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Representing the Flight Attendants of Alaska + Hawaiian

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[L-AS] Open Time Grievance

This message is for pre-merger Alaska Airlines Flight Attendants

On May 17, AFA filed grievance #36-99-2-130-18, requesting that Alaska Airlines management investigate the circumstances regarding the Company’s alleged violation of Section 12.C.3 “Trading Procedures”.  The grievance contends that the Company’s Jeppesen Crew Access (JCA) Open Time Trading System failed to synchronize time across the system, resulting in some users being able to complete their tasks while others are temporarily blocked from trades, pick-ups and/or drops.

After investigating the concern, management provided the following email response:

Jeppesen found two issues that need to be resolved.  The first issue has to do with the worker processes that handle the request and what it thinks is the current time, which is stored in a variable Jeppesen refers to as “NOW”.  Each worker process has its own NOW variable and if a worker process has been idle, its NOW variable gets out of date and when the first request comes in, for example when Open Time trading begins, it still believes the Trade window is still closed because NOW lags behind the system time.    The second issue is the Transaction Report timestamp is the time it logs the transaction is logged and not the NOW time.

Jeppesen has proposed the following solutions to address these two issues. The first is the worker processes will ensure the NOW variable is updated with the latest system time, rounded down to the minute (Note:  The NOW time granularity is at the minute level), so if a worker process has been idle, it will have the current system time.   The second change is to add the system time used in the processing of the request to the message so the FA and the transaction log knows what the system time is.  For example “Trip window has not yet opened for 24198” will be changed to something like “Time HH:MM, trip window has not yet opened for 24198”.  Jeppesen and AS believes these changes will resolve the issue.

Jeppesen will be providing an update in the next week concerning the interim solution.  We are expecting Alaska Airlines management to sustain the grievance and work with us on improving your Open Time processing.

In Solidarity,

Your MEC – Jeffrey Peterson, Brian Palmer, Linda Christou, Lisa Pinkston, Terry Taylor, Mario de’Medici, Melissa Osborne, Tim Green, Brice McGee; and MEC Scheduling Committee Chairperson Jake Jones

AFA Issue Reporting and Resolution

Last year, your AFA Alaska Master Executive Council (MEC) introduced the AFA Alaska online support center.  The system is designed for you to document and report scheduling and reserve concerns, situations where you might be facing discipline, potential contractual grievances, and any other issue where you might need AFA support.  The system also allows AFA representatives to better track issues that are occurring, identify trends, and address and resolve issues with management.

You can access the system using the following link:

Click here to access the AFA Alaska Online Support Center

Reporting New Issues

You can report a new issue in the system by opening a ticket, just follow these steps:

  1. Visit http://support.afaalaska.org/
  2. Click the blue “Open a New Ticket” button
  3. Fill in your personal information (including a non-company email address)
  4. Select the help topic that relates to the issue
  5. Fill in the issue-specific information and provide details

From this screen, you’ll also be able to attach pictures, PDF files, screenshots, and other information that will help your AFA representatives to have more information available about the issue.

Once you’ve opened a ticket, you’ll receive a confirmation email and with a ticket number.  Behind the scenes, your ticket will be assigned to an AFA representative who will assist you with the issue.

What Happens Next

The AFA representative assigned to your case will work with management to determine a resolution.  If management agrees, then the representative will contact you and advise you of the resolution.  If AFA and management do not agree, the AFA representative might escalate the issue.

What are SRB and ADR?

When the AFA representative assigned to your case and management are unable to come to a mutually acceptable resolution, the AFA representative might escalate the issue to Scheduling Review Board (SRB) if the issue is related to scheduling or Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) for all other issues.

SRB and ADR meetings are typically held every other week. Issues can sometimes take a few months to resolve based on the work and discussion involved between management and AFA. If an issue gets resolved in SRB/ADR, the AFA representative assigned to your case will contact  you and advise you of the outcome.

Grievances

If there is no resolution in SRB or ADR and there is a contractual violation, AFA will file a grievance.  Contractual grievances must go through the grievance procedures as outlined in section 19 of the Flight Attendant Contract.  If the grievance is not resolved there, it may be escalated to the System Board of Adjustment, where the case would be heard before a neutral arbitrator.  Information about the System Board of Adjustment can be found in section 20 of the Flight Attendant Contract.

Checking on Open Issues 

With your ticket number, you can track the status of the ticket online, add additional information and attachments for your AFA representative to have available.  To check on your ticket:

  1. Visit http://support.afaalaska.org
  2. Click the green “Check Ticket Status” button
  3. Enter your email address and ticket number
  4. Click the “View Ticket” button

As always, the more information and evidence you attach to the ticket (i.e., screenshots, emails, etc.), the better your AFA representatives can assist you.

Questions?

If you have questions about reporting issues to AFA or how issues get resolved, please contact your Local Grievance Committee.

In Solidarity,

Your MEC – Jeffrey Peterson, Brian Palmer, Linda Christou, Lisa Pinkston, Terry Taylor, Mario de’Medici, Melissa Osborne, Tim Green, Brice McGee; and MEC Grievance Committee Chairperson Stephanie Adams

[L-AS] JCTE Contractual Waivers Not Installed

This message is for pre-merger Alaska Airlines Flight Attendants

Yesterday, AFA released a communication regarding JCTE contractual 48/7 and out of base waivers that were supposed to be installed in an update to JCTE last night.  Early this morning, we were advised by management that the update to the JCTE software was not successful and these waivers have not been installed.  As of now, management has been unable to provide us with a timeframe as to when we can expect the software to be successfully updated.

Please be mindful when grabbing or trading trips that JCTE continues to lack these waiver notifications. If you have any questions about JCTE contractual waivers, please contact your Local Scheduling Committee.

In Solidarity,

Your MEC – Jeffrey Peterson, Brian Palmer, Linda Christou, Lisa Pinkston, Terry Taylor, Mario de’Medici, Melissa Osborne, Tim Green, Brice McGee; and MEC Scheduling Committee Chairperson Jake Jones

[L-AS] JCTE Contractual 48/7 and Out of Base Waivers

This message is for pre-merger Alaska Airlines Flight Attendants

AFA was advised that JCTE will be receiving an update on the evening of May 8, 2018, that will include the contractual 48/7 waiver (Section 8.L) and out of base warnings that previously existed in eMaestro.  It is important to remember when picking up or trading, you may be required to waive or accept provisions.  If you waive a provision when processing a direct trade, you will also be waiving the contractual protections for the Flight Attendant receiving the trip.   Prior to processing a trade, it is important that you discuss any contractual waivers with the Flight Attendant who will be receiving the trip and determine whether s/he agrees to any contractual waivers.  If you choose to accept the waivers when processing a trade, this acceptance will be noted in the system and pay protection and/or rest requirements may not apply.  Refer to Section 8.N of the CBA for waiver of contractual rest.

If you have any questions about JCTE contractual waivers, please contact your Local Scheduling Committee.

In Solidarity,

Your MEC – Jeffrey Peterson, Brian Palmer, Linda Christou, Lisa Pinkston, Terry Taylor, Mario de’Medici, Melissa Osborne, Tim Green, Brice McGee; and MEC Scheduling Committee Chairperson Jake Jones

[pmAS] Follow Up to April Bid Re-Award

This message is for pre-merger Alaska Airlines Flight Attendants

On Tuesday, March 13, AFA released information about the April bid re-award that recently took place.  The initial need for a re-award came about after several bid protests were filed based on the original April line awards.  After further investigation, the protests were found to be valid and the error occurred due to programming in the new web app user interface of Navblue PBS.  The programming error affected the bids of 22 Flight Attendants which required that action be taken to properly honor those bids. Resolving the bid protests was bound to have an impact on the previously awarded lines of Flight Attendants beyond those who initially filed bid protests.

After Navblue corrected the necessary programming but prior to running the bid re-awards, Crew Planning and the PBS Committee had the need to perform some administrative work in PBS to ensure that Flight Attendant bids properly reflected those that were originally entered prior to bids closing on March 10th.  Performing this work required that PBS be switched back into the normal bid entry mode so that the necessary work could be done.  The system does not contain the ability to be switched into a “maintenance” or “offline” mode where administrators can work in the system while preventing Flight Attendants from also making entries.  As a result of this, it was also possible for Flight Attendants to log in to the system and make bid entries during the period of time that the administrators were in the system verifying the integrity of original bids.

Section 10.J.4 of the Flight Attendant collective bargaining agreement states that a Flight Attendant must submit her/his bid by 9 AM Pacific time on the 10th of the month prior to the bid period.  Management’s failure to have PBS properly programmed to prevent additional bid entries while the administrators were working in the system has resulted in a clear contractual violation.  At no time did AFA agree to an exception or waiver to this contractual provision.

The MEC had substantial discussion regarding what transpired, including the possibility of requesting that a full re-bid be conducted for the month of April.  The option of a full re-bid was determined to be unfeasible as it would have had a greater negative impact on Flight Attendants, especially those who would be unable to participate in the re-bid (on vacation, etc.) as well as those who had planned their schedules around the F/A-to-F/A and Open Time trading timeline.

AFA will be pursuing resolution to the contractual violation through the grievance process and every other avenue at our disposal.  The MEC Grievance Committee has already filed grievance number 36-99-2-116-18 addressing management’s failure to comply with the contractual bidding timeline.  We will also be calling for a meeting with inflight management to have additional conversation about the new Navblue PBS user interface, the associated programming errors, and the necessary steps that need to be taken to prevent reoccurrence of a similar situation.

In Solidarity,

Your MEC – Jeffrey Peterson, Brian Palmer, Linda Christou, Lisa Pinkston, Terry Taylor, Mario de’Medici, Melissa Osborne, Tim Green and Brice McGee

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