In This Edition
- Grievance Committee Update
Grievance Committee Update
Grievance Committee
The Master Executive Council (MEC) has been very hard at work ensuring disciplinary due process and contractual compliance on your behalf. The contract requires a minimum of 13 arbitration dates yearly to dispute discipline/termination cases and contractual issues. Termination cases are typically prioritized in order to return a Flight Attendant back to work as soon as possible; however, we seek a balance between discipline and contractual cases. AFA and management mutually decide which cases to arbitrate next based on many factors.
Steps of discipline are confirmation of oral warning (COW), written warning (WW), suspension (varied number of days) to termination. COWs, WWs, and suspensions remain in the FA’s file for 18 months, and then are removed. If a Flight Attendant is in a step of discipline and gets another violation, the new violation will build on the previous violation. Management doesn’t always progressively travel up the steps of discipline. If management investigates a Flight Attendant for theft or abuse of sick leave, for example, management will terminate the Flight Attendant if there is evidence to support its findings; if there is no evidence, then the Flight Attendant will most likely be issued a record of discussion (ROD). A ROD is not considered discipline. There is no middle ground for certain violations.
Subject of Most Recent Discipline
- Theft. Anything other than an opened/used bottle of water, unused pilot crew meal or purchased food removed from the aircraft will result in termination. (Temporarily there are COVID-19 exceptions).
- Sick leave and FMLA abuse—Terminations on the rise due to travel audits among other things. Anything written in the comments posting of trip trades and personal drops can be seen, even if eventually deleted. If management determines abuse it results in termination.
- Timecard fraud—For example: Holding the door open to obtain sit pay or picking up additional trips to inflate pay protection after notification of a COVID-19 exposure. Management has terminated for these violations.
- Drug/Alcohol violations
- Harassment
- Reserves commuting during reserve availability period even if self-assigned a trip. Management has terminated for this reason several times.
- Social media violations, including “friending” or “following” passengers on social media from information gained from the IMD
- Commuter Violations
- Flight Attendant was released from deadhead and used D8Y (commuter boarding priority) to travel home from an outstation
- Flight Attendant used D8Y when they picked up out of base
- Flight Attendant used D8Y to/from incorrect cities
- Flight Attendant used D8Y for pleasure travel
- Lost IMD or other required items
- Failing to complete CBT—even if FA just forgets to hit the close out x at the top to switch it from in process to complete.
Recent Arbitration/Mediation
| Arbitration | July | Contractual Grievance |
| Arbitration | August | Contractual Grievance |
| Arbitration | September | Disciplinary Grievance |
Recent Arbitration Awards
None
Recent Grievance Settlements
None
Grievances Pending Final Settlement
Grievance No.: 36-99-2-144-19-Violation §13.D.1 Uniform Allotment and Optional Pieces. This grievance alleges the Company’s violation of Collective Bargaining Agreement §13.D.1 [Uniforms: Uniform Allotment/Credits], past practice and all related sections of the Collective Bargaining Agreement when it refused to give Flight Attendants the ability to purchase Luly Yang inspired by Alaska Airlines optional uniform pieces (which are or will be available for purchase at the Alaska Airlines Company store) with their contractual uniform allotted funds.
Grievance No.: 36-99-2-170-19-Violation of §19.A Investigatory Meetings. This grievance alleges the Company’s violation of Collective Bargaining Agreement § 19.A [Grievance Procedures], past practice, and all related sections of the Collective Bargaining Agreement when on or about October 29, 2019, at Washington Dulles International Airport (IAD), it conducted an investigatory meeting related to a slide deployment with all Flight Attendants assigned to work flight 623 (IAD-SFO) while they were on duty, without providing adequate opportunity to obtain Union representation in the form of an AFA Grievance Representative, and without providing the option of conducting the meeting on their day off with accompanying pay of four (4.0) TFP.
Grievances Recently Granted by Management
Grievance 36-99-2-275-20-Violation of §30.A.2 Training Hours. This grievance alleges the Company’s violation of Collective Bargaining Agreement §30.A.2 [Training: Hours], past practice, and all related sections of the Collective Bargaining Agreement when on or about July 23, 2020, Flight Attendants attending Recurrent Training (RT) in Seattle were released at 5:07pm, seven (7) minutes past the contractual release time of 5:00pm.
Details: Flight Attendants who attended in this particular class will receive an additional 1.0 TFP.
Grievance 36-99-2-279-20-Violation of §30.A.2 Training Hours. This grievance alleges the Company’s violation of Collective Bargaining Agreement §30.A.2 [Training: Hours], past practice, and all related sections of the Collective Bargaining Agreement when on or about August 11, 2020, Flight Attendants attending Recurrent Training (RT) in Long Beach (LGB) were released at 4:03pm, three (3) minutes past the contractual release time of 4:00pm.
Details: Flight Attendants who attended in this particular class will receive an additional 1.0 TFP.
Grievances Recently Filed
Grievance No.: 36-99-2-320-20-Violation of §30.C.4 Computer Based Training (CBT). This grievance alleges the Company’s violation of Collective Bargaining Agreement §30.C.4 [Training: Training Pay/Computer Based Training (CBT)], past practice, and all related sections of the Collective Bargaining Agreement when on or about September 28, 2020, it added a 5th Computer Based Training for Flight Attendants to complete for 2020. Prior to adding the 5thCBT, it issued Quarter 1 CBT, training videos CBT, Quarter 2 CBT and Quarter 3 CBT.
Grievances Recently Filed and Denied
Grievance No.: 36-99-2-301-20-Violation of §3.D Scope of Agreement. This grievance alleges the Company’s violation of Collective Bargaining Agreement §3.D [Scope of Agreement: Scope], past practice, and all related sections of the Collective Bargaining Agreement when it announced beginning October 2020 through July 2021, it will operate flights with cargo in cabin seats; although such flying will occur without passengers, the Company intends to staff the flights with non-Flight Attendant employees, who will be trained to perform Flight Attendant duties, specifically including but not limited to: Firefighting duties, cargo stowage in the passenger cabin and aircraft door operation in normal and emergency mode.
More Information
For more information, including the status of previously filed grievances, please visit the Grievance Committee Activity Page.
Questions?
Please contact your Local Grievance Committee if you have any questions about the Grievance Committee update.
