This is interesting...I received several of these thick, glossy, color, unsolicited bulk brochures myself even though I'm at a U.S. address.  I have a special PO Box (that was known only to United and perhaps my proctologist) which appeared on the label of the mailings. To be frank, this kinda annoyed me.  I know nothing about how they obtained these addresses, only that there must be a big-ass hole somewhere in the eastern Amazon rainforest.  Send me a postcard next time and ask if I want to receive more stuff or if I want to opt out.

From: www.unitedafa.org

In January we filed our petition with the National Mediation Board (NMB) for determination of single-carrier status for the purposes of conducting a Representation Election for Flight Attendants at United Airlines. While we await the decision of the NMB on their determination, Flight Attendants have begun to receive mailings and information from both the Machinists and AFA.

As we’ve talked about before in answer to Members asking how the Machinists got their address, we wanted to review how this process unfolded.

In late January, AFA Members at our International locations received a communication in the mail from the Machinists. AFA carefully reviewed the information on the mailing labels and talked to Members in these locations, and determined that the formatting of the mail contained information and syntax used when United Airlines sends a mailing. Further investigation with our Members identified that many International Members received the mail at an address known only to United, and not provided to other outside or third parties.

AFA confronted management with our concerns and questioned how and why United management would provide the Machinist Union with AFA Members home addresses. Management denied providing any such list to the Machinists, but at the same time agreed to provide AFA with the Continental Flight Attendant address list so as not to “taint the laboratory conditions of the upcoming NMB representation election.”

The result was that management provided AFA with the Continental Flight Attendant Member mail address list after the Machinists received the United Flight Attendant mail list and used it to communicate first with AFA Members at International locations. For additional information, including reading the full letter sent from AFA to United about our concerns, please check our website.