(The Transportation Trades Department, AFL-CIO issued the following press release on March 31.)
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The AFL-CIO Transportation Trades Department (TTD), representing the vast majority of the nation’s flight attendants, today said it would refuse to participate in a new federal panel aimed at developing voluntary safety and health guidelines, saying that mandatory, enforceable federal rules are needed to protect these workers.
In a letter to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the TTD said, “flight attendants must be provided the same mandatory job safety and health protections as other workers in the United States,” and that TTD and its flight attendant unions “cannot in good conscience” be a part of what it termed the FAA’s 25-year legacy of “neglect and half-hearted voluntary guidelines and advisories” that fail to strongly address occupational hazards such as blood borne pathogens, repetitive motion injuries, equipment injuries, cabin air contamination, carry-on baggage, noise and radiation faced by over 100,000 flight attendants.
Transportation labor has for years been calling on the FAA and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to provide flight attendants the safety and health protections most other Americans enjoy under OSHA standards. In its letter to the FAA to announce its non-participation, TTD Executive Director Ed Wytkind said that the government’s decision to have whatever safety rules this latest panel develops be voluntary will “halt the progress” that has been made in recent years on flight attendant safety and that the unions “categorically reject this approach.” TTD is concerned that if the airline companies are encouraged, rather than required, to improve health and safety, flight attendants will suffer through many more years of government neglect.
“When the FAA and OSHA get serious about doing something to protect our nation’s flight attendants, TTD and its unions will be the first ones at the door waiting to help them out. But these toothless, voluntary efforts are just feel-good gimmicks that won’t help a single worker. It’s long past time the Bush Administration made being a flight attendant a little safer,” said TTD President Sonny Hall.
Earlier this year TTD wrote the FAA asking for a dialogue to develop mandatory and enforceable safety standards. It received no response other than a Federal Register notice about the new voluntary initiative.
The AFL-CIO s flight attendant unions are the Association of Flight Attendants, the International Association of Machinists, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, and the Transport Workers Union.
TTD represents 35 member unions in the aviation, rail, transit, trucking, highway, longshore, maritime and related industries. For more information, visit www.ttd.org