LGBTI+ transport workers can benefit from new inclusivity resource

Transport workers who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI+) stand to benefit from a new resource Fighting for equality: Trade Unions and LGBTI rights, but onlyif their unions use it. Global Unions launched the set of practical guides recently, a coalition of the world’s union federations that represents hundreds of millions of […]


September 19, 2021

It’s time to end oppression and respect workers’ civil liberties

May Day is when workers of the world stop and reflect. We’re seeing so many human rights abuses — workers being denied their right to free association, free speech being suppressed. It is the responsibility of us all to defend our fundamental human rights. The right to strike. The right protest. The right to freedom […]


May 1, 2021

Glass ceiling in the sky: Qatar Airways’ problem with pregnant cabin crew (Theguardian.com)

They’re firefighters, lifesavers and great hosts – but woe betide the Qatar Airways flight attendant who gets pregnant. As the airline comes under fire, Gwyn Topham reports on a profession that still has a foot in the 1950s Round the back of one Gulf airline’s corporate HQ, a door opens into a hall dominated by […]


June 20, 2015

It Sounds So Last Century, but Cabin Crew Are Still Hassled by Sex Pests (Time.com)

From Coffee, Tea or Me? to The Swinging Stewardesses to the Singapore Girl. For years, books, movies and marketing campaigns have sold us the story that flight attendants are sexy girls who serve, not working men and women. Years of organizing and activism has helped alter this perception and has dramatically improved working conditions in […]


June 27, 2014

China And Qatar Want Flight Attendants To Be Young, Single, Skinny And Female (smithsonianmag.com)

Just like American airlines did in the 1960s In China, some young ladies attend university for a chance to enter a beauty pageant. But it’s a very specific pageant, with the promise of employment at the end—a university-sponsored beauty contest for would-be flight attendants. Qingdao University recently sponsored one of these competitive events, which brought together women who had been recommended by four different […]


January 17, 2014

Qatar Airways ‘requires’ hostesses to get permission before marrying (Al Arabiya)

Qatar Airways has come under scrutiny on Wednesday after it was accused of forcing its female workers to seek permission from the company when they decide to get married. In a report released by the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF) on Tuesday, the airline was found to also mandate that women tell a supervisor if they become […]


September 25, 2013