Inflight Service Committee
Happy New Year from your Inflight Service Committee.
This is the time of year to start thinking about the spring and summer months. The lead time required to make catering changes is typically 3 to 6 months. If you are currently flying a particular city pair and you regularly have product shortages such as Bloody Mary mix, Irish Cream, ginger ale, etc… now is the time to be reporting these shortages using B2B. The more reports that are submitted the more likely we will see changes.
Membership Committee
Over the past several months, the company has offered various staffing adjustment leaves.
Staffing adjustment leaves are unpaid leaves. Dues are owed for the first 90 days of an unpaid leave. Union dues are taken out of your 20th paycheck each month; missed dues deductions will need to be paid directly to AFA.
For example, if you took a staffing adjustment leave in October, you will likely owe November dues because your November 20th paycheck did not have enough money to deduct union dues.
If you are on unpaid leave and past your 90 days, you will be considered inactive. If you remain inactive, payroll will usually turn off your auto-deduction. Once you have returned to active status, your auto-deduction should be turned back on. On occasion, corporate payroll has missed turning back on some auto-deductions. It is important that you check that your auto deduction is turned back on; otherwise, you might be accruing a dues balance after returning from an unpaid leave. You can monitor your deductions by looking at your monthly 20th paycheck pay statement in the after-tax deduction column titled union dues. If you find that dues aren’t being taken out of your paycheck please contact adam.clarey@afaalaska.org.
When returning from unpaid leave, there is a good chance you will owe union dues your first month back because there is not enough money on your 20th paycheck.
For those on paid leave (coordinating vacation and/or sick leave), you will owe dues each month. Depending on how much you are coordinating and your other deductions, you might not have enough money on your 20th paycheck to cover union dues. You would need to pay AFA directly if there is not enough money on your 20th paycheck to cover union dues.
Online Payment
Payment Options
If you have questions, you can reach out to our Membership Chair and Council Secretary, Adam Clarey at adam.clarey@afaalaska.org.
Mobilization Committee
Your mobilization committee continues our work to mobilize our membership and support our negotiating committee.
Our Picket event on Dec. 19 had almost 400 participants, and was paired with our Strike Vote Announcement. Strike Voting is now open, and ballots were sent on January. 3rd. Remember to vote by Feb. 13th. I recommend voting as soon as you get your ballot. It only takes a few minutes.
Lastly, save the date for our Worldwide Flight Attendant Day of Action on Feb. 13. We will be picketing with Flight Attendants around the world as we collectively fight for fair and equitable contracts. More information to come on this.
We’re always looking for more Mobilization Volunteers. If you’re interested, sign up at https://contract2022.afaalaska.org/mobilization/volunteer/signup/
Personal Message from our Mobilization Chair:
I have been so proud and grateful to serve you as your Seattle Mobilization chair, and Vice Chair of the reserve committee. I will be transferring to SFO in the February bid month, so I need to step down from my roles within Council 19, but I am so grateful for the opportunity to serve our membership in SEA. I will continue to work with our newly appointed mobilization vice chair, Andrew Stinson until a replacement is found. If you are interested in the Mobilization Chair position, submit your resume to sea@afaalaska.org by Feb. 1 at 5 pm. Interviews will be held in March. I want to thank all of you for the amazing support I have received, and I look forward to finding more ways to serve our membership in SFO, and beyond. Please remember to vote, and remain active in our union. – Ian Haywood
Reserve Committee
With the holiday season behind us and staffing normalizing personal drops are being awarded at higher levels. Be aware that crew scheduling may call a reserve during their reserve availability period regarding a personal drop. In the past reserves have received no shows and unavailable for contact(s) for missing phone calls related to personal drops during their RAPs.
The holidays were busy and your local reserve committee received reports of over duty periods, cancellations and other operational issues which impacted reserve flights attendants. If something happened to you on a recent trip that you want your local reserve committee to look into further then please file a ticket at afaalaska.org and we will look into it.
Crew Access has been a source of many issues for reserve FAs lately. There is a particular issue we want reserve FAs to be aware of. When adding reserve days to an existing block that are the same reserve classification (i.e. AM/PM) they should retain their reserve classification (section 11.H.4). There is a known crew access issue which is incorrectly converting days to ER when adding days to existing blocks that span between bid periods. For example, you have an existing AM reserve block December 30-31 and you add 2 AM reserve days January 1-2 they should retain their AM classification. Crew Access will incorrectly convert days to ER and if this happens to you then please call crew scheduling and they will fix it. You may need to reference the crew access known issues list and/or ask to speak to a MOD.
Fly safe and see you out there!
Scheduling Committee
FEBRUARY MONTH REMINDER :
Section 5 of the contract defines Month. As a reminder it’s important to note for bidding and trading purposes January 31 and March 01 are added to February to create a 30 day period.
FEBRUARY PBS BASE SITS
We will be conducting PBS Base Sits in SEA NSAT Village. Visit us in person or online for PBS bidding assistance.
- Feb 6 and 8 SEA NSAT Village 6 am – 7 pm
- Virtual Sits February 8 and 9 – More information will be available on the NavBlue INFO page.
SCHEDULING FLOWCHARTS
The Scheduling Committee has compiled Flowcharts to assist in helping navigate scheduling issues when flying. They can be found on the AFA Website under Committees > Scheduling > Tools and Resources.
Uniform Committee
If you were eligible for the new uniform allotment, you should have received it by now. Our next quarterly uniform meeting will be held on February 22, 2024.
Please continue to report any quality issues for garments to alaskaservice@unisyncgroup.com. It is helpful to include photos of defects and of the tag inside.
In Solidarity,
Your Council 19 Committee Chairs and Officers
