FPU Romania

A strike in New York garment factories and the first Woman’s Day. A short timeline worth remembering.

🇺🇸 1908 – New York

Thousands of women working in garment factories walk out on strike. Long hours, unsafe conditions, and wages that barely covered survival pushed them their limits.

✅ They demanded fair pay, safer workplaces, and the right to vote.

One of the people helping bring these voices together was Theresa Serber Malkiel, a labor activist who believed women workers deserved political power, not just sympathy.

🇺🇸 1909 – The first Woman’s Day

On February 28, the first “Woman’s Day” is held in New York to honor the courage of those women who stood up for their rights. Many of them were young immigrant workers. They did not have much power, but they had courage.

Their message was simple:

✅ if women work, women must also have rights.

🇩🇰 1910 – Copenhagen

At the International Socialist Women’s Conference, Clara Zetkin, a German teacher and activist, proposes that this movement should not stay local. She calls for an international day dedicated to women’s rights.

✅ The idea spreads.

🇪🇺 1914 – Europe

Across European cities, posters appear calling for women’s suffrage and equality.

✅ For its time, the message is bold and simple: women belong in shaping society.

🇷🇴 Romania

Progress did not move at the same speed everywhere. After the 1919 Treaty of Versailles, international conventions began setting new standards for workers’ rights, from working hours to protections for women and young workers.

In Romania, these changes arrived more slowly and often under outside pressure. But ideas have a way of traveling.

✅ By the late 1920s, new labor protections began to take shape here as well.

None of it appeared overnight, and it always starts with people who simply refuse to accept that the world could not change.

To the women in our community and everywhere around the world: Thank you for carrying that courage forward, often with more patience than history remembers. 💯

✈️ Happy International Women’s Day. ❤️

Ryanair Members Meetup - 12 March / 12:00 - 16:00

Let’s sit at the same table and talk openly about where we are, what’s changed, and what comes next.

Roster. Negotiations. Next steps.

Bring your questions. Bring your concerns. Bring your ideas.

It’s your agreement. It’s your vote.

See you there.

📢 Standby is not instant availability.

✅ As part of our working time negotiations, we are addressing how standby assignments are triggered and accepted.

❌ A push notification should not automatically mean acceptance.
❌ And a duty should not begin before it officially begins.

We are asking for clear response times, proper notification procedures, and realistic reporting standards.

‼️ In the meantime, they can try to contact you, but you have no obligation to respond before your duty officially begins. Because your time and life also matter.

🤘🏽

$cabincrew

We welcome ETF - European Transport Workers' Federation’s engagement and support on this issue.

Being affiliated at European level means that concerns raised by our members do not remain isolated. They are examined, amplified, and addressed within a broader framework of worker protection and aviation safety.

ETF Civil Aviation

ETF has recently engaged with the Romanian Government and the Romanian Parliament following serious concerns raised by our affiliate, Flight Personnel Union Romania (FPU Romania).

📌The case, although individual, points to a wider issue concerning the use of employer-controlled psychological assessments for cabin crew members.

Psychological evaluations must serve safety and wellbeing, not become tools that risk undermining workers’ rights, independence, or fair working conditions. Safeguards, transparency, and proper oversight are essential to ensure assessments are conducted impartially and in line with fundamental labour rights.

✊ETF stands firmly with FPU Romania in defending cabin crew members’ rights and ensuring that aviation safety measures respect both professionalism and social protections.

Read more: https://www.etf-europe.org/etf-addresses-romanian-authorities-over-wizz-airs-use-of-psychological-tests/

Violence on board against crew can lead to serious legal consequences. ⚖️

Recently, one of our members was assaulted by a passenger during landing while carrying out standard safety procedures. ✈️

The passenger was blacklisted and later faced criminal consequences. The crew member was summoned to court as the injured party, a mandatory step in such cases. To protect him, we are using an alias.

Interview with Tom (Alias)

What happened on the flight?
During landing, while standard procedures were being followed to secure the cabin, a passenger who was under the influence of alcohol did not comply with basic safety instructions, such as wearing a seatbelt. As cabin crew, we are trained to de-escalate conflicts and manage difficult behavior, but there are situations where passengers become verbally aggressive, make serious threats, and, in this case, even physically assault a crew member.

How did the situation affect you after the flight?
This is not something anyone expects to experience on an aircraft. The threats were already worrying at the time, but the impact became clearer the following day when I returned for another flight. I felt anxious and kept replaying the incident in my head. Knowing that serious threats had been made stayed with me, and it was difficult to shake off. I was later summoned to court as part of the criminal case, which is mandatory. It was stressful, but I felt it was important to see it through.

Check out the full article and spread the news.

🔗 Link in story and bio.

There are moments when doing your job by the book puts you in a position you never expected. This is one of those stories.

ETF has taken formal action and sent a letter to the Romanian authorities, including the Ministry of Labour, the Ministry of Transport, and relevant parliamentary committees.

The letter asks a simple but essential question: what safeguards are in place to ensure that psychological assessments are not misused and that workers are properly protected?

As Josef Maurer, Head of Aviation, said, “This case raises serious questions about oversight. ETF has called on Romanian authorities to step in and ensure that employees are properly protected and that safety tools are not misused.”

https://fpu-romania.dk/who-controls-psychological-assessments-at-work/

ETF - European Transport Workers' Federation
ETF Civil Aviation
European Pilots
EASA - European Union Aviation Safety Agency
Ministerul Muncii, Familiei, Tineretului și Solidarității Sociale
Ministerul Transporturilor si Infrastructurii România
Parlamentul Romaniei - Camera Deputatilor

Who Controls Psychological Assessments at Work? - Flight Personnel Union Romania Psychological assessments should never feel like a tool used against you. But if your employer can run them in-house and treat them like a work obligation, without clear rules and limits, that process can start to look less like safety and more like pressure. That is a dangerous precedent for any em...

Violence on board against crew can lead to serious legal consequences. Check out the story and spread the news.

https://fpu-romania.dk/when-a-passenger-turns-violent-the-story-continues-in-court/

When a Passenger Turns Violent, the Story Continues in Court - Flight Personnel Union Romania Violence on board an aircraft does not end when the doors open. After a passenger assaulted a cabin crew member during a flight, the case continued in court and led to serious consequences. We spoke with the crew member involved about what happened and what it means for crew safety.

Astăzi am adresat o scrisoare deschisă Prim-ministrului României.

Este despre aviație, investiții și un lucru care se pierde prea ușor din discuție: standardele.

Creșterea și conectivitatea contează. Contează însă la fel de mult cm este construită această creștere și ce practici alege statul să valideze prin acțiunile sale publice.

Dezvoltarea care ignoră statul de drept, drepturile lucrătorilor și ale pasagerilor, concurența loială și responsabilitatea nu este progres.

Poate că Berlin 1961 este acolo tocmai pentru a ne aminti că deciziile luate în spatele ușilor închise au consecințe mult dincolo de încăperea în care sunt luate.

Guvernul României Ilie Bolojan Wizz Air

https://fpu-romania.dk/open-letter/

🇷🇴 🇪🇺 scrisoarea în format pdf în linkul de mai sus ⤴️

OPEN LETTER - Flight Personnel Union Romania Regarding the standards that Romania validates in its relationship with strategic airline operators

FPU Romania has been addressing this serious safety topic for some years....

https://fpu-romania.dk/investigating-health-and-safety-oversight-at-wizz-air/

Inspectorul PRO | Companiile aeriene din România ascund pericolul vaporilor toxici din avioane

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNvEh3eamNs

On July 17, 2015, James Anderberg had been piloting a Spirit Airlines flight from Chicago to Minneapolis and back, with plans to then go to Boston. On the first two legs, he and first officer Eric Tellman noticed a dirty sock-like smell—an indicator of a fume event—spreading through the Airbus A319 just as they started their descent.
https://on.wsj.com/3Y8YfEb

In the industry, "fume events" are when leaks of synthetic oils or other fluids into an aircraft’s engines produce toxic gases that are released into the cabin and cockpit via the air supply.

The pilots called for maintenance, who told them there wasn’t an issue to fix. When he objected, Anderberg’s superior told him his protests were delaying the day’s flying schedule. Spirit Airlines didn’t respond to requests for comment.

As they started their third descent, over Boston, the fumes returned.

Starting to feel confused and worried he might pass out, Tellman reached for his oxygen mask. To his left, he saw Anderberg slumped in his seat, his eyes half shut. Tellman forced a mask over his head.

Over the next few days both pilots were bedridden, vomiting, with diarrhea, and tremors in their hands and legs. After Anderberg returned to work, pilots flying with him noticed he was struggling with his hand-eye coordination.

After one flight, he parked his aircraft so askew that ground crew had to reposition the jet.

On Sep. 4, Anderberg went to a local hospital complaining of shaking in his arms and legs and severe insomnia.

The next day, after he allegedly acted aggressively toward a woman on a street miles from his home, the woman called the police. When officers arrived they noted the 53-year-old pilot was battling to answer basic questions.

On the ground with his arms handcuffed behind his back, Anderberg suffered a fatal heart attack. It was exactly 50 days after his exposure.

A Wall Street Journal review of dozens of recent research papers and interviews with more than 20 medical professionals, including brain and heart specialists, epidemiologists and toxicologists, show an increasing conviction about the link between fume events and potentially fatal diagnoses.

“It’s a pattern. I can’t ignore it,” said Frank van de Goot, a Dutch forensic pathologist who said he has performed autopsies on 18 crew members who showed signs of toxic exposures.

Read more: https://on.wsj.com/3Y8YfEb

📰 Instanțele au decis că piloții Wizz Air de la bazele din București și Cluj Napoca au fost concediați ilegal în pandemie, iar compania aeriană low-cost trebuie să-i reangajeze.

ℹ️ Mai multe detalii în articolul din primul comentariu👇🏼

Thank you, 2025! 🙌🏼
 
Thank you to everyone who joined FPU Romania this year and to those who stayed, supported, and believed in what we are building together. ✈️
 
This year was full of community energy and a lot of thinking outside the box. One clear highlight was organizing the first aviation-themed conference of its kind, with the support of and

The event led FPU Romania to join forces with the ITF and ETF, strengthening our local cabin crew community and finally plugging it into the wider European network.

A big thank you to Gilca Costel and Bianca Mircea for another strong year, in and out of the courts, guiding our community through the legal realities of our profession.

Thank you, Sarah and the ECA team! And, of course, thank you to our union representatives and FPU leadership, Thilde Waast, Anders Mark Jensen, and the entire FPU team, for the constant support and for helping bring everything together.
 
As we line up for 2026, we’re doing it with a growing community, stronger connections, and a much better sense of direction.
 
What’s next?
Let’s just say there are exciting plans ahead, so stay tuned.
 
Until then...to all our members flying over Christmas and New Year:

Thank you for keeping the industry moving while the rest of the world slows down. Safe flights, and see you on the other side of the year!

Happy holidays with your loved ones, and a New Year just the way you need it. 🎄✨