2015

No Junior Assignment for anybody who picks up a Premium Open Time trip returning on December 24th or 25th

December 23, 2015 18:00

Temporary contractual modification approved by roll call vote

By majority roll call vote, the Master Executive Council (MEC) has approved a temporary contractual modification that makes anybody who picks up a Premium OT trip returning to domicile on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day ineligible for Junior Assignment off of that trip. Inflight management requested this temporary contractual modification with the hope that more flight attendants will pick up from Premium Open Time if they know they will not be JA’able on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day. However, this request was made without any guarantee that they would have supervisors and managers flying as well.

Not an easy decision…

This was not an easy decision to make because there are several pro’s and con’s on each side of the argument whether or not to grant the temporary contractual waiver. Under the default MEC voting procedure outlined in the AFA-CWA Constitution & Bylaws in Article VII.D.5.b [Master Executive Councils –> Master Executive Council Meetings –> Voting], each voting member of the MEC casts one vote on any issue before the MEC. A majority determines the outcome.

Votes were cast as follows:

Yes: 19 SEA, 39 PDX

No: 15 SAN, 18 LAX, 30 ANC.

Motion failed.

Roll call voting record

Council 19 Seattle subsequently requested a roll call vote on the issue, which is in order under the provisions of Article VII.D.5.b. In a roll call, each voting member of the MEC receives one vote for each member in good standing s/he represents. A majority determines the outcome. Votes were re-cast as follows:

Council number, number of dues paying members (in parenthesis), name of voting member(s) (in brackets), voting record

15 SAN (240) [Buker]: 0 Yes / 240 No

18 LAX (454) [Morrow]: 0 Yes / 454 No

19 SEA (1882) [Jones]: 1800 Yes / 82 No

30 ANC (315) [Pinkston]: 0 Yes / 315 No

39 PDX (452) [Gwynn]: 452 Yes / 0 No

Yes: 2252 / No: 1091

Motion carries.

* * *

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact your LEC president.

In solidarity,

Your MEC – Jeffrey Peterson, Brian Palmer, Yvette Gesch, Lisa Pinkston, Laura Masserant, Cathy Gwynn, Sandra Morrow and Stephen Couckuyt

Temporary Waiver to Allow Crew Scheduling to Withhold Trips from Open Time for Assignment to Reserves at Noon

December 23, 2015 13:16

Temporary contractual waiver in order to minimize Junior Assignment

In order to minimize Junior Assignment for tomorrow, the Master Executive Council (MEC) has granted the temporary ability for Crew Scheduling to pull trips from Open Time for Christmas Eve assignment to Reserves effective immediately (approximately 12:30 PM PT at the time the waiver was granted).

Therefore Section 10.E.d [Open Time] should be temporarily interpreted as the following:

Crew Scheduling may remove sequences from OT no earlier than 2:00 12:00 PM PT for reserve assignments for the following day except as provided for in Section 7.F.1.a. [“Job Familiarization” Flights…]. Any sequence not assigned to a Reserve by 6:00 PM PT will be returned to OT. Any sequences that become available after 2:00 12:00 PM PT will be subject to the withholding provisions of 1.d., below.

Any other contractual citations that refer to the withholding of trips at 2:00 PM PT for assignment to Reserves should be temporarily interpreted as noon. Example of 10.E.1.c [Open Time]:

Crew Scheduling may withhold a sequence from OT for up to fifteen minutes (:15) when necessary to determine a Like Sequence pursuant to Section 10.R. [Reassignments] and 12.J. [Crew Scheduling Trading Errors], or a Reserve or JA assignment. This includes sequences that become available between 2:01 12:01 PM PT and 6:00 PM PT the day prior to report. If Crew Scheduling does not assign the sequence within fifteen minutes (:15) but neglects to return it to OT, a Flight Attendant may contact Crew Scheduling and request the trade/pickup on a first-come, first-served basis. If the Flight Attendant then flies the sequence, s/he will be paid one (1.0) TFP in addition to all applicable compensation.

Although the contractual time is 2 PM under the current contract, trips could be pulled at noon in the previous contract. Therefore, the MEC does not anticipate a significant impact compared to the benefit received by minimizing JA.

“Premium” Premium Open Time

Inflight management has agreed to start widely using “premium” Premium Open Time, so we are appreciative of the step in the right direction. Crew Scheduling has posted double time (2x or $$ in eMaestro), but AFA will continue to strongly advocate for the use of additional premiums in order to further minimize JA and protect the operation.

Premium pay

Any premiums are paid on flights flown and not on Minimum Pay Rules (MPRs) or Sit Pay. All TFP is credited at straight time towards your 480 TFP thresholds, Quarterly Productivity Premium (QPP) and other similar provisions. For example, a 5.0 TFP trip at 2x premium is paid at double your trip rate but still credited at 5.0 TFP towards your thresholds. It is somewhat of a flight attendant urban legend that “the trip is worth 10.0 TFP.” It is true that the trip is worth the equivalent of 10.0 TFP at straight pay, but it’s really not paid out that way.

* * *

We apologize in advance if anybody is inconvenienced by this temporary departure from the norm.

In solidarity,

Your MEC – Jeffrey Peterson, Brian Palmer, Yvette Gesch, Lisa Pinkston, Laura Masserant, Cathy Gwynn, Sandra Morrow and Stephen Couckuyt

Junior Assignment December 2015

December 22, 2015 18:00

CSKD is currently JA’ing in Seattle, Portland and Los Angeles

Crew Scheduling is currently utilizing the new Junior Assignment (JA) language in Section 9 Junior Available and Premium Open Time in order to staff flights over the next several days. AFA believes JA is currently limited to the Seattle, Portland and Los Angeles domiciles, but there are no guarantees that other domiciles will remain unaffected.

So what happened to staffing?

Going into this week management believed staffing was more than adequate. However there has been a significant spike in sick leave utilization over the past several days that exceeded staffing resources. Inflight management directed Crew Scheduling to start JA’ing in order to maintain the operation just after 10 AM Pacific Time this morning.

No “premium” (2x or greater) Premium Open Time

Despite the fact that your Negotiating Committee specifically advocated for a tiered Premium Open Time system in order to maximize flexibility for Crew Scheduling and minimize the potential for JA, management has refused to utilize Premium Open Time higher than a 1.5x premium. Why would management want to force flight attendants to fly when they are scheduled to be off duty and pay them a 2.5x premium rather than offering Premium Open Time to eager volunteers at, say, double time (2x premium or listed as $$ in eMaestro)? Or alternatively, if the Company anticipated that it was going to pay the JA premium of 2.5x, but Crew Scheduling could find an eager volunteer through Premium OT at the same premium (2.5x premium or listed as $$$ in eMaestro), wouldn’t it make sense to take the volunteer over the draftee?

We believe Inflight management has been unwilling to offer Premium Open Time any higher than the standard (1.5x premium or listed as $ in eMaestro) because they fear creating an expectation that such premiums will be routinely available around the holidays. There is a certain logic to that line of thinking, but the Master Executive Council (MEC) does not understand how avoiding setting expectations for “premium” Premium OT is better than JA’ing. The Company is going to spend more money JA’ing than if management had sweetened Premium OT to 2x premium prior to JA’ing.

JA eligibility

A flight attendant cannot be Junior Assigned on vacation or while off duty—any JA notification must occur while on duty and prior to the conclusion of the scheduled debrief period. The list is comprised of all flight attendants on duty during the JA period in question and who are legal to accept a JA. Assignments are made off that list in reverse seniority (junior) order.

A flight attendant cannot be JA’d into any day that was traded away or dropped from her/his original schedule as long as the day(s) has not been subsequently restored prior to JA. There are several other contractual provisions in Section 9 that govern JA procedures, which are too numerous to detail here. A JA list will be posted after the fact and accessible via the World of Inflight. If you believe that you were JA’d out of order, you will have the ability to review the list yourself or you can seek assistance from AFA.

JA procedures

Under the new contract, Crew Scheduling may JA up to the full calendar day prior to the trip. Unfortunately, Inflight management waited until after 10am this morning to JA, which very likely resulted in artificially inflating the seniority of those who were ultimately JA’d. You see, Crew Scheduling lost the opportunity to potentially JA anybody who returned to domicile prior to 10am this morning. If JA had been initiated earlier, many more flight attendants would have been in the JA pool.

AFA believes management waited so long because they were seeking a contractual waiver from the MEC. Management asked if the MEC would allow Reserves to be assigned earlier than provided by contract, believing this would minimize the need to JA. The MEC declined the waiver, and JA began shortly thereafter.

In our opinion, Inflight management ironically made JA worse by going more senior as a result of the wait. This is extremely unfortunate considering that AFA provided the exact same feedback and recommendations to Inflight management earlier this year. Very similar circumstances occurred during the last and only other time we have JA’d under the new contractual rules.

Trading JA and Pay

Flight Attendants may trade or give away JA assignments. Until the new JA rules are programmed into the new crew management system, flight attendants will be able to post a JA trip on the eMaestro bulletin board using a workaround: Crew Scheduling must first remove the default “PP” label code. Crew Scheduling was initially unaware of the workaround earlier in the day, but going forward they have been informed of the interim procedure. For your information, the new system is called Jeppesen Crew Tracking Enterprise (JCTE) and it is scheduled to go live later in 2016.

Suggestion: use the “Comments” field to indicate the trip is a Junior Assignment at 2.5x premium. Junior Assignments are paid at 2.5x premium for all flying (excludes Minimum Pay Rules and Sit Pay). If a JA is flown on a flight attendant paid holiday (e.g. Christmas), the total premium is 3.5x for flights flown on the holiday.

Crew Scheduling must manually process the actual trading of the trip(s) in eMaestro. It is Crew Administration’s responsibility to reconcile the JA pay with the trip, but we anticipate this will all be automated in JCTE. Until implementation of JCTE, we recommend that you submit an Activity Claim Form on the World of Inflight in order to claim the JA premium.

Recommendations so far

In summary, AFA would have preferred that Inflight management had more aggressively utilized “premium” Premium OT once management had identified a staffing need prior to the date in question. If increasing premiums did not improve staffing and management deemed it necessary to JA, that decision ideally should have been made much earlier in the morning in order to sufficiently widen the pool.

* * *

There are many moving parts to the operation at the moment, so it will likely take some time to gather all the facts and for management and AFA to debrief the holiday staffing. In the meantime if you have any questions or concerns, contact one of your local Scheduling Committee members or Local Executive Council (LEC) officers (ANC 30 | SEA 19 | PDX 39 | LAX 18 | SAN 15).

In solidarity,

Your MEC – Jeffrey Peterson, Brian Palmer, Yvette Gesch, Lisa Pinkston, Laura Masserant, Cathy Gwynn, Sandra Morrow, Stephen Couckuyt; and MEC Scheduling Committee Chairperson Jake Jones

End of Year Reminders 2015

December 16, 2015 16:15

As we approach the end of 2015, the Master Executive Council (MEC) wants to remind you of a few important items. But first we want to thank all of you for your professionalism and support this past year. We are truly honored to represent the best Flight Attendants in the industry!

AFA EAP

Alaska Flight Attendants are the best in the industry and this is due, in part, to our amazing Employee Assistance Program (EAP) Committee! EAP is always available to assist and support you. As we approach the holiday season our jobs become much more difficult and we are away from our families. EAP peers help FAs assess their expectations, troubles, health issues and commitments. Re-evaluating commitments and expectations will help to make the holiday season more manageable and enjoyable. AFA EAP’s greatest tool is the ability to listen, calming the presenting issue. Referring to professional resources appropriate when the FA is unable to find resolution.

You can find EAP contact information here: http://afaalaska.org/eap.

Employee Choice Travel Credits

Please remember that you need to convert any remaining Employee Choice Travel Credits by December 31, 2015. Once you convert the credits you have three months to travel or make changes to those credits. These credits do not roll over! You will find your Employee Choice Travel Credits in your Paperless Employee Travel (PET) account.

Uniform Allotments

Allotment #3 from late 2013 will expire on December 31^st. Allotment #2 from January 2015 and allotment #1 from July 2015 will rollover into 2016 and expire after next December. If you have used up all other allotments, they will not be numbered separately in the uniform allotment look-up function.

Taxes and shipping will be covered once the new Land’s End portal is up and running, which is scheduled to debut on December 17^th. Multiple allotments will be combined into one allotment at that time as well. True blue/China blue items are being discontinued in the uniform program as of April 1, 2016. You will receive an additional allocation on December 17^th for any True blue/China blue items purchased in 2015 and that allocation will expire on September 30, 2015.

You can find the link to Land’s End on your World of Inflight FA homepage under the pictures. Make sure you copy your People Soft (PS) number from your homepage, as you will need this number to access the allotment link on the Land’s End homepage and to place uniform orders. If you have questions you can contact your Local Executive Council (LEC) Uniform Committee.

Changes to Occufit Solutions Compression Hose/Stockings

Beginning January 1, 2016, there is a change to the current coverage of non-medical (low-grade) compression hose/stockings. On this date, low-grade compression hose/stockings are no longer covered under the health plan–even if the employee has a prescription for them. Employees can still use their FSA/HSA dollars if they have a prescription from their healthcare provider. Medical-grade compression stockings will continue to be covered on the health plan, assuming they are medically necessary and prescribed.

If you have any questions about your FSA/HSA accounts please refer to the 2016 Employees Medical Handbook (Alaskasworld (log in required) –> Benefits/Pay –> Health Care and Total Rewards –> Health and Insurance –> Your Employee Handbook [under “Quick Links”]); or you can contact Premera for the information.

Questions About Your Christmas / News Year’s Day Trip?

Remember: if you have scheduling questions make sure you contact your LEC Scheduling Committee. You can also find the electronic version of the contract on your IMD and on the web at http://afaalaska.org/contract.

Year End Record Improvement: Section 32.G.4

Please note there is a change to the year-end record improvement application:

At the end of each calendar year, any Flight Attendant who has achieved a minimum of four-hundred eighty (480.0) TFP including vacation/Longevity PTO and who has four (4) or fewer points and did not accumulate // any point(s) since November 1^st of that year, will have her/his record reduced to zero (0) points. In no circumstances will a Flight Attendant receive more than eighty (80.0) unpaid TFP credit toward the four-hundred eighty (480.0) TFP threshold calculation for purposes of this provision. Unpaid TFP credit will be applied and/or the look back period will be modified consistent with Sections 15.M. [Leaves with Coordination…] and 15.N. [Unpaid Leaves…], as applicable.

It usually takes a few weeks into January for the year-end record improvement adjustment to occur.

* * *

We wish everyone a safe and happy winter holiday season and a Merry Christmas!

In solidarity,

Your MEC – Jeffrey Peterson, Brian Palmer, Yvette Gesch, Lisa Pinkston, Laura Masserant, Cathy Gwynn, Sandra Morrow and Stephen Couckuyt

Date of Signing Raises on December 17, 2015!

December 14, 2015 05:00

The Master Executive Council (MEC) and your Contract Committee is excited to point out that on December 17, 2015, a date of signing raise is in effect.

CBA Section 21.A., states:

STEP RATES OF PAY

Flight Attendants will be compensated on the basis of the appropriate step rate as follows:

Step DOS DOS +1 DOS +2 DOS +3 DOS +4

DOH* $21.31 $21.63 $21.95 $22.28 $22.62

Step 1 $24.16 $24.52 $24.89 $25.26 $25.64

Step 2 $25.35 $25.73 $26.12 $26.51 $26.91

Step 3 $27.53 $27.94 $28.36 $28.79 $29.22

Step 4 $28.75 $29.18 $29.62 $30.06 $30.51

Step 5 $32.40 $32.89 $33.38 $33.88 $34.39

Step 6 $35.56 $36.09 $36.63 $37.18 $37.74

Step 7 $36.70 $37.25 $37.81 $38.38 $38.95

Step 8 $37.71 $38.28 $38.85 $39.43 $40.02

Step 9 $39.12 $39.71 $40.30 $40.91 $41.52

Step 10 $42.00 $42.63 $43.27 $43.92 $44.58

Step 11 $44.82 $45.49 $46.17 $46.87 $47.57

Step 12 $48.78 $49.51 $50.25 $51.01 $51.77

Step 13 $49.69 $50.43 $51.19 $51.96 $52.74

Step 14 $50.59 $51.35 $52.12 $52.90 $53.70

Step 15 $51.50 $52.27 $53.06 $53.85 $54.66

If you look under your applicable step rate and then look over to DOS+1 that will your new rate of pay as of December 17, 2015. This is a raise in addition to your anniversary step increase and longevity premium, if applicable.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all!

Your MEC – Jeffrey Peterson, Brian Palmer, Yvette Gesch, Lisa Pinkston, Laura Masserant, Cathy Gwynn, Sandra Morrow and Stephen Couckuyt

Your Contract Committee – MEC President Jeffrey Peterson, Kristy Stratton, Lisa Pinkston, Jake Jones, Christina Frees and AFA Senior Staff Negotiator Paula Mastrangelo

Temporary contractual modification approved by roll call vote

Not an easy decision…

Roll call voting record

* * *

Temporary contractual waiver in order to minimize Junior Assignment

“Premium” Premium Open Time

Premium pay

* * *

CSKD is currently JA’ing in Seattle, Portland and Los Angeles

So what happened to staffing?

No “premium” (2x or greater) Premium Open Time

JA eligibility

JA procedures

Trading JA and Pay

Recommendations so far

* * *

AFA EAP

Employee Choice Travel Credits

Uniform Allotments

Changes to Occufit Solutions Compression Hose/Stockings

Questions About Your Christmas / News Year’s Day Trip?

Year End Record Improvement: Section 32.G.4

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