The Airline Workers' Movement is Taking Off

Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso

Lemonada Media

Society & Culture, Film Interviews, Tv & Film

4.8 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 4 September 2022

⏱️ 62 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This Labor Day weekend we’re joined by flight attendant and AFA President Sara Nelson! To begin, we discuss the challenge of summer air travel (6:14), the union’s fight against stock buybacks (9:45), and the history of harassment and sexism in the industry (18:33). Then, we walk through Sara’s early years at United (22:35), the physical toll of being a flight attendant (26:44), and how she found her way into the labor movement (30:37).

On the back half, Sara recounts 9/11 (34:42), the colleagues she lost (36:59), the United furlough that followed (45:29), and the recent boom in union petitions across the country (53:20). To close, she reads a passage from her preface of Jeremy Brecher’s Strike! (56:25).

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, this is Sam. If you enjoy our interviews with writers and artists on Talk Easy,
0:04.7	then I'd recommend checking out the podcast, Missing Pages. Hosted by acclaimed literary critic and author Beth Ann
0:11.6	Patrick, Missing Pages investigates the biggest hot button topics in the book
0:16.2	world today with the help of special guests like New York Times Best Selling Author
0:21.2	Jody Pekle and publisher weeklies Jim Miliet.
0:24.8	Produced by the People at the Podgolomerate,
0:27.0	Missing Pages explores everything from the Insta Frame of Colleen Hoover
0:31.2	to the rise of book bands across America to the lucrative culture of non-fiction
0:36.3	ghost writing. As both the Washington Post and The Guardian praise, missing pages is a must listen. So if you'd like to check it out you can follow
0:44.8	missing pages on Apple Podcast or wherever you like to listen. Pushkin. This is talk easy. I'm Sam Forgo attendant and union leader Sarah Nelson.
1:35.0	Nelson has served as the president of the Association of Flight
1:39.0	Attendants, otherwise known as the AFA, since 2014, where she represents over 50,000 employees at
1:47.0	19 different airlines across the country.
1:50.6	The New York Times called her America's most powerful flight attendant for her work in the 35-day
1:56.2	government shutdown of 2019.
1:59.6	But that was really just the beginning because in March of 2020 as the pandemic struck and
2:05.2	demand for travel plunged the aviation industry was facing a pretty grim future.
2:11.0	Furloughs that would lead to layoffs until eventually airlines were forced to declare bankruptcy.
2:16.6	But before those calamities could happen, Nelson jumped in.
2:21.2	In a rare moment of unity, writes the New Yorker, airline executives and union leaders
2:27.3	worked together to get government funding.
2:30.2	By April of 2020, Congress allocated $50 billion to the airline industry as part of the CARES Act,
	...

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