While in Flight Attendant School you will have the opportunity to meet your Union Representative. When this occurs it may seem a little strange, and probably won’t register much.

After you graduate from Flight Attendant School, and begin your Flight Attendant Career, your meeting with the Union Representative will have much more perspective.

Each pay check you will be hit with Union Dues. To some people this may seem to be not fair, they may not have chosen to be a part of the Union. However, fair or unfair, if your in- flight group is represented by a Union, you will pay your dues; there isn’t an option.

The Union has many functions. The Union represents you when you may be in trouble. For example, some of us may blow a slide in our Flight Attendant Careers, and some of us may use too many sick days. Some of us may have a confrontation with a Supervisor or even a Passenger, and it may come down to “he said, she said”. These are some of the challenges your Union Representative may assist you with.

The main reason the Union is in place, is to represent you in relation to your Flight Attendant Contract. Many of your Union Representatives are Volunteers. These Volunteers help form and negotiate your Contract, your work rules. This same group of people is there to deter the Company from taking advantage of you, and allowing them to break the rules, stated in your Contact.

As a new Flight Attendant you will learn early and often on how unintentionally and intentionally this is done.

As a new Flight Attendant you are pretty much at the mercy of your Supervisors for the first 90 days.

During this time you will be on Reserve. You will be on call, sometimes with as little as a two hour notice.  Even while you are on Reserve there are Work Rules that you are covered by. These work rules are stated in your Contract.

Every once and a while you may have an overzealous Crew Scheduler, unintentionally or intentionally forget that you are entitled to something called rest. Sometimes, Schedulers don’t recognize you as a human being; instead, you are viewed as a digit, an ID number.

Know your Contract. As a new Flight Attendant, you have protection. Know your Union Representatives. These people can’t fix everything all of the time, but they will do everything within their power, and within the Contract to make sure you are being treated fairly.

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