BOD Fails as DOT Rankings Dive, Customers Complain and Employee Morale Crashes

CHICAGO - United Airlines flight attendants are concerned with the risky shareholder decision to re-elect the 10 nominees of the UAL BOD while the only thing rising at United Airlines is executive compensation. Previously the flight attendant's union, the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, AFL-CIO (AFA-CWA), had urged its members who hold stock in the company to withhold authority for election of the 10 ten nominees for the UAL board.

"Flight attendants and other workers withheld support for the UAL BOD, but other shareholders are still hoodwinked and have yet to recognize the danger of the BOD's inaction," said Greg Davidowitch, President of AFA-CWA at United.

During the proxy voting for the UAL BOD nominees the union outlined the failure of the directors including:

• favoring management's interests over those of employees and shareholders;
• failing to align the interests of management with other employees; and
• that the Compensation Committee of the Board of Directors is responsible for setting the compensation levels of management employees, which recently has led to disproportionate rewards for company executives at a time of disproportionate sacrifice by the employees.

"We're mad as hell. Executives have shuffled titles to get raises while Tilton and McDonald re-negotiated their Contracts post-bankruptcy to grab 40% raises and other lucrative perks. Clearly, there's plenty of money to go around. All we're trying to do re-negotiate to force executives to live up to the promise of shared reward," Davidowitch said. "Management must immediately move up Contract bargaining dates to improve pay, success sharing and Flight Attendant quality of work life; the future of United Airlines depends upon this critical business move."

Flight attendants and other employees formed picket lines in front of the UAL shareholder's meeting today. The unionized workers walked the picket line demanding shared rewards.

"The UAL BOD has failed us, and shareholders will soon feel duped as well. At this first UAL shareholder's meeting we should all be celebrating our collective success, sharing in the rewards of United Airlines and instead we are forced to protest gross injustice. We, the employees, are United, and we will ensure our airline succeeds for employees, passengers and shareholders alike. That starts with stomping out this greed in favor of rewards for all." Davidowitch said.

More than 55,000 Flight Attendants, including the 17,000 Flight Attendants at United, join together to form AFA, the world's largest Flight Attendant union. AFA is part of the 700,000 member strong Communications Workers of America, AFL-CIO. Visit us at www.unitedafa.org.