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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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