Funding and Dues

Financial Disclosures

CWA’s finances should be read in layers. The national CWA LM-2 captures the parent union’s dues base and top-level disbursements. The CWA-AFA sector LM-2 captures sector-level deployment, officer compensation, and the funding that the parent pushes into the sector.

This page stops at the national CWA and CWA-AFA sector layers. The separate CWA-AFA section will trace the additional MEC, LEC, LM-2, LM-3, and LM-4 filings.

In official OLMS filings and some official source documents, the sector may appear as “FLIGHT ATTENDANTS ASN, CWA” or “AFA-CWA.” For site consistency, this report refers to the sector as CWA-AFA.

How CWA’s Structure Shapes the Money Flow

CWA is not a single-body financial structure. The parent union, its districts and sectors, and its chartered locals all sit within the same constitutional framework, but they do not all report money the same way.

• Locals establish dues: the CWA Constitution places local membership dues at the local level.
• The Convention sets per-capita dues to the Union: locals are required to pay per-capita dues upward to CWA International.
• Districts and sectors sit on the Executive Board: CWA’s governance structure includes both geographic districts and industry sectors/divisions.
• Locals receive money from the International: the UOPM states that local treasurers receive funds due to the Local, including dues payments from the International.

Current CWA dues guidance explains that, in top-down dues processing, the International posts dues, deducts required international amounts, and sends the remaining amount to locals by settlement check. After the 80th Convention, locals are invoiced for per-capita, Defense Fund, and Members’ Relief Fund amounts tied to members who are not paying dues.

CWA National Headquarters Filing

The national LM-2 is the parent-union filing. It is the right place to study the top-level dues base, parent-body representational spending, per-capita outflows, and the broader financial scale of the CWA structure.

FY ending 05/31/2025

• Members: 682,324
• Dues & fees: $128,514,305
• Representational activities: $55,332,894
• Benefits: $33,248,291
• General overhead: $48,055,380
• Union administration: $22,786,608
• Per-capita tax disbursement: $5,256,859
• Funds received from members for disbursement on their behalf: $112,023,803
• Parent representational share of dues: 43.1%
• Parent broad support share of dues: 68.9%
• Official filing

FY ending 05/31/2024

• Members: 663,346
• Dues & fees: $124,224,565
• Representational activities: $56,801,560
• Benefits: $32,099,291
• General overhead: $44,142,164
• Union administration: $23,070,617
• Per-capita tax disbursement: $5,322,848
• Funds received from members for disbursement on their behalf: $115,464,100
• Parent representational share of dues: 45.7%
• Parent broad support share of dues: 71.6%
• Official filing

FY ending 05/31/2023

• Members: 648,305
• Dues & fees: $117,761,479
• Representational activities: $50,122,482
• Benefits: $30,266,070
• General overhead: $41,385,570
• Union administration: $19,899,392
• Per-capita tax disbursement: $5,129,527
• Funds received from members for disbursement on their behalf: $107,761,848
• Parent representational share of dues: 42.6%
• Parent broad support share of dues: 68.3%
• Official filing

These parent-level percentages are not system-wide member-service return measures. CWA representation also happens through districts, sectors, and locals, so the parent LM-2 alone cannot answer how much value reaches the bargaining unit.

CWA-AFA Sector Filing

The CWA-AFA sector filing is the clearest public record of how the sector itself is funded, how much it spends on representational work, and how much it pushes into its airline-specific affiliate structure.

The current sector filing lists regular dues at $50 per month, but Item 36 reports $0 in dues and agency fees because the filing states that cash and dues are reported on the parent CWA LM-2.

FY ending 05/31/2025

• Members: 50,362
• Dues & fees reported on sector filing: $0
• Other receipts: $28,881,199
• Funding from CWA national: $27,928,829
• CWA national share of sector other receipts: 96.7%
• Representational activities: $19,852,896
• Benefits: $2,022,560
• General overhead: $1,244,301
• Union administration: $2,858,355
• Per-capita tax: $1,075,452
• Loans obtained: $9,750,000
• Year-end net assets: $14,731,637
• Official filing

FY ending 05/31/2024

• Members: 49,452
• Dues & fees reported on sector filing: $0
• Other receipts: $28,114,551
• Funding from CWA national: $27,166,633
• CWA national share of sector other receipts: 96.6%
• Representational activities: $19,490,469
• Benefits: $2,111,222
• General overhead: $2,451,505
• Union administration: $1,454,854
• Per-capita tax: $1,163,217
• Year-end net assets: $9,064,027
• Official filing

FY ending 05/31/2023

• Members: 45,500
• Dues & fees reported on sector filing: $0
• Other receipts: $24,271,970
• Funding from CWA national: $22,472,421
• CWA national share of sector other receipts: 92.6%
• Representational activities: $16,781,753
• Benefits: $1,895,413
• General overhead: $943,475
• Union administration: $2,859,295
• Per-capita tax: $1,016,006
• Year-end net assets: $8,329,655
• Official filing

The sector’s “Other Receipts” do not come only from CWA national. The filings also show FAA program reimbursements and expense reimbursements from APFA. That is why the parent-funding figure is shown as a share of sector Other Receipts, not as a share of total receipts in FY2025, when the sector also reported a $9.75 million loan.

CWA-AFA Airline Affiliate Funding Signals

Even at the sector level, the money does not stop at headquarters. The FY2025 sector filing itemizes funding to airline-specific affiliates, showing the first downstream layer beneath the sector.

• CWA-AFA LEC 27019 Alaska Airlines: $371,875
• CWA-AFA LEC 23087 Frontier Airlines: $30,608
• CWA-AFA LEC 24051 Envoy Air: $31,598
• CWA-AFA LEC 27049 Endeavor Air: $36,331

The standalone CWA-AFA section will follow these sector-level distributions into the separate MEC / LEC LM-2, LM-3, and LM-4 filings.

CWA-AFA Sector Officer Compensation

The sector’s own LM-2 is the clearest public source for top officer compensation at the sector level.

FY ending 05/31/2025

• Sara Nelson — International President: gross salary $178,039; allowances $7,388; official-business disbursements $12,387; total $197,814.
• Unwav Dante Harris — International Secretary-Treasurer: gross salary $159,559; allowances $7,388; official-business disbursements $16,092; total $183,039.
• Keturah Johnson — International Vice President: gross salary $159,559; allowances $7,388; official-business disbursements $12,683; total $179,630.

Three-Year Trend for Top Sector Officers

• Sara Nelson: $178,923 (FY2023), $190,669 (FY2024), $197,814 (FY2025).
• Unwav Dante Harris: $150,118 (FY2023), $163,612 (FY2024), $183,039 (FY2025).
• Keturah Johnson: $136,818 (FY2023), $168,201 (FY2024), $179,630 (FY2025).

The current parent CWA LM-2 lists Sara Nelson separately in her CWA-level sector role with $0 salary and $227 in official-business disbursements. That suggests the substantive officer compensation for this sector is reported on the sector’s own filing rather than at the parent-body level.

Key Findings

• CWA is not a single-filer structure. The parent union, districts and sectors, and chartered locals all matter to the financial story.
• The CWA-AFA sector filing does not book dues at Item 36, even though it lists a regular dues rate, because cash and dues are reported on the parent CWA LM-2.

Representational Activities

What this means: “Representational Activities” is the formal LM-2 category that comes closest to bargaining, contract administration, grievance work, contract enforcement, and related member-facing union service.

How this affects workers directly: At the national CWA level, this category shows how much parent-union spending is going into representational functions. At the CWA-AFA sector level, it shows how much of the sector’s own budget is being directed into flight-attendant representation before the money is pushed further down into airline-specific affiliates.

Parent-to-Sector Funding

What this means: The clearest single metric on this page is not a pure dues-dollar return ratio, but the degree of sector dependence on the parent union. Across the last three sector filings, CWA national supplied 92.6% to 96.7% of the sector’s reported Other Receipts.

How this affects daily representation: It means the CWA-AFA sector is heavily financed through the parent-body system rather than through dues booked directly on its own LM-2. To understand what flight attendants actually get back for their dues, readers need to follow both the parent-to-sector transfer and the sector-to-affiliate distribution.

What the Parent Filing Does — and Does Not — Tell You

What this means: The national CWA LM-2 is the right place to measure the overall dues base, parent representational spending, and per-capita outflows. But it is not a full service-return scorecard, because district, sector, and local layers also perform representational work.

Why that matters here: A parent-only ratio would understate the services delivered below headquarters. A sector-only ratio would miss the fact that the sector books zero dues at Item 36 and depends heavily on parent funding.

Why the Final Value-Per-Dues-Dollar Metric Has to Wait

The final Crew Signal question is still the same: how much of every dues dollar actually comes back to dues payers in the form of service and representation? But for CWA-AFA, that answer requires one more layer. The next stage is to trace the CWA-AFA sector’s downstream funding into the separate MEC / LEC LM-2, LM-3, and LM-4 filings while eliminating inter-affiliate double counting.

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