Representing the Flight Attendants of Alaska + Hawaiian
Some Flight Attendants have asked to compare the value of the AA/US TA minimum “day” (based on duty period not calendar day) to the Alaska current and TA1 values. The AA/US TA has a duty period minimum (DPM) of 5.0 block-hours, which equates to 5.7 TFP at the conversion of 1.13 TFP per block-hour. The Alaska current and TA1 DPM is 4 TFP.
Contract negotiations resume this coming Monday through Wednesday in Chicago. Victoria Gray, with the National Mediation Board (NMB), will mediate the session. AFA anticipates very significant developments this week.
Since the August session in La Jolla, your Negotiating Committee and management have been hard at work seeking to finalize language in various open sections. As a result, the parties are very close to reaching tentative agreements (TAs) in many non-economic sections of our Contract. Reaching TAs in those sections early this week will pave the way to passing comprehensive economic proposals including compensation.
Over the past few weeks, management—including executive management—has made several very positive statements directly to AFA leadership as well as individual line Flight Attendants regarding expectations and goals for this session. Management had said they are coming prepared with a serious comprehensive proposal and are aiming to reach a TA on the entire contract this session.
AFA considers this a positive development and we are cautiously optimistic. However, keep in mind that AFA’s objective is clear: the TA must meet the requirements determined by the Flight Attendants in the negotiations survey and in comments to the Negotiating Committee. Even if those criteria are met, AFA will not rush to publish a TA until we are reasonably satisfied that we have secured the absolute best deal possible and all the “i’s” are dotted and the “t’s” are crossed.
Think positive thoughts and stand by for potentially big developments this session!
Mark your calendar and plan to bid Wednesday, November 12th off for our next RED Hot informational picketing event! If we don’t get a deal this session, come demonstrate our solidarity to management on the opening day of the scheduled November mediation session. More information including a sign-up link and picketing times for each base will be coming. Your Negotiating Committee is counting on your support!
In solidarity,
Your Negotiating Committee—MEC President Jeffrey Peterson, Kristy Stratton, Lisa Pinkston, Jake Jones, Christina Frees and AFA Senior Staff Negotiator Paula Mastrangelo
From Alaska Airlines Vice President of Inflight Services Andy Schneider:
This is a good question. The goal is to get as much of a FAs pay into hard-time flying as possible. We believe airlines that are able to do this for all workgroups will be more sustainable over time and less susceptible to the industry’s seemingly endless cycle of ups and downs. Our goal (every work group has productivity goals) over the next three years is to achieve 77% of pay through hard time and 23% through other items (sick leave, training, deadhead, vacation, etc). I want to reiterate that the purpose of all of this is to build a strong company that will be here for an entire career and is more immune to the down-cycles that have plagued many of the industry’s employees’ careers.
A secondary belief is that those who work more should accrue the benefit and not subsidize those who chose to work less. For example, health care coverage costs the same for someone working a great deal or very little. The rates of accruals are the same for a flight attendant who works a full schedule (the contract defines the line average that the company is required to build as between 78 TFP and 85 TFP) as it is for those who work less. In most jobs, employees who work less accrue less benefits.
Having said that, we are keenly aware that many Flight Attendants enjoy flexibility and we are not interested in scaling that back. As you know, we are working hard to modify the Open Time system to allow for more flexibility than Flight Attendants have today.
As a last thought, we opened with several suggestions with the stated intention of putting any dollars that would be saved through productivity increases right back to wages for Flight Attendants, and we also ultimately heard AFA’s concerns about personal productivity within pairings, which lead to agreement on minimum pay rules which actually reduces the amount of pay through hard time, but was still the right thing to do, so we agreed to it. We are fully aware that the negotiating committee has strong thoughts about what we have asked.
Mark your calendar and plan to bid Wednesday, November 12 off for our next RED Hot informational picketing event! Your Negotiating Committee is counting on your support to demonstrate our solidarity to management on the opening day of the scheduled November mediation session. More information including a sign-up link and picketing times for each base will be coming soon!
In Solidarity,
Your MEC – Jeffrey Peterson, Brian Palmer, Yvette Gesch, Becky Strachan, Laura Masserant, Cathy Gwynn, Sandra Morrow and Stephen Couckuyt
Your Negotiating Committee – MEC President Jeffrey Peterson, Kristy Stratton, Lisa Pinkston, Jake Jones, Christina Frees and AFA Senior Staff Negotiator Paula Mastrangelo
