The IAM has been receiving many questions from United Flight Attendants. Below we answer some of the most frequently asked questions. 1. What type of insurance options will be available if the IAM is elected? Your medical options would not change as a result of the IAM being elected. The IAM will represent over 55,000 [...]

The letter below has been mailed to each United, Continental and Continental Micronesia Flight Attendant's home. April 11, 2011 Dear Flight Attendant: I am writing to clear up any remaining misinformation about how seniority integration will be handled after the IAM wins the upcoming Flight Attendant representation election. To be clear: • Seniority will be [...]

The IAM’s Flight Attendant contracts contain important seniority protections. They require that seniority integration in a merger or acquisition be “fair and equitable.” The IAM’s long-held position is that seniority integration should be by Date of Entry into the Flight Attendant classification. This policy is undisputed and has been upheld through numerous mergers.

The protections negotiated for IAM–represented Flight Attendants into their legally binding contracts mirrors current law, The McCaskill-Bond Amendment of 2008.

The IAM Flight Attendant agreements at Continental, Continental Micronesia and ExpressJet all have provisions to protect Flight Attendants in a merger. The IAM contracts require fair and equitable integration of seniority, which prevents any other union from imposing a seniority integration method on IAM Flight Attendants.

Regardless of which union wins representation elections for the combined group of Flight Attendants at a merged Continental/Continental Micronesia/United or ExpressJet/Atlantic Southeast, the IAM contracts will survive for our current members until a new agreement is negotiated and ratified.

Integrating seniority is never easy. In Continental’s history there have been several seniority integrations, some of which were unilaterally implemented by the Lorenzo-led company when there weren’t any contracts in effect. The IAM is committed to integration of seniority in a way that is fair and equitable for all flight attendants.

One common method of integration is “dovetailing” seniority. That would be to integrate by your current Continental date of hire into the flight attendant classification. Whatever Continental seniority date you have today, as well as United flight attendants seniority dates, would be merged into a single list by date of hire.