WASHINGTON, D.C. (July 25, 2024) — The Association of Flight Attendants-CWA President Sara Nelson released the following statement after United management's attempts to violate our contract and obligations under the law regarding sick leave rights:
“Over the past year, we have been raising with the Department of Labor’s (DOL) Hour and Wage Division the problems with United's practices on FMLA, including auto designation and documentation. Problems were brought into sharp focus this week when in the midst of the CrowdStrike meltdown on Saturday, July 20, management sent an offensive and accusatory scheduling alert to require Flight Attendants submit absence certificates for all sick leave calls over weekend days. This change to the sick leave policy is a violation of the contract and we believe it also violates the law. AFA Legal has been interfacing again with the Department this week and individual Flight Attendants have also filed complaints with the DOL.
“Flight Attendants are not putting up with United management running roughshod over our legal and contractual rights for even one minute. We have good news to report already in our efforts to hold them accountable. DOL announced today that it is taking action to interface with the airline to ensure United is in compliance with the leave policies and the law.
“We filed a grievance over this very clear contract violation, but let’s take a closer look at the problems under the law. Requiring workers to provide medical verification for already approved FMLA is both burdensome and costly. It is clearly meant to dissuade workers from taking necessary leave for their medical condition, and this has been widely found to be unlawful interference in the right to take FMLA.
“Much of management's action stems from the previous Administration's anti-worker agenda. Two letters issued by the DOL on March 14, 2019 and September 10, 2019 undercut workers’ ability to determine how to utilize their FMLA benefits and specifically undercut collective bargaining agreement language, even though that is contrary to the law. Requiring auto-designation of FMLA in all cases was a not so subtle effort to dilute workers' FMLA reserves, that they could otherwise use at their discretion. Not every company rushed to implement this interpretation of the law, but United management did and they doubled down on efforts to evade their obligations under the law with this recent blanket requirement of absence certificates.
“We applaud the DOL’s proactive response to these issues that we have raised with them and will continue our efforts to hold management accountable to our contract and the law.”
