Horizon Airlines flight attendants took part in an informational picket at Portland International Airport March 9 to protest drawn-out union negotiations and some of the lowest pay in the industry. They were joined by Association of Flight Attendants President Sara Nelson and dozens of delegates to the union’s board of directors convention, which took place March 9-11 at the Benson Hotel.
Horizon is a regional subsidiary of Alaska Airlines, but the company’s 677 flight attendants earn $18,900 to $45,000 a year, about half what their counterparts at Alaska Airlines earn. That’s in part because the company pays based on the length of flights, and Horizon operates primarily short-hop flights to and from the Portland and Sea-Tac airports. The short flights mean flight attendants are doing four or five flights a day.
“We have to do the same service. We go to the same places. We live in the same cities. But we’re paid less,” said Lisa Davis-Warren, union president for Horizon’s flight attendant bargaining unit.
Negotiations on a new contract have been going on for more than two years. And at the time of the demonstration, the company was offering 1% pay increases.
Under the federal Railway Labor Act, flight attendants are barred from striking until they get permission from a three-member board of presidential appointees. But Horizon flight attendants have begun showing solidarity by wearing red lanyards and red AFA pins on the job.
