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Greetings, YOUR FLIGHT PAC DOLLARS AT WORK!
Thank you
to all American Eagle flight crew members for your financial,
letter writing, and phone calling support on H.R. 2744. "The
Flight crew FMLA Technical Corrections
Act" It passed the House of
Representatives this week with a vote of 402-9!! Now we need to move on to
the Senate. Please keep signing those FMLA forms for your
Senators and please, please please call their
offices and tell them to support S. 2059. The phone calls
make the biggest impact. We need the Senate to vote on this
issue before they break for the summer. If this doesn't pass
through the Senate this Congress Session, we will have to start
from square one. Again thank you all for all your help. See, your voice
does count and those FlightPac dollars do get put to good use
for you!! Sincerely, Mary Oswald, GAC MEC
Chairperson and all your Government
Affairs Committee Members Here is the AFA-CWA press
release: FLIGHT ATTENDANTS ONE STEP
CLOSER TO FMLA COVERAGE U.S. House of
Representatives Passes Flight Attendant FMLA Bill by Substantial
Majority Washington, DC – Flight attendants
today are one step closer to qualifying for coverage under the
Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) after the U.S. House of
Representatives passed the Airline Flight Crew Technical
Corrections Act, H.R. 2744, by a wide margin of 402 to 9. For 15
years, flight attendants and other airline employees have had
difficulty qualifying for FMLA coverage due to the Act's
language which makes it extremely difficult for employees with
unique timekeeping methods to meet the defined minimum number of
hours worked. "Today is a major victory
for the tens of thousands of airline workers who have repeatedly
been denied access to this vital law that has benefited working
families for over a decade," said Patricia Friend, Association
of Flight Attendants-CWA (AFA-CWA) International President. "We
applaud Rep. Tim Bishop [D-NY] for
his leadership in introducing this bill over a year ago, and to
the 241 bipartisan co-sponsors who understood and appreciated
its significance. We have been working for years to clarify
current FMLA language and thanks to the tens of thousands of
letters and phone calls from AFA-CWA flight attendants to their
representatives, we were able to press the importance of this
issue and reach this historic milestone." The FMLA requires most
employers to provide job-protected unpaid leave to employees who
have worked 60 percent of a full-time schedule over the course
of a year. However, the courts and federal agencies disregarded
that original intent and narrowly defined the "full time
schedule" as that of a traditional 40 hour work week, thereby
excluding any employee that does not fall within the traditional
work day. This concept does not work for flight attendants
because time spent between trips, whether during the day or on
overnights, does not count towards their time at work. Despite
the fact that some flight attendants may be away from home for
up to 20 days a month while working, it is virtually impossible
for a full time flight attendant to meet the annual threshold of
1,250 hours. "For years, AFA-CWA has had
to negotiate flight attendants' right to have access to this
important coverage that millions of Americans are automatically
guaranteed. This important bill finally brings fairness and
equity to the thousands of unique individuals who provide an
essential service to our nation," said
Friend. A Senate version of the
bill, S. 2059, introduced by Senator
Hillary Clinton (D-NY), has 26 bipartisan co-sponsors.
Mary
Oswald AFA-CWA / American
Eagle MEC Government Affairs
Chair
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