Spirit flight attendants to picket this week

Spirit Airlines’ flight attendants plan to rally outside four airports across the country Monday through Wednesday, including at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, to protest the slow pace of negotiations with management for a “fair contract.”

The flight attendants are expected to stage informational pickets at the ticketing counter in Terminal 4 from 8:30 to 10:30 a.m. on Monday and Wednesday, andfrom10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. on Tuesday, according to the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, the group’s union.

The airline and its flight attendants have been negotiating since 2007.

Since then, talks have hit a wall and the two parties are now being supervised by the National Mediation Board, a Washington, D.C.-based dispute resolution agency.

Other pickets are planned for airports in Detroit, Atlantic City, N.J., and Las Vegas next week on the run-up to the busy Thanksgiving travel holiday.

“Spirit Flight Attendants have tried to work with management on reaching an agreement that reflected our role as first responders and our role in the great success of our airline,” said Todd St. Pierre, AFA president at Spirit, in a statement. “However, management continues to make regressive proposals and ignore our contributions. That must stop”

St. Pierre added that the flight attendants are an integral part of Spirit and “management cannot continue to rake in profits on the backs of its frontline workers.”

Earlier thisyear, the AFA asked the mediation board to declare that negotiations are at an impasse and is waiting to be released into a 30-day cooling-off period.

That decision can come at any time, the AFA said.