Apr 16, 2026 - AFA-CWA Flight Attendants Reach TA With United

In March, Flight Attendants at United Airlines, represented by AFA-CWA, reached a tentative agreement with the company after more than four years of bargaining. This agreement came during mediated bargaining and is expected to improve base pay, impose restrictions on red-eye flying, and improve language on accommodations.

Notably, the agreement includes language setting boarding pay. This contract would continue to solidify boarding pay as a new standard for compensation going forward. If ratified, the improved pay scales and boarding pay would go into effect on May 31, with the June schedule month.

The tentative agreement will go to AFA-CWA members for a vote starting on April 23, with voting concluding on May 12.

The tentative agreement was made possible by the determination of AFA-CWA United Airlines Flight Attendants and the hard work of the AFA-CWA United Master Executive Council.

Last week, members of CWA and other labor allies joined Senator Bernie Sanders and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani at a rally in New York to commemorate the launch of Union NOW! The non-profit organization has a mission to directly support workers who are organizing or striking in the fight for fair contracts.

AFA-CWA International President Sara Nelson emceed the event and highlighted Delta Airlines workers’ efforts to form their union and bargain a first contract. She was joined by speakers from several labor unions, including President of the American Federation of Teachers Randi Weingarten, SEIU Local 32BJ Executive Board Member Ardist Brown, Amazon Labor Union President Connor Spence, and Writers Guild of America East Vice President Sara David-Hess.

Video game worker Brett Wilcox (WoWGG-CWA), Wells Fargo bank teller Dominick Arena (WFWU-CWA), New York Times Tech Guild steward Talha Rahman, and Brittany Norris, a Delta AFA-CWA member, shared their experiences forming their unions.

“We will never get the things we really need unless the working class has more unions,” said Nelson. “Ever since Ronald Reagan fired air traffic controllers in 1981, unions have been in decline, removing the one check we all have on corporate greed. They’ve stolen our money and they’ve stolen our time.”

Mayor Mamdani opened his remarks stating, “There is no New York City without unions. Across the world, when people think of our city, they think of greatness. And when they think of that greatness, whether they know it or not, they are thinking of the power of organized labor.”

Union NOW! will work with unions to ensure workers have the means to win organizing campaigns and to push back against big money interests engaging in union-busting, worker intimidation, and retaliation.

Click here to watch the entire event.

 
CWA Director of Organizing Tim Dubnau (left) joined AFA-CWA and other CWA members at the Union NOW! kickoff rally in New York City last week.

Last week, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) determined that Google violated the National Labor Relations Act by refusing to bargain with the Alphabet Workers Union-CWA Local 9009 (AWU-CWA) during negotiations with Google vendor Accenture over their second union contract.

“This is a victory for temps, vendors, and contractors around the industry who just want to have a say in their benefits and working conditions,” said AWU-CWA Local 9009 member Tahlia Kirk, a writer and team trainer at Accenture. “We’re glad the NLRB made the right decision and affirmed our right to bargain with Google and are hopeful they will come to the table so we can get a fair next contract.”

In December 2024, workers on the Google Help team became the first group of AWU-CWA-represented workers to secure a contract with a Google office.

Read the full press release here.

Last week, Flight Attendants represented by AFA-CWA demonstrated outside the office of Senator Dan Sullivan in Anchorage, Alaska, to demand the senator withdraw his support for the SAVE Act. The proposed legislation could disenfranchise millions of American voters, including Anchorage-based Flight Attendants who rely on mail-in and absentee voting. This event marks the start of the CWA’s Accountability April slate of legislative actions.

Due to frequent work travel, Flight Attendants are not always able to vote on Election Day. The SAVE Act imposes new barriers to absentee voting, requiring anyone registering to vote or requesting an absentee ballot to go in person to a local elections office and present a passport or certified birth certificate to register or receive their mail-in ballot. Anyone non-compliant will be removed from voter registration lists and must re-register in person with proof of citizenship.

During the rally, AFA-CWA members and labor allies made it clear to Senator Sullivan that Alaska stands against voter suppression. Traveling for work should not cost Flight Attendants their vote.

 
AFA-CWA Flight Attendants rallied outside of Senator Dan Sullivan’s office in Anchorage, Alaska, to urge him to withdraw support for the SAVE Act, which could hinder their right to vote.

On April 3, members of CWA Local 7777 at the Sloans Lake Alamo Drafthouse in Denver, Colo., went out on an unfair labor practice strike after a disastrous rollout of a new QR code ordering service severely disrupted work. Members say that management refused to address the impacts of the new system on workers and customers.

Striking workers received an outpouring of community support, with more than 50,000 likes on various social media platforms.

“The QR system isn’t optional; it’s being forced on every guest,” said Katie Hansen of the Sloans Lake bargaining committee. “This creates a worse experience for customers and makes our jobs harder, not easier. I have guests that I have served for 12 years saying they won’t come back again.”

The Alamo Drafthouse is a movie theater and full restaurant. Patrons are encouraged to remain quiet and to avoid using cell phones during shows. Written orders are placed with servers who then deliver them to kitchen staff. The new QR system requires the use of cell phones, which has proven disruptive and confusing, both to customers and to staff. Members say that the new system has led to complications with orders and negative overall satisfaction. Guests have even said they would not return to the venue.

Members are also concerned that QR-based ordering could impact staffing levels in the future.

In contract negotiations, members rejected a proposal by management that would limit their ability to publicly oppose the QR system, including their ability to take collective action.

 
CWA Local 7777 members at Alamo Drafthouse’s Sloans Lake location in Denver, Colo., walked off the job last week for an unfair labor practice strike. Management unilaterally implemented a QR code system for orders that has proven confusing and frustrating for workers and customers alike.

In February, supporters of the Memphis Public Library Workers’ Union celebrated a hard-earned victory on the road to forming their union. Through months of canvassing, committee meetings, and City Council sessions, workers secured a referendum on the upcoming November ballot to reclassify library workers from their current status as political appointees to formal civil servants, opening a path to the protections and benefits of a union contract.

Currently, all library employees are classified as “appointed” by the mayor, a status typically reserved for division heads or board members. This outdated designation leaves more than 200 library staff without the same workplace protections enjoyed by most other City of Memphis employees. By shifting to civil service status, workers would gain critical safeguards: transparency in hiring and firing, stronger grievance procedures, and the right to collectively bargain for fair wages and working conditions.

Library workers in Memphis announced their intent to form a union in September of last year.

Congratulations to the Memphis Public Library workers for this next step on the path to union victory!

Click here to connect with the Memphis Public Library Workers Union on Instagram.

Members of the VTDigger Guild, represented by the Providence Newspaper Guild (TNG-CWA Local 31041), and the Vermont Journalism Trust kicked off April with a second contract locking in an incredible 32.5 percent salary increase for reporters and a 6 percent increase for editors.

The four-year contract, ratified in March, also guarantees more paid time off, funding for professional development, and protections against the misuse of artificial intelligence, including the ability for writers to withhold their name in a byline and raise ethical objections to the use of AI in their work.

The NewsGuild-CWA is a labor leader in contract language intended to protect workers from the ever-growing threat of AI as government oversight lags behind.

Members of the CWA Human Rights Committee held an action outside of a Wells Fargo branch in Atlanta, Ga., earlier this month in protest of the bank’s ongoing union-busting campaign. Despite several high-profile organizing drives at Wells Fargo in recent months, some branches have seen union-busting decertification campaigns launched to remove workers’ union representation.

The CWA Human Rights Committee hosted the action during their 2026 Human Rights Face to Face Meeting held in Atlanta, where committee members worked on their President’s Reports and made plans for the upcoming Human Rights Conference in August. CWA President Claude Cummings Jr. and several members of the CWA Executive Committee made remarks at the gathering.

Members kicked off the meeting with a community service project feeding over 100 unhoused individuals in downtown Atlanta.

Earlier this week, workers at Clean Water Action and Clean Water Fund announced the formation of the Clean Water Guild, uniting employees of the two organizations as a part of The NewsGuild-CWA.

As the boots-on-the-ground force behind one of the nation’s founding grassroots environmental justice nonprofits, the work done by the staff of Clean Water Action and Clean Water Fund is essential.

Ellie Zarrow, a Field Canvass Trainer with Clean Water Action in Philadelphia, says, “I am organizing for a union at Clean Water Action because it is essential that we practice what we preach. Advocating for the power of the people, the importance of making our voices heard, starts in our own offices.”

Click here to read more from The NewsGuild-CWA.

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