That’s wrong. You can be on duty 15 hours a day and only get paid 3.5 hours. She misspoke or the press got it wrong.

capitalism. the problem is fucking capitalism.

Probably an ignorant question but if you go to work 15 hours just to go back to the homeless shelter. Why not just skip the middle man, and just not go to work?

Yup. You should be paid from the moment you're required to arrive until the moment you're allowed to leave. That includes

• Getting changed into uniform, if there's a reason the uniform couldn't have been worn in (e.g. special safety gear, full body character costumes)
• Any security or bag checks
• Turning on computers

We just need a better government at this point.

Both sides need to stop going to bat for the people keeping them down.

Or they only got paid for the seconds/minutes they were actively checking out a customer. This is insane

Well, they're flight attendants, not rolling attendants, or sitting at the parking spot attendants. It's all in the job description.

https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/sustainable-finance-reporting/air-canada-flight-attendants-try-build-us-gains-unpaid-work-2025-08-06/

Air Canada (AC.TO), flight attendants want to make gains on unpaid work that go beyond recent advances secured by their U.S. counterparts, a union leader said on Wednesday, in a fresh test of the way airlines compensate cabin crews.

...

New labor agreements at American Airlines (AAL.O), and Alaska Airlines (ALK.N), legally require carriers to start the clock for paying flight attendants when passengers are boarding, not when the flight starts to taxi down the runway. Those gains came after Delta Air Lines (DAL.N), whose flight attendants are not in a union, instituted boarding pay for its cabin crew at half of their hourly wages in 2022 when they were trying to organize.

Here's a fun fact. Vasquez Rocks is a common shooting location for Hollywood. Particularly Star Trek; my wife and I make a game of pointing out when they're using Vasquez Rocks for yet another episode.

The reason it's used so much is that it's an arid environment just outside the "studio zone". If they shoot within the studio zone, people have to pay for their own transportation and meals. If it's outside, the studio pays for all that. Vasquez Rocks is just outside the studio zone.

I pay for food delivery, they should pay for labor delivery.

In theory that sounds good but I don't really get how it'd work. I mean what if you just lived four hours away so your commute there and back was just your eight hours? That's obviously ridiculous so what's the cut off? Like an hour? How does that affect breaks and lunch if you do live an hour away so you're only working six hours? Or is it just like a premium pay, like you earn 10% of your salary on your way in?

I wonder if any company actually does this.

Clocking in when you start your commute is a bridge too far in my opinion. If the company has no say on where you live then they could end up paying a person astronomically more just because they wanted to live far away. Like imagine an engineer who wants to live out in the mountains and commute 2 hours each way to work why should the company compensate them for that? Especially when you have another employee who is paying 2x as much in housing costs so they can live near work. Long term it would encourage people to live further from work which would just worsen traffic and suburban sprawl that nobody should want.

I would much rather see a housing incentive if a person lives with 3 miles of work so that people can have shorter commutes and the idea of walking/biking to work wasn’t unreasonable

Because it’s still a “glamor” job, and it eventually pays OK after a decade + of work. Travel, travel benefits, don’t take your work home with you…if you’re good with people and can do the training it can be a good gig. It should pay better, but nobody gets paid until the door is closed and the plane pushes back. Not even the pilots, but pilot pay can be high enough to account for all the time at work outside the “door closed at departure and door open at destination” pay clock where the flight attendants are stuck dealing with passengers on a plane even if the door is closed sitting at the gate and they don’t get paid.

Do you mean like work at Starbucks or Home Depot?

https://news.bloomberglaw.com/daily-labor-report/starbucks-executed-illegal-anti-union-campaign-labor-board-says

https://www.fox5atlanta.com/news/home-deport-responding-call-31-day-boycott-over-dei

https://www.newsweek.com/american-businesses-supporting-donating-donald-trump-list-2027957

The Home Depot was embroiled in whistleblower litigation brought under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) law. In July 2005, former employee Michael Davis, represented by attorney Mark D. Schwartz, filed a whistleblower lawsuit against the Home Depot, alleging that his discharge was in retaliation for refusing to make unwarranted back charges against vendors. Davis alleges that the Home Depot forced its employees to meet a set quota of back charges to cover damaged or defective merchandise, forcing employees to make chargebacks to vendors for merchandise that was undamaged and not defective. The Home Depot alleges that it fired Davis for repeatedly failing to show up for work.

I have Europe might have done it before us. 😄

So the converse of that would be: on the clock, I'm working.

And since they're on the clock before and after the plane is in the air, they should be getting paid for that time. It's a fucking travesty that they haven't been until now.

All I'm saying is, if I was required to spend hours at work without pay, I would be an absolute prick at work as well.

Wow. I work in aviation and have never witnessed the universal poor behavior you describe, nor the deliberate assault on people in the terminal. Flight attendants are people too and can have crappy days, but you’re painting with a really broad brush.

Only a select few would agree to work a job mostly for free. Apparently that select few are the desperate assholes you've described.

If the job/pay attracted people that had even an ounce of self worth, I don't think you'd see this trend.

Flight Attendant here 🤚 I haven't seen the behavior you describe (except cutting in line, I have seen that and it always made me uncomfortable, but most now just use the pre-order app). I have seen some level of asshole behavior from FAs, gate agents, rampers, pilots, cleaners. Oddly not maintenence or movers, but maybe I just dont get the time with them.

I've been in my role with my company over a decade, and noticed a pretty big culture shift during that time. When I started the gate agents and FAs would butt heads a lot; one work group was focused on everything they needed for a smooth flight and union protected so didn't mind advocating for themselves, the other group got reprimanded ending in loss of the job if the flight (or too many flights) went out late. Leadership introduced joint training between multiple workgroups and explained pressures of each role to other groups. It really improved teamwork. Now security/cleaners/pilots/FAs/gate agents are actually communicating, even if just to greet each other. It was toxic before.

I pretty much despise our corporate management but gave them the grace to call them leadership here because it is one good thing they've done, and it made a lasting impact.

Do like the French would; Oh, you want to break up a strike? Enjoy the whole country being on strike, including the truck drivers who are now blocking all mayor roads and border crossings.

Do we only pay servers if they're waiting tables?

Yes, actually. In the USA anyway. They're paid very low wages and that's a very common form of wage theft that goes unchecked and unreported: restaurants required servers to do pre-shift work at their normal sub-minimum-wage pay with no hope of making tips during that time. It's illegal but happens all the time

I think that’s the case for pilots too