eight years (even if he's my distant cousin) demonstrates experience as well. All that I'm lacking is the internal grooming that keeps the warring factions fighting over control. Simply put, we are the voice of change.

This election is NOT about who is trip-removed to do union work; it's about what is actually done when the individual is, in fact, trip-removed. APFA spends far too much money on flight attendant trip-removals and far too little on professional guidance that will bring benefit the membership as a whole. This practice has to stop.

This election is NOT about whether or not a candidate (Geiss) is married to a pilot. The issue here is whether the relationship could create a conflict at a time when the pilots and flight attendants are going to be competing against one another in an effort to protect their individual members' interests.

We saw what happened during the 2003 Restructuring when key individuals representing us were married to pilots: pilots were invited to flight attendant meetings to "educate flight attendants" on what would happen if we didn't support concessions. We also saw how internal charges were stonewalled by Executive Committee members who were married to pilots.

If this were an administrative term, this would be a non-issue. But this is bankruptcy, and therefore we can't afford to have a union president who has a vested interest in protecting the retirement of the spouse while simultaneously trying to protect the interests of those whom she's never met. If asked whose retirement is more important, the logical answer can only be that of the spouse. To suggest otherwise would only raise questions about family loyalty. For those who support Liz Geiss, I can only ask why they would want to put her in that sort of predicament. It's not about whether or not Ms. Geiss can run our union, it's about the timing — that's all.

The consensus among many is that American should never have filed for bankruptcy. And this is why flight attendants need to ask themselves whether or not they want a team with a willingness to fight back representing them in bankruptcy, or whether they want those with a proven track record of working with the company representing them. If they want to "work together" with management, they can choose between Laura Glading or Liz Geiss. If they want to fight for their interests, they can vote for us.

There’s only two choices.

In solidarity,

Rock Salomon
Salomon-Baust-Todd-Gillard
Candidates for APFA National Office 2012