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Representing the Flight Attendants of Alaska + Hawaiian

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C19 Government Affairs Day of Action for Sky Chefs!

April 14, 2017

3:30 pm

Alaska Corporate Headquarters

It has been ruled that Sky Chefs has violated the minimum wage for workers in Seattle and the city of SeaTac has been ordered to pay their workers over $300,000 in back wages. Despite the courts ruling, Sky Chefs has refused to pay their workers. Alaska Airlines chooses to continue to do business with Sky Chefs while knowing that they are under paying their workers.

We are asking Alaska Airlines to step up and tell Sky Chefs to honor their workers and pay them a fair wage!

Join the Rally with workers from Unite Here! Local 8, the Union that represents the workers for Sky Chefs, at 3:30pm on Friday April 14th, 2017, in front of Alaska Airlines Headquarters.

Let’s help tell Alaska Airlines that it shouldn’t do business with companies that don’t pay their workers properly.

Remember, you cannot travel non-revenue to attend this rally and you are not allowed to wear your uniform. If you have an AFA shirt, please feel free to wear that!

Questions? Contact Seattle Government Affairs LEC Chair, Kris Mason

In Solidarity,

Kris Mason

Council 19, SEA, LEC Chair, Government Affairs

christelnhall@gmail.com

C19 Seattle Election Results

The polls closed at 12:00 pm (pst) today

Congratulations to the following Officer-Elects

LEC President: Terry Taylor

LEC Vice President: Jake Jones

LEC Secretary/Treasurer: Adam Clarey

Council Representative: Megan Brown

Council Representative: Melinda Jorge

The certified results will be available on the AFA election website shortly.

The new officer term begins July 1, 2017.

Save the Date(s): Crew Access Info Sessions

Please note the following dates and locations for upcoming Crew Access information sessions.

For this round we added dates at the Alaska Airlines Flight Ops building, in addition to the dates at the base. We hope this provides more options to accommodate your schedules.

To see the list of times on each day and sign up for a classroom session click on the following link:

http://www.signupgenius.com/go/30e0e4babae2fa1f58-crew6

Thank you,

Seattle Scheduling Committee Chair, Martin Vance, and Vice-Chair, Rita Tillou.

We are anticipating that the National Mediation Board (NMB) will rule this week that AFA is the collective bargaining representative for Virgin America ITMs.  In anticipation of this ruling, the process of getting an AFA Local Council established and set up for Virgin America ITMs is already underway.  AFA Council 35 will be made up of all Virgin America ITMs based at JFK, LAX, and SFO and will be a part of the Alaska Airlines Master Executive Council.

Transitional Local Council Officer Appointments

Transitional Local Council Officers for Council 35, both a President and a Secretary, will be appointed by the AFA International Officers soon after the NMB issues its determination that AFA is the collective bargaining representative.  Transitional Officers will serve for a period of approximately four to six months until elections can be held to fill those positions.

If you haven’t already shared your feedback regarding who you would like to serve in these appointed positions, please do so by completing the online form (link provided by email).   Just a reminder that the feedback period will close on Wednesday, April 11.

Sign Up to Get Involved! 

Involvement is one of the key hallmarks of AFA.  As a member-driven Union, the more people get involved, the better your Local Council and our Union will function.  If you’re interested in getting involved in AFA and Council 35, we want to know!  Please take a few moments to complete the volunteer interest form and let us know how you might be interested in getting involved.

Click here to access the Council 35 Involvement Interest Form >>

Questions?

If you have any questions, please send an email to vx@afaalaska.org.

 

In Solidarity,

Your AFA Alaska MEC Executive Officers – Jeffrey Peterson, Brian Palmer and Linda Christou

We are aware of some issues with some Flight Attendants not being able to submit their bids.  This is related to a change in terminology with ‘Forget’ and ‘Redo’.  Another issue discovered is being able to ‘Forget’ one type of bid line is not working properly.  The new functionality is designed to maximize the number of days off you get with the prefer off bid.

In both the previous and new functionality, if a complete line cannot be built in the first completion attempt, it will go into top down inclusion:

  • In the previous functionality, when top down inclusion got to the prefer off day of week bid, it would add them in date order, trying to build a line with each additional date.
  • In the new functionality, when top down inclusion gets to the prefer off day of week bid, it will look at all possibilities to maximize the total number of that day that you get off.  It attempts to build a line with at least 1 of that day off, then at least 2 of that day off, etc.  It continues this process and attempts get as many of those days off in the completed line as it can.

Because of this changed functionality it was determined that a ‘forget’ was not necessary for this bid as it is attempting all possible combinations to get the best possible result.  As an alternative, you can use ‘Avoid Pairings if Departing On Friday’ instead of ‘Prefer Off Friday’ as that would be forgettable.  Also, using ‘Avoid Pairings if Duty on Friday’ could be used an alternative as well.

As a reminder, all negative (prefer off, avoid) bids should be placed in the order of priority in your bid group. Bids are read in order of importance from the top down.

Considering these issues and new functionalities, we have extended the bidding window.  Bidding will now close on Tuesday, April 11, 2017 at 09:00. Bid results will still be published at the regularly scheduled time.

*** Please note, the date for Open Time trading will NOT change. ***

Once again, we apologize for any confusion these issues have caused. We are in contact with Navblue and are working on a solution to ensure programming changes are communicated to us well in advance of bidding.

Thank you for your understanding. If you have any questions or need PBS help, please email PBS.QA@alaskaair.com.

A message from your PBS Committee

We are currently seeing an issue with some people not being able to submit their bids.  It is related to a change in terminology with ‘Forget’ and ‘Redo’.
If you are unable to ‘submit’, check your Default bid to make sure that there are not any ‘Redo From’ lines that are all alone…with no ‘Forget’ line coming before it.  That is what is preventing you from being able to ‘submit’ your Current or Default bid.  You will need to delete the stand-alone ‘Redo From’ line(s) in order to be able to submit your bids. Then add new ‘Forget Line’ and ‘Redo From Line’ bids if desired.
Also, if you are someone that likes to copy a previous month’s bid and paste it into your Current bid, you’ll need to re-enter any Forget and Redo From lines from scratch.  If you try copying/pasting, don’t include any ‘Forget’ or any ‘Redo From’ lines when moving the old bid to this month’s Current bid.
Another issue is that being able to ‘forget’ one type of bid line is not working properly.  You will not see any ‘Prefer Off’ by day of week lines showing up on the list of lines you can ‘forget’. A work-around is to ask for those days by date, not day of week…they now show on the list and are ‘forgettable’.
For example, instead of saying ‘Prefer Off Friday’, you will need to say ‘Prefer Off May 5, May 12, May 19, May 26’…now you will see that line on the list of lines you can ‘forget’ later in the bid.  If you don’t plan on ‘forgetting’ Fridays then you would not need to do this and can simply enter ‘Prefer Off Friday’.
We apologize for these issues…we weren’t notified in advance about this.  The problem stems from Navblue changing the terminology from ‘Forget’ to ‘Forget Line’ and from ‘Redo From’ to ‘Redo From Line’.
For help, email PBS.QA@alaskaair.com

[Note: The following email was sent to all Virgin America InFlight Teammates at 9:30am PT on Wednesday, April 5, 2017.]

To: Virgin America InFlight Teammates

From: Jeffrey Peterson, AFA Alaska Master Executive Council President

Reply To: vx@afaalaska.org

Welcome to the AFA Family, Virgin America InFlight Teammates!

We look forward to the National Mediation Board (NMB) certifying the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, AFL-CIO (AFA) as your collective bargaining representative, and we expect that certification around April 14th or shortly thereafter. The 50,000 Flight Attendants from 20 airlines in AFA are very excited to include you and strengthen our union with your participation.

Sign Up for AFA Communications

Alaska Air Group management has allowed AFA to utilize the Virgin America email system in order to contact you. Going forward, we will steer away from using company email, so we encourage you to sign up for AFA communications using a private (non-Company) email address by following this link: http://afanewsletters.org/subscribe/.

Representation from your Ranks

As AFA members, you have the right to representation from your Flight Attendant ranks at Virgin America. Shortly after each of you signs an AFA membership application, we will begin elections for union officers. It is critical that you complete a membership application right away so that you can vote for your union officers.

We encourage all Virgin America InFlight Teammates (ITMs) to learn more about what it means to represent your flying partners and serve as an AFA leader. Your resources include the AFA International and AFA Alaska websites as well as the AFA-CWA Constitution & Bylaws.

In the meantime, the AFA International Officers will appoint two Virgin America ITMs to serve as Transitional President and Secretary of your new AFA Transitional Local Council at Virgin America.

We value your input and would be thrilled to hear from you by Wednesday, April 12th about who you would like to have appointed as Transitional Officers.

Please fill out this form to volunteer yourself or to recommend your flying partner for AFA Virgin America leadership > (Link removed.)

Transitional Officers serve for a period of approximately four to six months until elections can be held to fill those positions.

Compensation

AFA is aware that non-represented employees typically receive wage increases around this time of year. We are very concerned that ITMs have not received a wage increase in several years, which currently places your pay at the bottom of the industry. Consequently, AFA and Alaska Airlines management have agreed to meet in order to discuss this subject at our earliest opportunity.

We anticipate the NMB’s certification of AFA as your representative as soon as April 14th, so the parties are tentatively planning to meet the following week. Your Transitional Local Council President will also represent you in those discussions, which is why it is so important for you to provide your input by completing the AFA Virgin America Recommendations for Appointed Leadership form. (Link removed.)

AFA Membership Application

The next step in continuing to build your strong Flight Attendant union is a membership drive. We will send an AFA Membership application to your mailing address on file with the company. Or, if you’d like to get a head start you may download and print the application from our website and send the completed form to the address printed on the application. We will send you an AFA pin and information about our union. Several of your flying partners and AFA officers at Alaska are helping with the membership drive by visiting the Virgin Villages and carrying membership applications and AFA pins to share with you as well.

If you would like to help with the membership drive and/or support AFA Virgin America in another capacity, please reply “I Want to Help!” to this newsletter.

Remember, you pay NO DUES until you vote on and approve a contract.

AFA Recognizes the Distinctive Culture at Virgin America

AFA recognizes the distinctive culture you have built at Virgin America, including the unique name for your role: Inflight Teammate. Going forward, AFA will be using the more traditional title of “Flight Attendant” in reference to our profession. Please know that AFA celebrates the culture at each of our carriers and will continue to do so throughout this merger between Virgin America and Alaska Airlines—and beyond.

Ask any question you may have and know that you are valued. We often remind each other in AFA: It doesn’t matter if you’ve been here for five minutes or thirty years. You are becoming a member of the Association of Flight Attendants and your union stands with you. We are Stronger Together, Better Together.

Once again, welcome to the AFA Family, Virgin America Flight Attendants!

In Solidarity,

Sara Nelson

AFA-CWA International President

Jeffrey Peterson

AFA-CWA Alaska Master Executive Council President

Once the NMB certifies AFA as the collective bargaining representative at Virgin America, we anticipate more merger-related activities to occur at a faster pace. The Master Executive Council (MEC) will continue to keep you updated on developments as they occur.

In Solidarity,

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

Dear Seattle Flight Attendants,

I realize in the past few months Seattle experienced a change in the type of pairings we normally see. I want to thank you for taking the time to email and share your thoughts with your Seattle scheduling committee, the AFA pairings analyst, Karen Ferrell, and me. I am working with Karen to try and balance the flying for all of us. However, Karen is only part of the equation, as we have the company pairing analyst team to reach out to, as well.

I have spent most of this week compiling your emails to share with Andy Schneider, Chad Koehnke, and his pairings team. Also, the MEC is trying to evaluate data from the April runs to see if we can try to enhance the flying for Seattle, ensuring the other bases receive their desired flying, too.

It’s not uncommon to experience months where the flying seems a little off. Part of this is due to aircraft rotation, mid-month schedule changes, and rapid growth over the past few months. However, drastic changes that affect our quality of life, productivity, and financial status should not occur as often as they have been the past few months.

Equitable flying for all flight attendants is the ultimate goal of AFA. With the amount of growth we are experiencing AFA is trying to understand the best way to apply filters for the optimizer and work with multiple influences that affect pairings.

I have sent an email to Andy and Chad with hopes of alerting them to your concerns and the necessity to work with AFA to find a balance of flying for pairings that does not affect Seattle’s quality of life. At a moments notice any base could face, and a few have experienced, a deterioration of the quality of life in their parings and when this happens it’s imperative that AFA evaluate the reasons and work to find solutions.

We need to work together to find a process that ensures flight attendants in all bases can rely on the pairings to provide quality of life, productivity, and most importantly, equality in the type of flying.

I thank you for your patience and support while we work to find a better process.

In solidarity,

Laura Masserant

LEC President, Seattle

AFA and Alaska Airlines management have entered into a letter of agreement (LOA) to facilitate eligible Flight Attendants to avoid flying to areas affected by the Zika virus. The provisions of this agreement are voluntarily available to Flight Attendants who are pregnant, attempting to become pregnant or whose partner is attempting to become pregnant.

The AFA Alaska contract page has been updated to include the Zika LOA, which is now in effect.

If you have any questions, contact your LEC president.

In Solidarity,

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

Congressional offices and victim rights advocates have reached out to AFA about the incidents of onboard sexual assault that has been reported by several media sources. As the expert voice in the cabin, AFA can make a difference for Flight Attendants and the passengers in our care.

This 1-minute anonymous survey, distributed by AFA, will help us gather information about Flight Attendants’ experiences with passenger on passenger onboard sexual assaults.

Your answers will help AFA better understand the extent and nature of this issue. The survey will be open through Sunday, April 2, 2017.

Take the survey >

In Solidarity,

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

Discover The AFA Online Learning Academy

As part of Membership Engagement Committee Focus Month, we’re excited to spotlight one of our core missions: empowering you with knowledge and confidence to participate more fully in our Union. When we understand how our Union works, we strengthen our collective voice and create a more engaged community. To help you on this journey, we’re […]

Scheduling Committee Meeting Recap – July 2026

This message is for pre-merger Alaska Flight Attendants On Tuesday, July 21, our pre-merger Alaska AFA Scheduling Committee Chairpersons and Representatives met in person at Alaska Global Training Center to discuss their ongoing work to represent our Flight Attendants and push for improvements in our workplace. Representing you at the meeting were Rebekah Olds (ANC), […]

Joint Contract Negotiations Session 17 – July 2026

This session, the JNC focused on refining the Reserve survey to ensure a comprehensive representation of member concerns. Significant progress was also made on Section 23 (Insurance Benefits), with proposals aimed at enhancing Flight Attendant protections and securing tailored insurance provisions. Additionally, productive discussions continued on Section 30 (Training). Further improvements are anticipated pending management’s response to our latest proposal.

Air Safety, Health, & Security Committee Meeting Recap – July 2026

On Wednesday, July 15, our Air Safety, Health, & Security Committee (ASHSC) representatives met virtually to discuss ongoing safety concerns, operational challenges, policy updates, and workplace improvements impacting Flight Attendants across the operation. Representing you at the meeting were Deb Wallstrom (ANC), David Lake (SEA), Kalin Lackey (PDX), Bradley Young (SFO and MEC ASHSC Vice […]

Hotel Committee Meeting Recap – July 2026

On Monday, July 13, our AFA Hotel Committee Chairpersons met in-person to receive an update about current layover hotels and transportation providers and discuss concerns with management. Representing you at the meeting were Dori Marron (ANC), Jarod McNeill (SEA pmAS), Kelly Hepworth (PDX), Hilary Streem (SFO), Le’a Tupola (LAX/SEA pmHA), Brian Sherill (LAX pmAS), and […]

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