Dear Flight Attendants,
Your Master Executive Council (MEC) just wrapped up its March MEC meeting this week and it is time to give you an update.
Negotiations Survey
We know everybody is anxious to hear from the leadership in regards to negotiations. The next step in the process is a survey to the membership to determine the bargaining objectives for the next round of talks. Your leadership is committed to achieving comprehensive and accurate survey results that reflect the needs of the membership. Consequently, AFA has retained the Hart Research Group (http://www.hartresearch.com/) to administer the negotiations survey. AFA and Hart have discussed employing several different methods to gather data including monitoring social media and discussion boards in addition to using a traditional phone and/or online survey.
Your current Negotiating Committee members are meeting next week to gather preparatory materials for Hart. We’re targeting the survey to be out as soon as possible after April 11th. Why April 11th? Council 39 Portland and Council 19 Seattle have officer elections underway with a count date of April 11th. The leadership doesn’t want too many moving pieces in play at any given time so we’re going to wait until polls so everybody can focus on the survey.
Negotiating Committee Interviews
As a reminder, interviews for the Negotiating Committee will take place on April 17th at the AFA MEC office in Seattle. All qualified and interested candidates (including current members of the committee) are encouraged to apply no later than April 10th. The MEC will provide additional information in regards to qualifications, duties and compensation in a separate communication due out in the coming days.
Mediated Negotiations to Resume
Under the Railway Labor Act (RLA), we will be back in mediation when we return to the table. These talks will carry on under the purview of the National Mediation Board (NMB) and we believe Victoria Gray will continue as the federal mediator assigned to our case. The parties have set a tentative date of mid-May to resume mediated negotiations.
Upcoming Company Town Hall Meetings
The MEC has received plenty of feedback from the membership regarding the upcoming Company “Town Hall” meetings. During our MEC meeting this week the officers met with management to pass along our members’ concerns. We strongly advocated to management to reconsider the timing of the Town Hall meetings and we are optimistic that management is taking our request under serious consideration.
Consequently, the MEC is holding off on taking a strong public position on the Town Hall meetings until management has had an opportunity to respond. There has been quite a lot of email and phone discussion with management about this issue all the way up to the publication of this communication. The MEC is expecting further developments very soon so stand by for an update shortly.
In solidarity,
Your MEC—Jeffrey Peterson, Brian Palmer, Yvette Gesch, Becky Strachan, Laura Masserant, Cathy Gwynn and Sandra Morrow
