✈️ The Truth Behind Their Headlines
SkyWest Flight Attendants Respond to Management’s Misinformation
SkyWest management is running an aggressive anti-union campaign—and they’re pulling out all the stops.
They’ve created a management-controlled website filled with misleading information aimed at turning us against each other and against our right to organize. This is not a neutral source—it was built and is maintained by anti-labor consultants hired by SkyWest management to keep us from gaining a real voice on the job.
Now, management has taken it even further. In crew rooms across the system, they’ve plastered posters and flyers full of fear tactics and distorted claims designed to undermine our AFA-CWA campaign. These materials are intended to divide us, confuse us, and distract from what’s really at stake: our power to negotiate better pay, schedules, and protections.
Let’s be clear: their goal is to maintain total control. Every message on their website and every poster on the wall is part of a coordinated effort to keep us from building the union power that would force them to bargain with us as equals.
SIA—the so-called “SkyWest InFlight Association”—is a key part of this strategy. Despite what management claims, SIA is not a union. It’s a company-funded program with no legal standing and no power to bargain a binding contract. When your representatives are funded and approved by the very people who sign your paycheck, they don’t represent you—they represent management.
In contrast, our SkyWest AFA union, will be powered entirely by Flight Attendants. When we have our union, we will fund it, we will lead it, and we will decide the priorities of our first contract. That means we elect our leaders, we vote on our contract, and we set the agenda.
Management is trying to scare us because they know that when we organize, we win.
Let’s break down some of the fear tactics they’re using—and the truth behind them.
Smear Piece #1: “The Union is Spreading Misinformation”
The Truth:
The union is us—SkyWest Flight Attendants organizing for our legal right to negotiate a contract. What management calls “misinformation” is actually the truth they don’t want you to know, like:
We will only pay dues after we vote to approve our first contract.
AFA-CWA Flight Attendants at other carriers have already won raises, schedule protections, and legal representation.
Organizing a union gives us the right to bargain as equals, not just hope management “listens.”
✊ If anything’s misleading, it’s management’s fear-mongering, while executives cash out millions in stock options.
Read more on our Flight Facts page.
Smear Piece #2: “AFA Doesn’t Know SkyWest”
The Truth:
This union is being built by SkyWest Flight Attendants, for SkyWest Flight Attendants. It’s not outsiders—it’s your coworkers leading the charge: jumpseaters, commuters, reserve warriors, and lineholders—the same people sitting next to you in the galley every day. And once we win our union, our AFA Council at SkyWest will be run only by us—Flight Attendants we elect from within our own ranks to represent our unique needs and priorities.
AFA brings the experience and strength of thousands of Flight Attendants across 19 airlines, including regional carriers like Piedmont and Envoy. They’ve fought discipline, negotiated enforceable contracts, won meaningful raises, and improved working conditions in environments just like ours.
If anyone doesn't know SkyWest, it’s the highly paid union-busting consultants hired by management to keep us from gaining a legally binding contract and the protections it would provide. They are the real strangers—brought in to divide us and maintain the status quo that benefits executives, not Flight Attendants.
When we stand together, we gain the legal right to negotiate protections and improvements that matter to us—including critical issues like a real commuter policy, job security, scheduling protections, and fair compensation.
Smear Piece #3: “A Union Will Create Division”
The Truth:
We are already united—that’s why we’re organizing. The real division comes from management’s efforts to pit us against each other with scare tactics and loyalty tests. Solidarity isn’t the problem—it’s the solution.
When we speak together, we win together. That's not division—that’s democracy.
Smear Piece #4: “You’ll Lose Flexibility”
The Truth:
With a union, we get to negotiate flexibility. That means SkyWest can’t just change policies on a whim or deny time off without cause. We’ll bargain protections that preserve the flexibility we choose, not whatever management deems convenient.
Ask Flight Attendants at Alaska, Frontier, or Envoy—they still have flexibility. The only difference? They also have rights, representation, and real protections.
Smear Piece #5: “Unions Only Want Your Dues”
The Truth:
Let’s talk about money—and who’s really benefiting.
While SkyWest Flight Attendants work longer, harder, and with fewer protections, executives have sold off millions in stock options, and the company has funneled hundreds of millions into stock buybacks, boosting shareholder profits and executive bonuses.
And yet, when it comes to investing in the people who keep the airline running? Suddenly, there’s “no budget.”
Here’s what they won’t tell you:
AFA dues don’t start until we’ve successfully negotiated and approved a contract that delivers real value: better pay, stronger guarantees, and enforceable protections. We will only vote to approve a contract that makes our dues well worth the cost.
Those dues go directly toward supporting Flight Attendants: legal support, contract enforcement, negotiations, and representation that works for us, not SkyWest management.
Once we are working under the contract we vote to approve, our dues will be $50 per month.
Management talks about dues not because they care about our wallets—but because it’s a convenient distraction. They want us to focus on a small monthly amount instead of the big picture of what we’re missing without a union.
They use “dues” as a cloak to get us to act against our best interests and preserve the status quo that benefits them, not us.
With AFA, every dollar we contribute goes toward building a better future we control, because our union works for us.
✊ Our Pledge: Truth, Transparency, and Solidarity
We won’t respond to scare tactics or smear articles with fear or hate. We’ll respond with facts, unity, and hope.
We are organizing to make SkyWest a place where:
Our work is respected
Our pay reflects our value
Our schedules support a livable life
And our voices are heard—because we have legal standing