Feds to monitor safety for flight attendants
The airplane cabin could be safer for flight attendants and passengers because of a recent agreement between the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration extending OSHA protections to flight attendants.
The new ruling ends a nationwide campaign by members of the Association of Flight Attendants (AFA), AFL-CIO, who fought to extend OSHA protection to in-cabin airline employees. The extremely high rate of injury to flight attendants translates into a more dangerous airplane cabin environment for everyone, including passengers, according to the AFA.
An AFA review of injury and illness logs at 11 U.S. airlines showed that out of 31,024 flight attendants, 10% reported an injury requiring follow-up medical attention or causing them to lose time from work in 1998. That’s more than double the injury rate to miners (4.9%), and more than triple the national average of 3.1%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
With those startling statistics at hand, the FAA and OSHA announced they reached a Memoran-dum of Understanding, which establishes "a procedure for coordinating and supporting enforcement of the Occupational Safety and Health Act with respect to the working conditions of employees on the aircraft in operation [other than flight crew]."
Washington, DC-based AFA is the largest flight attendant union in the world, representing over 49,000 flight attendants at 27 airlines, according to Patricia Friend, AFA’s international president.
"We’ve fought hard to win occupational safety and health protections," Friend says. "Quite frankly, it’s about time we were extended the protections most American workers have enjoyed for decades."
In February 2000, AFA raised the intensity of its fight to win occupational safety and health protections with a campaign called OSHA NOW! which included conducting high-profile media events, with flight attendants leafleting and rallying at airports and in front of the FAA, getting petitions signed, forming a coalition with sympathetic groups, and calling on politicians to support the fight.
"We will be closely monitoring this agreement between the FAA and OSHA to ensure that actions will follow these words of understanding,’" Friend says. "If we don’t see a significant improvement in the occupational safety of flight attendants in the coming year, we will start this fight all over again."
In 1975, the FAA claimed jurisdiction over the health and safety of flight attendants and pilots. And while the pilots are medically certified and their health is closely monitored by the FAA’s office of aviation medicine, occupational safety and health hazards faced by the overwhelmingly female flight attendant profession essentially were ignored for the past 25 years, according to Friend.
She says flight attendants suffer painful, often debilitating injuries and illnesses related to these factors:
- poorly designed and maintained food and beverage carts weighing up to 500 pounds;
- cuts and burns from poorly designed galley equipment and oven racks, and injuries from slipping on galley floors and icy walkways;
- handling or being struck by excessive, over-sized, and overweight carry-on baggage;
- exposure to potentially infected blood when providing in-flight emergency medical treatment including mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, without the proper equipment or medical follow-up.
Recently, the Office of the Inspectors’ General of the U.S. Department of Transportation initiated an investigation of the FAA’s failure to properly protect flight attendants on the job and 81 U.S. senators and representatives called upon the secretaries of Transportation and Labor to provide the proper protection.
As a first step, OSHA and the FAA formed a team to review OSHA standards on record keeping, bloodborne pathogens, noise, sanitation,
hazard communication, and access to employee exposure and medical records. The team also will look at whistle-blower protections. The joint team is to report its findings on applicability of these OSHA requirements by Dec. 6, 2000.
Based upon the recommendations of the joint team, FAA will issue a proposed new policy statement on application of OSHA regulations to flight attendant safety and health and request public comment. In turn, OSHA agreed to consult with the FAA before proposing a standard that would apply to these employees to determine whether aviation safety would be compromised.
Under the agreement, OSHA will continue to enforce its standards for other aviation industry employees, such as maintenance and ground support personnel. FAA will continue to cover the flight deck crew, such as pilots and co-pilots.
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