In This Story
United Airlines flight attendants now need to provide a doctor’s note if they call out sick on Fridays, Saturdays, or Sundays.
According to an email sent to staff over the weekend and provided to Quartz, the carrier accused its workers of “misusing” their sick leave. “We have seen a significant increase in sick calls over weekends this summer,” the email reads, before going on to say that “the increase in sick calls has resulted in the need to require flight attendants to provide verification of an incapacitating illness from an accredited physician when making a sick call.” United did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Association of Flight Attendants, the union that represents United’s flight attendants, was incensed at the policy change.
“Not only is this a willful Contract violation, it is yet another demonstration of management’s lack of respect for Flight Attendants and our contract,” the union wrote in a statement Sunday. “Section 13.C.4. of our Contract identifies the periods when the company can require an Absence Certificate of all Flight Attendants. Those periods consist of the Fourth of July and Christmas holiday periods, it says nothing about every Friday, Saturday or Sunday.”
The AFA also criticized United for implementing the change while its members were dealing with the fallout from the CrowdStrike technology outage that threw the airline industry into chaos.
“Management couldn’t be bothered to wait until this unprecedented crisis was resolved to blatantly violate our Contract; they had to do it right now, in the midst of the chaos,” the union said. “This is a clear indication of just how tone-deaf management is.”
The news comes as United’s flight attendants prepare to take a strike vote in order to speed up contract negotiations that have been going for more than four years.