CWA-AFA · Elections, Terms & Member Control

Election System Overview

CWA-AFA uses a layered election model. Members most directly elect officers at the Local Council level, while International Officers are elected through the Board of Directors rather than by a direct membership-wide vote.

This means member control is strongest at the local level and then flows upward through elected Local Council Presidents, who carry that authority into the sector-wide governance structure.

Local Council Elections

Each Local Council has elected officers: President, Vice President, and Secretary. Those officers also form the Local Executive Council (LEC), which is the member-facing leadership body at the local level.

Local Council officer elections are conducted by secret ballot. The regular term of office for Local Council officers is three years, with terms beginning on January 1 or July 1 depending on the Council’s election category.

Because Local Council officers are directly elected by members, this is the level where members exercise their clearest and most immediate electoral control.

Board of Directors and Sector-Wide Voting Power

The Board of Directors is the highest governing body of the Union. It is composed of the Presidents of all Local Councils, except where the Constitution & Bylaws provide otherwise.

At Board meetings and conventions, each Local Council President votes with the strength of the Council represented. MEC officers at multi-council airlines may participate in an ex officio capacity if they are not also Local Council Presidents, but only directly elected officers cast votes.

This structure means that member influence at the sector-wide level is representative rather than purely direct: members elect their Local Council officers, and those officers carry voting authority upward into the Board of Directors.

International Officer Elections

International Officers are not currently elected by a direct vote of all members. Under the Constitution & Bylaws, the nomination and election of International Officers, when required, takes place at the regular meeting of the Board of Directors.

The regular term of office for the Officers of the Union is four years. Recent Board of Directors convention materials also confirm that the Board re-elected International Officers, while a separate 2026 agenda item proposed changing the system to direct membership election.

That proposal is important because it confirms the current structure: as of now, International Officer elections remain Board-based rather than member-wide.

Member Control Mechanisms

Member control in CWA-AFA is not limited to periodic elections. Members also retain petition, meeting, and recall tools that can affect governance between regular elections.

Local petition power: thirty percent of active members in good standing of a Local Council can petition for a special Local Council meeting.
Board petition power: thirty percent of the active membership can trigger a membership ballot on whether the Board of Directors should be called into session.
Representative voting chain: members elect Local Council officers, and those officers carry Council voting strength into sector-wide governance.

These mechanisms matter because they show that member control is strongest where members elect and contact their local representatives most directly, but it is not absent at the broader sector level.

Recall and Internal Remedies

Members also retain recall rights. Under the CWA-AFA Constitution & Bylaws, recall of International Officers may be initiated by petition, and the International Secretary-Treasurer is then required to circulate a recall ballot to active members.

At the broader CWA level, the CWA Constitution separately provides that the AFA-CWA Sector Vice President may be recalled by delegates representing the sector at an International Convention or by referendum among members of the sector.

Together, these provisions show that the sector sits inside a layered accountability structure: some remedies are exercised internally through CWA-AFA rules, while others exist through the larger CWA constitutional framework.

Structural Implications

Members exercise their strongest direct voting power through Local Council elections.
Sector-wide authority is exercised through the Board of Directors, not through direct member-wide election of International Officers.
International Officer elections are representative and Board-based under the current structure.
Petition and recall rights give members additional control between regular elections.

This hybrid election model is a central feature of CWA-AFA governance. It combines direct local elections with a representative sector-wide voting structure, all within the broader constitutional framework of CWA.