United Airlines Flight Attendants Picket at Newark Liberty International Airport

United Airlines flight attendants picketed at Newark Liberty International Airport Thursday protesting the pace of contract negotiations as part of a larger national “day of action” by Association of Flight Attendants members who demonstrated at airports across the country.

Between 200 to 250 people demonstrated at multiple locations throughout Newark airport to highlight negotiations that have dragged on since August 2021 with United to amend an existing contract, said Jennifer Ritter, AFA local council 6 vice president and national government affairs committee chairperson.

“We are picketing to let United management know we are frustrated at the slow pace of negotiations and we hope to put pressure on by letting the public know,” said Ritter, who’s worked for 25 years as a flight attendant with the airline at Newark.

This was the second protest in a little more than a year by flight attendants at the airport, when similar demonstrations were held at Newark and other airports on Sept. 27, 2022.

Among the issues still to be resolved are pay and benefits, scheduling issues that “impact our quality of life,” and being paid their hourly wage instead of a lower per diem rate when planes they’re working on are on the ground, the flight attendants said.

Flight attendants’ hourly rate is paid on the basis of flight hours, she said.

“We don’t get paid by the hour until the plane pushes back from gate,” she said. “Our hourly rate is paid on the basis of flight hours.”

The union and airline are working on a contract that has 34 sections.

“We are seeing good progress in our negotiations with the Association of Flight Attendants and closed out six sections of our contract with them on Wednesday,” said Anthony Fleet, a United spokesperson. “We are hopeful that this progress will provide momentum toward our goal of reaching an industry-leading agreement.”

Union officials, speaking on background, disagreed. Most issues are still on the table and United management has not matched the company’s public statements with action at the negotiating table, they said.

The flight attendants’ demonstration was held in several areas of Terminal C that did not block passenger access, Ritter said. Members of six other unions, including pilots, joined in.

All United flights will operate as planned while our flight attendants exercise their right to distribute information and picket while off-duty,” Fleet said.

Among the issues concerning flight attendants not covered by the contract are problems with a staff and lodging scheduling system that gets overwhelmed when there are a large number of flight delays and cancelations, Ritter said.

“Right now, were having issues with their scheduling department being understaffed, so when there are operational meltdowns that can happen due to bad weather, they have a hard time keeping up,” she said. “It can take a long time to update it and they have crews sitting around (the) airport without direction.”

United officials said the airline is working on scheduling.

“We are making significant investments in our crew scheduling operation to improve the experience of flight attendants,” Fleet said.

Most flight attendants at major U.S. carriers are currently in negotiations fighting for new contracts including United, Alaska, American, JetBlue and Southwest Airlines, union officials said.

“Scott Kirby is our CEO, he is the highest paid airline CEO in the industry. There’s no reason United Airlines flight attendants (shouldn’t be) recognized for the work that we’ve done,” Ritter said. “We carried the airline through the pandemic and made us profitable again. We need to get acknowledged for that.”

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