AFA met with other ITF affiliates representing workers in the Oneworld Alliance in Washington, DC, April 21-22 to leverage our strength on a global scale. American Eagle MEC President Robert Barrow (pictured at far left) attended the One World Labor Council planning session in preparation for a strategic meeting June 20-21 in Madrid. The meeting will consist of hundreds of delegates representing workers from every carrier in the Oneworld Alliance. As AFA members, we understand that our airlines and our contracts do not exist in a vacuum—we know that together, we are stronger. Not only do we stand with the strength of 50,000 Flight Attendants, we are an integral part of the larger family of working Americans through the AFL-CIO. Our ties extend beyond our national borders as well, as members of the international network of labor solidarity through our global union federation the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF). We support our broad network of allies and, in turn, we call upon them to unite around our Flight Attendant priorities. When those priorities are clear and our members are on board, there is little we can’t accomplish, even across the table from those who control the power and wealth in our economy.
To facilitate communications among One World Labor Council members—ultimately to strengthen their coordination of collective bargaining, the ITF is collecting the CVs or resumes of the Council members, similar to AFA’s summary of agreements, which will be housed on a password-protected ITF website. The intention of the meeting is to elevate collective bargaining standards by identifying best practices in negotiations.
“As a newcomer to the ITF, I felt very welcome by the ITF Civil Aviation Section Secretary Gabriel Mocho and the other participants,” said Robert Barrow. “I thought I’d just observe and learn but it has been a hands-on experience from the start. They were well aware of how much AFA has achieved at American Eagle in just one year and four months in negotiations and were curious about our challenges as a separate entity from our mainline carrier. I think we may stand to gain a lot from this global alliance.” (Gabriel Mocho is pictured in the above photo to the left of AFA International President Veda Shook.)
