Southwest Airlines flight attendants picketed Tuesday and at 10 airports airports across the country as contract negotiations stalled following a difficult summer for the air travel industry.
At Dallas Love Field in Texas, holding signs reading “Boarding pay without delay” and “Another victim of SWA’s outdated technology,” the Transport Workers Union Local 556, the union for 18,000 flight attendants at Dallas-based Southwest, pushed their contract fight for pay raises and scheduling improvements in front of passengers at the airport where the carrier is headquartered.
“The job has really degraded over the years and we need to see changes to fatiguing shifts, like 24-hour calls, we need to be able to get home and we’re supposed to get home,” said TWU Local 556 President Lyn Montgomery. “And if we don’t get home, we’re supposed to get home and even be compensated for the overtime that we’re putting in.”
