The Seniority Merger Integration Committee has been contacted by some members who were confused about the recent Pilot Arbitration, and whether our seniority integration would involve arbitration.
For both Flight Attendants and Pilots, the seniority integration process is determined by the Constitution and Bylaws (C&B) of each Union. Each C&B has a unique set of rules that governs the process for the benefit of the respective memberships.
At the Airline Pilots Association (ALPA), their C&B does involve arbitration as part of their process. This addresses the needs of the members at ALPA.
At AFA-CWA, our C&B focuses on our “competitive (bidding) seniority.” We do not rely upon an outside arbitrator making decisions based upon the merged airlines. In essence, we keep our bidding seniority, and take that with us into the merger. The only permitted change is to address different training policies. In our case, since one group has competitive (bidding) seniority from the beginning of training and the other group has it from the end of training, a training adjustment may be determined.
In simplest terms, the VX Flight Attendants will see no change to their current competitive (bidding) seniority dates. The competitive (bidding) seniority dates of AS F/A’s can only be adjusted to accommodate the difference in training policies, but otherwise everyone on that list will remain in the same relative order. The work of determining a training adjustment and merging the lists will be accomplished by the Seniority Merger Integration Committee during January 2018.
Reminder: If you did not receive your Seniority Verification Letter (SVL), you may request that a duplicate be sent to you by email. To do so, send your request to the following email address: seniority@afacwa.org. Your request must include your Name, Employee Number, Council/Base, and your Email Address.
Note that November 24 is the deadline to notify us of any inaccuracies. Instructions are on your SVL.
In Solidarity,
Your Seniority Merger Integration Committee – Sandra Morrow (AS), Rolando Teran (VX), Lynne Voigtsberger (VX) and Marie Maxwell (AS)
