Aug. 25--Southwest Airlines has halted a practice of assigning supervisors, whom union leaders had dubbed "fake flight attendants," to join crews during flights.
The Dallas-based airline told union officials this week that it would no longer assign managers and supervisors to an unused fourth flight-attendant slot on flights. The supervisors had been flying with attendants in order to gain experience and better understand the attendants' duties, according to the airline.
But many flight attendants felt like the supervisors were essentially acting as spies for management, and they claimed that the practice violated their contract. The Transport Workers Union, which represents Southwest's attendants, even filmed a music video mocking the policy.
Officials with the union declined to comment on the decision Friday. A Southwest spokeswoman also declined to comment.
But in a letter to union officials, Mike Hafner, the airline's vice president of in-flight service, said the policy had been intended to "give our supervisors recurring contact with the environment in which each of you operate every day."
He said that he believed that the policy was allowed under the contract, but he added that "without the full support of all parties involved, the program was unlikely to achieve its intended objective."
Southwest is known for having positive labor relations, and it is the most unionized airline in the industry, with 88 percent of employees represented by organized labor.
Online: For more about the dispute and to see the video, go to startelegram.typepad.com/sky_talk
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Trebor Banstetter, [email protected]
817-390-7064
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