A victory for online organizing? Or something slightly more cynical?
Domenica Rohrborn contacted me a few weeks ago. Did I realize, she asked, what’s been going on? I confess I don’t always realize what’s going on. Perhaps that’s because I rely on Twitter to inform me at all times. Rohrborn, however, wanted me to focus. She explained that something was going on in the airline world, something that had been going on for a long time. You see, when you get on a plane, expecting the flight attendant to smile at you, welcome you, and maybe even offer you a drink — if you’re munificent or flying on corporate dollars — the flight attendant isn’t being paid. “I’ve started a petition,” Rohborn, a former flight attendant explained. A petition? Oh, that’s going to work, I thought. How many times do people start petitions and nothing ever happens? (Most of the time.) But I clicked on the link and there were 120,000 people complaining about this situation, which hails back to the times of railroads. Yes, flight attendant schedules mimicked railroad schedules. Hence, as Rohrborn explained: “We only get clocked for our flight times. When the pilots pull the breaks. Not when we have customers on board or delays or mechanicals.
