November 10, 2006

Ladies and Gentlemen:

The first Membership survey hosted on our website closed on October 31^st after five weeks of gathering your feedback.  The survey titled, "Rating Management & Contract Issues," collected feedback from about 2000 Flight Attendants spanning a balanced cross section of demographics such as seniority or domicile location.

The first section of the survey measured our perception of management and the job they are doing for our airline.  Flight Attendant views of management's decision making has changed minimally since over 95% of Members voted for no confidence in this executive group during the bankruptcy. The survey results now show that 71% of Flight Attendants believe management is not making good decisions for the long-term success of our airline.  The remaining participants were evenly split between a "positive view" of their decisions and "undecided" about their answer.  Flight Attendants' view of top management or executives took an even deeper plunge with 90% holding a negative view of management, two-thirds of which responded that their view of executives is "very negative."  Local managers fared only slightly better with a 72% negative rating.  View of management also seemed to affect Flight Attendants' perceived relationship with the airline as a 70% responded with negative feelings about United Airlines. 

When responding to the question about what each of us expects United to do over the next 12 months, the majority expects our airline to merge or be acquired.  We have addressed this issue regularly over the past couple years along with alerting Members to the likelihood of a merger scenario.  Even without any announcement of a specific plan for our airline, we have been considering all contingencies and protecting against potentially dangerous scenarios.  For example, we all worked to defeat the Administration's plan and Tilton's advocacy to lift the limits on foreign ownership and control of U.S. airlines.  It was one of the issues that ensured many of us voted in the Midterm Elections to put representatives in office that will help to protect aviation security and our jobs.  We will continue to communicate our efforts to prepare for and protect our position in the event we are forced to confront a merger scenario.

The survey also addresses, on a very cursory level, management's compliance with our Contract.  Only 24% of the participants responded that management mostly follows our Contract.  Over a third of participants believe that management follows our Contract "only some of the time" and a whopping 37% believes that management "makes a practice of violating our Contract."  While Flight Attendant reports to AFA do not reflect these survey results, it is clear we must gain a better understanding of this response to determine its cause.  More importantly, we need to encourage Flight Attendant reporting so that we have the tools to resolve this very serious issue.  Some work in this area is already underway.  For several months we have been customizing an improved electronic reporting system that will help us track and trend issues for expedited resolution.  This new system will include a web-based Flight Attendant reporting system which is beginning testing now and will launch in 2007.  In the mean time, submitting paper reports or detailed e-mails in a timely manner is critical to resolve Contractual violations.

This initial Membership Survey also asked which general Contractual areas Flight Attendants believe management most often violates and when violated, which areas affect Flight Attendants the most.  In answer to both of these questions, scheduling far exceeded the response of any other subject by nearly 30 percentage points.  Other subjects receiving the most responses were management's general use of discipline, sick leave and pay related issues.  We will use upcoming surveys to further drill into each of these subjects to help determine the problems in these areas.  While the results of the survey assist our Union leadership in their discussions with management for quality of life issues and other resolutions, the results will be more helpful in defining the action and direction we should collectively take to improve our work lives and the effectiveness of our Union. 

As this first survey closed, we received questions from several Members who asked whether the results would be seen by management.  They explained that they had not participated in the survey because they were afraid that management would see the results and seek retribution for their honesty.  First, let's be clear that none of the results of the survey are seen by management and even the results reviewed by AFA leaders are de-identified to ensure an objective, honest review of the feedback.  Second, the concern expressed by these Flight Attendants reiterates the survey results that reflect a very low opinion of both executive and local management, stemming from the belief that management not only breaks its Contract with Flight Attendants but actually harbors contempt for Flight Attendants.  The survey further validates this through the responses to the experience of Contract violations, harassment while sick, incorrect pay and disciplinary charges.

The survey will assist our strategic advance on the issues and demand positive resolution.  Surveys, along with your feedback through local meetings, phone calls, e-mails and your reports of violations will give us the information necessary to protect our Contract, our rights, our environment and reject the idea that we can be controlled in the manner contemplated by management.

We have said for years that United Airlines will never reach its full potential until management learns to work with its employees instead of against them.  But even through our airline's most challenging times, when its very existence was hanging in the balance, management displayed a philosophy of rule by fear and intimidation rather than one of encouragement through positive reinforcement and a cooperative spirit.  We continue to invite management to take part in a cooperative relationship.  But, so as long as we believe that our fight is to get management to recognize our contributions and respect us for them, we will continue to be distracted from determining the problems that need to be fixed or the opportunities that we can seize to better our careers.

As we said when this first web-survey was introduced; a series of these surveys will help us define the issues in greatest need of our Union's focus for action and communication.  We will use the results of this survey to formulate the next one scheduled for a launch on Tuesday, November 22^nd.  The second survey will help us further define the issues most commonly affecting our work lives and assist us in our strategic planning.

If we are to be successful together, we need your feedback to ensure our Union reflects the experience of its Members.  This is Your AFA; make sure that you are a part of the discussion.

In Solidarity,

Greg Davidowitch, President
United Master Executive Council