Flight attendants at American Airlines based in New York are vowing to push back against what they call an “erratic and irresponsible” attendance policy they contend violates state law. After a recent victory for flight attendants in California, there is hope that New York State law can provide them better protection for sick leave.
American Airlines Flight Attendants Still Roiled By Strict Attendance Policy, Now Look To New York Law For Relief
As noted by Paddle Your Own Kanoo, the union representing flight attendants at America Airlines is pushing back against AA’s attendance policy by noting that it runs afoul of New York State law. An Association of Professional Flight Attendants (APFA) memo labels AA a “totalitarian regime” and says the attendance policy is “erratic and irresponsible.”
“Despite American’s defiant position on this matter, APFA maintains that these actions by American are prohibited by law and will not be tolerated in New York. We are actively researching and exploring our legal and contractual options.”
New York law does not allow employers to penalize employees for taking sick time off or other lawful absences.
So what is the attendance policy?
- Flight attendants are issued “points” for the following:
- calling in sick
- taking a personal day
- reporting late for work
- being a “no-show” for a flight
- Over a rolling 12-month period, penalties include:
- 4-6 points – the flight attendant is subject to a performance review
- 8 points – the flight attendant is subject to a “final warning”
- 10 points – the flight attendant is subject to termination
- More points are awarded during “critical periods,” whcih include:
- July 1 -7
- Thanksgiving period (the Wednesday prior to Thanksgiving through the Sunday after)
- December 22 – January 3
The exact breakdown of how points are assigned is not clear and there is some discretion in how they are given out.
My Thoughts
I’ll opine here: I think it is ridiculous that someone should feel compelled to come to work when sick. Even if the current work rules represent teh fruits of a fiercly-negotaiced collective bargaining agreement, I do not think it is good for the company or good for customers to ask employees, especially customer-facing flight attendants, to come in when sick.
While federal labor laws concerning airlines typically supersede state laws (and that may be the case here, though a legal outcome is not clear), that does not change the fact that making flight attendants fear for their jobs if they get sick is not the way to run an airline…or treat a human being.
And practically, as View From The Wing notes, threatening to fire sick flight attendants does not even boost attendance.
CONCLUSION
Flight attendants at American Airlines are latching on to a New York State law that protects workers from facing workplace discipline for calling in sick. While the outcome is not clear due to the cloudy legal relationship separating state and federal labor laws regulating airlines, the APFA sees this as a winning argument.
Should flight attendants be penalized for calling in sick too often, even with a doctor’s note?
image: APFA
What I totally don’t understand is what happens when the workers/attendants call out of work legitimately sick?? So does that mean they STILL get penalized with the points system?? Or do they require a note from their doctor a.k.a. Proof that they’re actually ill ? Seems a bit silly and extreme.
Great question, and one that many people aren’t even aware of. We are STILL penalized even with a doctor’s note. At my airline, a sick call is 2 points. If you bring a doctor’s note, half a point is deducted, so 1.5 points for calling out sick.
My employers scrapped this policy before covid because they had a department run an analysis of the efficacy of having the points system for attendance. It showed that strict attendance wasn’t that effective, but having a more lax points policy actually increased productivity.
Personally, I want FAs to get a handful of measures passed because all workers deserve a fair working environment but also so that FAs won’t make any more excuses for poor service.
Even a point system shouldn’t penalize workers for getting sick particularly if they’re in a public facing position that involves international travel.
The challenge is that measures to prevent abuse (such as a doctor’s note) might be challenging if someone suspects they’re coming down with a cold and have light sniffles (when they are most contagious). Having them dragged into the doctor’s office might make the problem worse in that now the doctor and his staff are risking infection.
Perhaps the best way to implement a sick policy is to have HR involved to ascertain if they should get a doctor’s note or not based upon the frequency they’re calling in.
I suspect that FA’s, being in a public facing position, probably catch colds more often than the general public.
Don’t they have their own union to blame for this? They bargained it and agreed to it.
Did they actually bargain for the points system or did the company implement it?? There are some things the company can implement unilaterally. Was this one of them??
Sneezing sniffling FAs forced to work when sick, best avoid United or you’ll catch something
Let’s face it: American as a corporate entity pretty much is awful. Awful to their front-line personnel, awful to their customers and awful as stewards of a once great legacy. American is “too big to fail” but it probably should since it is antithetical to good governance and sound business practices. Southwest founder and long-time CEO during the airline’s glory days Herb Keller always said: Employees First, Customers Second and Shareholders Third. Once Southwest forgot that mantra things went to hell fast. Same is true for American.
Never had any problems. Best airline I have ever worked for. Try being a FA at Delta with no union where people just disappear
You can NOT reprimand or terminate employment on account of missing work for sickness.
That’s just illegal.
America West should not have hired off-brand lawyers to write their policies.
I work for AA in airport customer service. We too have the deplorable point system. It is an AA policy and not part of the union contract.
I dont think AA is forcing FA’s to come to work sick. Most companies understand people get sick and have guidelines in place to address legitimate lost time due to illness. One of the points I think AA is trying to address is those who abuse the sick time policy. Having managed large operations there were those who had patterns of abuse and those were dealt with. If someone has a chronic illness, the Family Leave Act protects them and yes, there were some who took advantage of this. While the point system may not be the best, there needs to be a set of guidelines of what is and what isn’t acceptable. If not, those taking advantage of the system will continue to do so.
United has a very similar sick policy. They also offer very generous amounts of sick hours. I have 800+ hours in my sick bank available, but would never dream of using it because of the points penalty system. I don’t want a verbal warning. I don’t want an attendance review. I don’t want a final warning. And I don’t want to be fired. I have a great work record and calling in sick, doctor’s note or not, would destroy that. I blame the union.
Continental Airlines under CEO Gordon Bethune started a policy to keep people from calling in sick unnecessarily. We were rewarded for perfect attendance. If you didn’t call in sick for 6 months you were put into a drawing for a new car. There were about 4 different work groups and 4 cars every 6 months. This even kept those who misused their sick time to not call in sick. Positive reinforcements works!
I work in crew scheduling and trust me sick calls are out of control! AA should just go ahead and take a play book out of the old NWA days and outsource all international flights to foreign workers as these people for AA definitely don’t want to work! AA needs to terminate lots and lots of FA’s…. Trust me!
Delta’s policy is almost non existent…You call out or use PPT (Paid Personal Time you will be written up! Flight attendants EVERWHERE need a separate sick bank of at least 25 hours every six months…to be used with no penalty…once its gone ..its gone till the recycle date ..and no roll over.
I’m a retired AA F/A. The sick policy makes you SICK!
This rating system was launched first by American eagle and Piedmont airlines. The wholly owned subsidiaries. But the really problem is that it becomes subjective and who is brown nosing there supervisors. I have seen being a union steward at a Piedmont station. That some people that called out sick the book was thrown at them. Others were simply overlooked because of there friendship with the manager of supervisors. It also send moral to the lowest levels.
Only betas get sick. A real Alpha like me never gets sick. I have a strict diet of ivermectin and colloidal silver and I make it in to work everyday
As the union rep who found this legislation and lobbied to get it passed through last year’s spring session in the last 6 days, and to get Gov. Hochul to sign it, I am appalled at AA’s response. The reason I found this bill and lobbied so hard for it was because flight attendants with protected absences, suchnas FMLA, were accruing points and being fired at alarming rates…three times what was normal. AA also refused to recognize the protections the NY State COVID law provided and tried to remove ALL protections last spring, when COVID was still ever present and we were continually exposed. It took pressure from outside sources to make them acknowledge and honor that law. It may take the same pressure to get them to acknowledge the protections provided in this law, which is actually an amendment to current NY Labor Law, which closes whatever loophole AA is exploiting to assess some of these points. As for the crew scheduler above, NY as a base, continually has the lowest number of sick calls, and if absences are such a widespread problem, perhaps it’s the inhumane trip construction, zero rest, and abuse of reserve flight attendants that is driving those numbers up. I guarantee you, flight attendants are not calling out en masse to slack off to the beach. AA is looking at this the wrong way round, per usual.
I’m not an FA but i work in a children’s museum that has the same policy. Though ours is 24 points= termination.
1.5 points for even a minute late- no grace period at all
4 points for calling out
12 points for a no call/no show
They also last a full year from the day you earned them, so you don’t get a clean slate every year. For example, if I earned 1.5 points for being late in January last year and 4 points for calling out in December of last year, when January rolls around of this year, I don’t start over at 0. I am absolved of the 1.5 lateness points from January, but I’m stuck with those 4 call out points from December for another 11 months.
It sucks.
I’m not an FA but I work for AA and for years I worked under a similar attendance policy. It forced workers to come to work sick and make each other sick. Sickness spread and never let up. For a company that preaches caring for people along life’s journey AA has proven again and again with their policies that they don’t give a s— about their own.