CHAOS™ Strike Information
CHAOS™ at Alaska Airlines
Can I be fired for participating in CHAOS?
United cannot legally fire Flight Attendants for participating in a legal strike action. AFA will not instruct Flight Attendants to begin strike actions until we are satisfied that the legal justification for a strike has been met. If management illegally fires anyone for participating in an authorized CHAOS strike, AFA will go to court and fight to get your job back. When Alaska Airlines Flight Attendants were fired for participating in CHAOS, they were reinstated because the court found the CHAOS strategy to be lawful.
This communication addresses the questions we have received about CHAOS at Alaska to ensure that we are all making decisions based on the most accurate information. Still, it’s important that we understand that the experience and circumstances at Alaska in the early 1990’s are very different from our current situation at United Airlines and in our airline industry. CHAOS may take a very different shape today in that we may determine our best action would be a world-wide Flight Attendant strike for one day or a roving strike across the system by domicile. We will determine the shape CHAOS takes as we use strengths targeted and carefully calculated by the United Master Executive Council and our advisors. The most important thing to remember about CHAOS is that it provides a maximized impact on management with a minimized risk on Flight Attendants.
Did the Alaska Flight Attendants who got their jobs back also return to work with their full seniority?
As with any return to work from legal strike activity, all Alaska Flight Attendants involved in CHAOS strikes returned to work with full seniority.
How long were any of the Flight Attendants out of work?
A little over two months was the longest period any Flight Attendant was out of work during the nine months of a CHAOS strike campaign.
Were any of the Alaska Flight Attendants financially harmed during the CHAOS strikes?
No. None of the Alaska Flight Attendants lost any compensation during the CHAOS strikes because they were either paid by the company, received back pay as a result of the court ruling or were financially supported by AFA CHAOS strike donations.
CHAOS™ History and Affirmative Legal Court Decision
In May 1993, AFA Members at Alaska Airlines were facing a 30-day cooling-off period after more than three years of futile negotiations. In the past, the company had taken a series of strikes in pursuit of its bargaining demands and seemed prepared to take another one. For years, the company had kept all of its office personnel trained as Flight Attendants just so they could be used as replacements for striking Flight Attendants. A traditional strike clearly was doomed to fail.
Instead of a traditional strike, the Alaska Flight Attendants designed and executed a unique campaign that out-smarted management with surprise tactics and intermittent strikes, called CHAOS (Create Havoc Around Our System™). The Flight Attendants rallied around CHAOS as management had to deal with the fact that travelers could count on only uncertainty if they risked flying during CHAOS. Alaska Airlines Flight Attendants won a fair Contract executing the following summary of the CHAOS strategy:
- In June, 1993, the cooling-off period had expired without the parties reaching agreement in the negotiations between AFA and Alaska Airlines. Four days later Alaska management implemented its imposed work rules. For six weeks Flight Attendants were free to strike, but instead AFA imposed a huge impact on the company purely through the threat of a strike. The company paid office personnel to fly as passengers on every flight and be ready at a moments notice to jump up and perform the duties of Flight Attendants in the event the working crew initiated a CHAOS strike. During this time, AFA Members off duty also participated in informational picketing and other activities that included the biggest labor rally in the Seattle area for many years. These activities kept the threat of CHAOS prevalent in the minds of management, the media and the traveling public.
- The first CHAOS strike took place in Seattle when three Flight Attendants walked off a flight just before passenger boarding while simultaneously a notice was faxed to the company announcing the CHAOS strike on that particular flight. Twenty minutes later the Union faxed a notice to the company explaining the strike was over and that the Flight Attendants offered to unconditionally return to work. The company couldn’t decide what to do and held these Flight Attendants were held out of service with pay until management simply let them return to work a few weeks later.
- About a month later, another crew of Flight Attendants struck the last flight out of Las Vegas . Rather than allowing these Flight Attendants to come back to work 30 minutes later when the intermittent strike had ended, the company “permanently replaced” this crew much like a traditional strike. This crew was placed on a recall list which the company was required to call from before hiring “off the street” and after about 6-8 weeks each of the Flight Attendants was recalled with full seniority. During the time they were out of work, they were fully supported through AFA’s CHAOS strike donations with the pay they would have earned working as a Flight Attendant.
- A few weeks later, AFA shut down five flights in the San Francisco area with crews walking off five flights almost simultaneously. The company suspended these Flight Attendants and threatened firing any other Flight Attendant who would participate in CHAOS strikes. This forced AFA to go to court where we ultimately won a preliminary injunction from the court that stated the company could not threaten or discipline Flight Attendants for engaging in intermittent strike activity. The only action the company could take would be to replace the Flight Attendants and put them on a recall list. The suspended strikers were ordered reinstated with full back pay. AFA also financially supported these strikers during the time of their suspension through the CHAOS strike donations.
Within two weeks of the court decision and without any further discussion at the bargaining table, Alaska ’s CEO offered an Agreement to AFA that included a 60% raise and encompassed the Contractual provisions sought by the Alaska Flight Attendants during the campaign for a new Contract. Within an hour, a tentative agreement was signed. The members later ratified the new agreement overwhelmingly.
After striking only seven flights in a period of nine months, AFA had executed the most successful strike in airline history without harming a single Union Member. CHAOS is a powerful tool that is legally sanctioned and trademarked by AFA-CWA.
Date: December 1, 2004
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