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Alaska Airlines-Virgin America Merger Update: Initial Meeting Between AFA and Alaska Airlines Management

AFA representatives and Alaska Airlines management met last Thursday, July 14, 2016, to update each other regarding the Alaska Airlines-Virgin America merger and discuss the current situation and next steps. MEC President Jeffrey Peterson, Joint Negotiating Committee (JNC) member Lindsey Steele, AFA Senior Staff Attorney Kimberly Chaput, and AFA Senior Staff Negotiator Paula Mastrangelo represented AFA. Vice President of Inflight Services Andy Schneider, Vice President of Labor Relations Greg Mays and Managing Director of Labor Relations Elizabeth Ryan represented management.

 

The two groups reviewed the merger timeline and discussed the AFA merger policy, seniority integration and other issues that must be negotiated.  The parties agreed the merger is still in the early stages, so only preliminary discussion could take place prior to Department of Justice approval and the close of the corporate transaction.

 

It is important to recognize that the Alaska Airlines pilot discussions have advanced more quickly because both pilot groups at Alaska Airlines and Virgin America (VX) are represented by the same union—the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA). Additionally, the Transport Workers Union (TWU), which represents the Virgin America Inflight Team Mates (ITMs), is involved in the end stages of first contract negotiations on behalf of the VX ITMs.  AFA supports their efforts to achieve a first contract and we appreciate their focus on that important achievement.

 

To further communications and good relations between the two Flight Attendant groups, the AFA Alaska JNC and the TWU Virgin America Negotiating Committee will meet in SFO this coming Tuesday, July 25th for an informal “meet and greet” session. A meeting between Alaska Airlines and Virgin America management and TWU and AFA leaders is also in the process of being arranged. We look forward to discussing the impending merger and mutual concerns.

 

AFA has extensive merger experience and every merger is different. It may seem as though not much is happening, but we are still in the very early stages of the merger. The next several hurdles are the Virgin America shareholder vote, followed by DOJ approval and then completion of the merger transaction. Only after transaction close will the merger be official, and then the actual work may start on integrating the Alaska Airlines and Virgin America Flight Attendant groups.

 

We will keep you posted on further developments as they happen.

 

In Solidarity,

 

Your MEC – Jeffrey Peterson, Brian Palmer, Yvette Satterlee, Lisa Pinkston, Laura Masserant, Cathy Gwynn, Tim Green and Brice McGee

 

Your JNC – MEC President Jeffrey Peterson, Jen Wise MacColl, Lindsey Steele and AFA Senior Staff Negotiator Paula Mastrangelo

Introducing Your AFA Alaska Joint Negotiating Committee (JNC)

Your Master Executive Council (MEC) conducted interviews last week for the two open Joint Negotiating Committee (JNC) member positions. The MEC would like to thank the 15 candidates who demonstrated a willingness to represent our Flight Attendants in joint contract negotiations. After thorough deliberation, the MEC has appointed Jennifer Wise MacColl and Lindsey Steele to the positions. Your full AFA Alaska JNC is MEC President Jeffrey Peterson, Jen Wise MacColl, Lindsey Steele and AFA Senior Staff Negotiator Paula Mastrangelo.

MEC President Jeffrey Peterson

Jeffrey Peterson grew up in Anchorage, AK, and graduated from A.J. Dimond High in south Anchorage. Jeff achieved a Presidential Scholar Award in 1991 and went on to attain a BA in Psychology from the University of California, San Diego. Prior to becoming a Flight Attendant, he spent several years in hotel management working for Marriott International and a franchise company associated with Marriott Hotels. He started out his Flight Attendant career 15 years ago in Los Angeles. Jeff has also been based in Seattle and now San Diego. Jeff’s term as AFA-CWA Alaska MEC president began on July 1, 2011, and he is in his second term of office, which ends December 31, 2016. Jeff currently splits his time between his apartment in San Diego, his family’s condo in Puerto Vallarta and the AFA office in Seattle.

Jennifer Wise MacColl

Jen Wise MacColl started flying in July of 1996 and was based in Anchorage for her first year.  The rest of her career has been spent in the Seattle base.  She is the current MEC Grievance Chairperson and has held that position since 2010. Jen has participated in many AFA committees over her career including Government Affairs, EAP/CIRP and Voice. She earned her BA in Political Science from the University of Washington and is supported through all her endeavors by her husband Scott and two kids Landon and Riley.

Lindsey Steele

Lindsey Steele has been an Alaska Airlines flight attendant since 2012. She chose to start out her career in Anchorage in order to fully embrace the Alaska culture, much to the surprise to her classmates and trainers. Lindsey later transferred to Los Angeles to reside with her family in the suburbs of Azusa She comes from a family with strong union roots dating back to the 1940’s with her grandfather. Lindsey’s mother has been a Union member all of Lindsey’s life, and now Lindsey continues the tradition as a proud AFA member. Her goal for the forthcoming merger between Alaska Airlines and Virgin America is to instill a renewed faith and unity in the membership through a strong contract.

Paula Mastrangelo

Paula Mastrangelo, AFA Senior Staff Negotiator, was the bargaining representative and chief spokesperson for AFA at Alaska Airlines in the 1990s.  She resumed that role after taking time off, and has been involved in negotiating contracts with Alaska, including the current agreement.  She has started her career with the F.A.S.T. division of the AFL-CIO and has negotiated many international union agreements.

 

The Joint Negotiating Committee works to obtain interim safeguards including a fence agreement with management (which maintains separate Inflight operations for a specified period of time) and merge the collective bargaining agreement(s) and/or respective work rules into a collective bargaining agreement for the combined airline. Additional information about the JNC can be found at http://afaalaska.org/merger/jnc.

 

Current news from AFA Alaska about the Alaska Airlines/Virgin America merger can be found at http://afaalaska.org/merger.

 

In Solidarity,

Your MEC – Jeffrey Peterson, Brian Palmer, Yvette Satterlee, Lisa Pinkston, Laura Masserant, Cathy Gwynn, Tim Green and Brice McGee

Your Joint Negotiating Committee – MEC President Jeffrey Peterson, Jennifer Wise MacColl, Lindsey Steele and AFA Senior Staff Negotiator Paula Mastrangelo

AFA Constitution Mandates “Date-of-Hire” Seniority Integration, Protected by U.S. Law

[Note: AFA International prepared the following information for AFA Alaska members regarding the Association’s seniority integration policy in a merger. Specifically, this addresses the proposed acquisition of Virgin America by Alaska Air Group and merger of Alaska Airlines and Virgin America under one operating certificate. –The AFA Alaska MEC]

June 24, 2016

AFA’s seniority integration process reflects:

  • A commitment to ensure fairness with a “fair and equitable process” recognized by U.S. law,
  • Our desire to promote unity,
  • AFA’s decades of experience in promoting and protecting Flight Attendants’ interests in airline transactions.

The principle of ‘date-of-hire’ is codified in the AFA-CWA Constitution to integrate the list according to the schedule competitive bidding seniority that someone brought to the merger.

Page 1 of AFA-CWA Constitution & Bylaws, Article I.C.4. —

To promote the interest of the profession and to safeguard the rights, individually and collectively, of the members of the Union by ensuring that the “seniority date” of a flight attendant shall be the date from which each flight attendant accrues competitive (bidding) seniority as a flight attendant.

U.S. Law Requires Enforcement of AFA Seniority Integration Policy

AFA’s seniority policy is also reinforced by US law. After the TWA Flight Attendants were stapled to the bottom of the seniority list at American, our union advocated for a change to the law that would provide a “fair and equitable” seniority integration for all airline workers affected by a merger. Again, fair and equitable is a process, but it does not ensure a “fair” outcome.

If seniority is left up to an arbitrator, all arguments and positions made by the parties involved will eventually be decided by someone who has no claim or stake in the end result. That is why we ensured that the law would also protect our union’s seniority integration policy. The McCaskill-Bond law states:

“if the same collective bargaining agent represents the combining crafts or classes at each of the covered air carriers, that collective bargaining agent’s internal policies regarding integration, if any, will not be affected by and will supersede the requirements of this section;”

This law affirms that our AFA seniority integration policy is the process that must be used when AFA is the representative of Flight Attendants at the merged airline.

‘Date-of-Hire’ Principle Used, ‘Bidding Seniority’ Actual Term

Section X.C.2.a.(2). of the AFA-CWA C&B ensures that, “…the ‘seniority date’ of a Flight Attendant shall be the date from which each Flight Attendant accrues competitive (bidding) seniority as a Flight Attendant as of the date of the merger agreement between the affected airlines.” The term “date-of-hire” is common terminology among Flight Attendants and is the principle contained within the C&B. This term describes our principle but not the actual wording that refers to bidding seniority.

When Does the Process of Seniority Integration Take Place?

Once there is a “reasonable probability that the [operational] merger will be consummated” (Section X.C.2.i.), the NMB determines the merger has resulted in a single carrier for purposes of representation and AFA is certified as the representative of the combined Flight Attendant group, the AFA-CWA Seniority Integration process begins, Section X, pages 123-127.

The Seniority Merger Integration Committee – Merger Representatives

The Alaska MEC has installed its two Merger Representatives. Upon certification of AFA as the bargaining representative for Virgin America Flight Attendants, the timelines of Section 10.C. shall apply. Virgin America leaders will select their two Merger Representatives within 30 days and a training at the AFA-CWA International Office shall be scheduled for all Merger Representatives, the full Seniority Merger Integration Committee (SMIC), and the seniority list work will begin.

The SMIC consists of representatives from each pre-merger airline. The AFA-CWA Constitution and Bylaws (C&B), which is also reinforced by U.S. law, provides clear instruction on the committee role and authority in merging the seniority lists.

These representatives are responsible for:

  1. compiling the necessary employment data for all Flight Attendants from their respective airlines, and
  2. working as a full committee to compile a single Flight Attendant seniority list.

In terms of compiling the single seniority list, the only two (2) items constitutionally required for resolution by the committee include:

  1. applying credit for initial training while maintaining relative seniority on each respective list, and
  2. methodology for integration of same day seniority dates.

In every case, per Section X.C.3.c.(4) of the C&B “the relative position of the flight attendants on their respective seniority lists shall be maintained and the merger representatives shall not have the authority to alter the relative position of any flight attendant to others on her/his own list for any reason.”  In other words, the existing order or placement on each respective list must remain the same, i.e., no one “leap-frogs” over another.

Prior Integrations, Contractual Requirements and Training Days

The SMIC may not alter former seniority integrations. Prior decisions are binding upon the Union. In addition, the terms of the contract cannot be altered in this process. The AFA Seniority Merger Integration Process does not provide for adjustments to seniority dates that should otherwise be handled through a grievance.

The C&B strictly prohibits changes, other than to adjust for initial Flight Attendant training. Section X.C.3.c.(1) of the C&B states, “the only adjustment to seniority date as defined in Section X.C.2.a., being reconciliation of differences in policies on the respective carriers relating to seniority accrual for training days so that each Flight Attendant on the merged seniority list receives credit for her/his training days.”

AFA Seniority Integration Policy Used in Mega-Mergers

In both the Delta and American mergers, AFA’s merger policy set the standard for Flight Attendant seniority integration. At Delta, management knew that Flight Attendants would have one more big reason to vote for a union unless management provided the same seniority security that AFA’s policy would provide. The Northwest and Delta lists were integrated according to AFA’s seniority integration principle.

AFA had the cleanest seniority list in the industry at US Airways, where many mergers took place based on AFA’s seniority integration principle. Further, our union had gained seniority protections under the law. In the American merger, APFA agreed to a seniority integration that mirrors AFA’s constitutional merger policy, protecting both pre-merger US Airways and American Flight Attendants.

In these examples, AFA’s policy drove the process used even when AFA was not the surviving union. The difference in the Alaska/Virgin America merger is that AFA will be the surviving union. When AFA is the surviving representative there is no question: the AFA Seniority Integration Policy is used and required by U.S. law.

In the United/Continental/Continental Micronesia merger, the AFA-CWA Seniority Integration Policy is enforced since AFA is the surviving union following a representation election. That seniority integration process is complete and the Merger Representatives from each pre-merger airline simply continue their collective SMIC work to confirm the employment data of new hires and update the list based on retirements, etc. The integrated list becomes effective upon ratification of a Joint Collective Bargaining Agreement.

Recognition of Every Flight Attendant – Unity is What We Need

Our merger policy was put in place nearly 30 years ago following mergers where the issue of seniority did nothing more than create division. This division plays out at a time when it is especially critical for Flight Attendants to stand together in unity. In mergers, our focus needs to be on making our seniority count with the best job security, pay, benefits, work rules and quality of life at the merged airline. Our policy provides a defined and transparent procedure for seniority integration.

The fate of our seniority should never hinge on a corporate decision that is outside of our control. With a detailed process in black and white we can focus our attention on our unity and work towards a single contract that reflects our valuable contributions to the airline.

Alaska Airlines and Virgin America Merger: the Brand(s) and Single Operating Certificate

There has once again been rampant speculation today regarding the proposed acquisition of Virgin America by Alaska Air Group (AAG) and the planned merger of Alaska Airlines and Virgin America under a single operating certificate. An Associated Press (AP) article published earlier today “Alaska Airlines CEO says he might keep Virgin America brand” and a follow up story on Alaska’s World “AS+VX: The future of the brand (No decisions have been made on keeping the VX brand)” (log in required) have seemingly spurred rumors on the line and on social media regarding management’s intent as to the future of the brand(s) and whether the two carriers would be operated separately or under one certificate.

 

AFA Alaska has been in contact with executive management regarding the confusion. We have received written and verbal confirmation from both Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Brad Tilden and President and Chief Operating Officer (COO) Ben Minicucci that management’s plans to achieve a single operating certificate—and therefore a single system seniority list—remain unchanged. Management has now updated the Alaska’s World article with a quote by Brad and Ben to clarify the issue of single operating certificate (and therefore a combined seniority list).

 

The Master Executive Council (MEC) hopes you will find this information helpful. If you have any continuing questions or concerns, contact your Local Executive Council (LEC) president.

 

In Solidarity,

 

Your MEC – Jeffrey Peterson, Brian Palmer, Yvette Satterlee, Lisa Pinkston, Laura Masserant, Cathy Gwynn, Sandra Morrow, Stephen Couckuyt; LEC Presidents-elect Tim Green and Brice McGee

Seeking Two Joint Negotiating Committee (JNC) Members

Pursuant to Section X.D [Merger Policy and Related Employee Protective Provisions: Contractual Protection] of the AFA-CWA Constitution & Bylaws (C&B), the AFA Alaska Master Executive Council (MEC) is seeking two members in good standing (dues current) to serve on the Joint Negotiating Committee (JNC) for merged contract negotiations.

As of today, the Virgin America Inflight Team Members (ITMs), who are represented by the Transport Workers Union of America (TWU), do not have a first contract. However, they have achieved several tentative agreements on individual sections, so it is very possible they will have a ratified contract by the time the acquisition/merger receives regulatory approval from the Department of Justice. Even if the Virgin America ITMs do not have a first contract, management will still need to negotiate with AFA to address the merger/integration of the work force. Although there is no statutory oversight of contract bargaining in a merger like there is in Section 6 negotiations under the Railway Labor Act (RLA), this can be an opportunity for Flight Attendants to achieve improvements.

Purpose of the JNC

The purpose of the JNC is to obtain interim safeguards, including a fence agreement with management (which maintains separate Inflight operations for a specified period of time), and merging the collective bargaining agreement(s) and/or respective work rules.  Many issues will need to be decided in order to provide for a smooth transition into one, combined carrier.

Scope of the JNC

From AFA-CWA C&B Section X.D.4: “The members of the negotiating committee shall have complete and full authority to resolve any and all trackage* disputes between the flight attendant groups including those arising from the interpretation or implementation of any agreement embodying interim safeguards.” *Trackage is a somewhat antiquated term originally associated with the railroad industry.

Duties of the JNC

  • Fully prepare for merged contract negotiations.
  • Attend initial training of new JNC members.
  • Survey/poll the membership regarding bargaining objectives.
  • Conduct a review of the respective agreements (or work rules) to identify commonalities, differences, areas of cultural preference, benefits of each agreement (or work rules), and unique issues associated with specific air service.
  • Review collective bargaining agreements and employment terms at comparable airlines.
  • Create the union’s opening position (“opener”) for joint collective bargaining agreement (JCBA) negotiations utilizing the work of the JNC, industry comparisons and membership feedback/polling results.
  • Interface with counterparts at Virgin America and engage in discussions to reach mutually acceptable provisions on merging the two Flight Attendant groups.

Expectations/Qualifications

  • Appointed by the AFA Alaska MEC and terms are served to completion at the approved of the MEC. Takes direction from the chairperson of the JNC (i.e. in this case the AFA Alaska MEC president) with input from the AFA Int’l Collective Bargaining Department (i.e. staff negotiator) and Legal Department (i.e. staff attorney). After successful ratification of the JCBA will continue to serve as a contract interpretation resource for the JCBA.
  • Maintain a complete record of negotiations including proposals, notes and communications, and such record is the property of AFA-CWA.
  • Public interactions (including social media) must reflect favorably on AFA Alaska. If requested by AFA Alaska, JNC members must be willing to reasonably limit social media interactions for the duration of JCBA preparation, negotiations and implementation.
  • Ability to tolerate controversy amongst one’s peers.
  • Willing to travel for training, preparation, negotiations, roadshows and other meetings as needed.
  • Must be willing to adjust her/his schedule as needed, sometimes with very little notice.

Compensation/Expenses

  • 6 TFP for each 8 hours of work (0.75 TFP per hour)
  • 5% override on TFP in lieu of per diem
  • Travel time is unpaid; exceptions will be treated on a case-by-case basis.
  • Meal & incidentals and other expenses to be reimbursed according to AFA Alaska Policy Manual and AFA-CWA C&B.

Application Process

  • Interested candidates should submit an expression of interest and resume to MEC Secretary-Treasurer Yvette Satterlee at satterlee@afaalaska.org.  The deadline for applications is Friday, June 17th at 5 PM PDT.
  • Yvette will contact applicants to coordinate an interview with the MEC. Interviews will be held on Wednesday, June 29, 2016.
  • The MEC president is an ex-officio (i.e. “by right of holding another office”) member of the JNC.

* * *

Any questions regarding Joint Negotiating Committee members should be directed to MEC President Jeffrey Peterson at jeffrey.peterson@afaalaska.org.

In solidarity,

Your MEC – Jeffrey Peterson, Brian Palmer, Yvette Satterlee, Lisa Pinkston, Laura Masserant, Cathy Gwynn, Sandra Morrow, Stephen Couckuyt; LEC Presidents-elect Tim Green and Brice McGee

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