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Association of Flight Attendants-CWA Alaska Airlines Master Executive Council

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Crew Access Frustrations

Master Executive Council (MEC)

  • Changes to how trips are posted and displayed in Crew Access and other ongoing system issues have resulted in concerns about contractual violations and a lack of management accountability.
  • Management must provide a functional system that works correctly and has agreed to troubleshoot the current issues and review programming changes to Crew Access.
  • AFA Representatives will continue protecting Flight Attendant interests and contractual rights through all legal means available to us, including the grievance process as applicable.

We understand that many of you are frustrated with recent changes to how trips are posted and displayed in Jeppesen Crew Access, especially when it comes to trading trips with crew members or through Open Time. These issues have resulted in concerns about contract violations and an apparent lack of accountability from management. As your Union leadership, we are actively addressing these concerns and advocating for your rights.

It’s important to note that a financial award may not be an achievable or realistic remedy for contract violations brought forward to a system board of adjustment under the Railway Labor Act (RLA). Under the standards of arbitration, AFA would have the burden of proving that a specific person was denied a particular trip on a specific date and time. This is essentially impossible; even if it were, the remedy would be limited to what can be found within the “four corners of the contract” doctrine; in other words, any remedy must be contained within the contract. For example, if you were denied sit pay when you sat for two hours, you would be awarded one TFP. However, we cannot show who was specifically harmed or the dollar amount of such harm. As a result, in these circumstances, the only likely arbitral remedy for a contractual grievance would be a “cease and desist” order, which would require the Company to comply with the contract on a go-forward basis.

Compliance in this case still requires the system to work correctly, and even in the face of an award, it would not necessarily happen immediately. Management has already agreed to troubleshoot the current trip display issues in Crew Access and has expressed a willingness to implement programming changes to the Crew Access trading system potentially. Our analysis indicates that an arbitrator would likely find management’s actions an appropriate remedy for the current concerns. While we understand that this may only partially satisfy your expectations, it’s essential to recognize the legal limitations of the process.

This does not mean that we give up. As your AFA Representatives, we are committed to working towards fair and just solutions to contract violations—and filing and arbitrating grievances where appropriate. We will continue to negotiate and pursue all available avenues under the RLA and the contract to protect your interests. We understand your frustrations and encourage you to contact us with any questions or further grievances you may have. Your feedback and input are invaluable in helping us advocate for your rights and achieve positive outcomes.

We take your concerns seriously and are dedicated to holding management accountable to the terms of our contract. We appreciate your ongoing support and solidarity as we work towards resolving these issues. Together, we can continue to fight for the rights and well-being of all Alaska Airlines Flight Attendants.

AFA Special Update – Negotiations

In This Edition (October 22, 2019)

  • Open Time Negotiations October 9 & 10 Recap
  • Send Your Message to Management: Fix Crew Access NOW!
  • Block or Better vs. TFP—and Other Concerns

Open Time Negotiations – October 9 & 10 Recap

Your AFA Alaska Negotiating Committee resumed Open Time negotiations with management on October 9 & 10 in Seattle. The Master Executive Council (MEC) pulled the Open Time Tentative Agreement (TA) in May of this year over concerns that AFA and management had different interpretations of how a day would open and close for Open Time trading. The parties are re-negotiating Open Time trading rules to replace the Open Time Trial, which was officially actually canceled by AFA back in the summer of 2016. The Open Time Trial trading rules remain place today.

The parties made a lot of progress during the two-day session. In order to maintain the momentum of that session, the negotiating teams are meeting today (October 22) in Seattle.

Send Your Message to Management: Fix Crew Access NOW!

Regardless of the progress on Open Time negotiations, any possible changes to contractual trading language will mean nothing without a real-time, stable trading system that management is obligated to provide.  Your AFA Master Executive Council (MEC) is calling upon all Flight Attendants to stand together and let management know that we are tired of the excuses and ready for management to act!

Click here to send management your letter

As of today, only 25% of Alaska Flight Attendants have submitted letters to management demanding that immediate programming fixes be made to Crew Access.  That means that on a 4-person crew, only one Flight Attendant has taken action to stand up and fight back.  Spread the word and share the campaign and the link above with your flying partners and fellow Flight Attendants.  We must stand together and speak with one overwhelmingly loud voice to ensure that management hears our message—that they need to honor their obligations and fix Crew Access NOW!

Block or Better vs. TFP—and Other Concerns

Legacy Virgin America (L-VX) Flight Attendants have brought forward concerns that at least some contractual pay provisions may not be as generous as the related pay provisions in the now-defunct L-VX Work Rules. The chatter about “Block or Better” vs. TFP is just one example of several. All educational materials out there at the moment—including pay calculators—are grassroots efforts and have not been vetted for accuracy and are not endorsed by AFA leadership.

We are just one year away from serving notice to engage in Section 6 negotiations. Discussion and debate about potential negotiations topics is not only expected but also beneficial—as long as the conversation remains respectful and factual. Be aware that management often gains access to the “secret” social media venues, so we recommend that Flight Attendants refrain from discussing negotiations “wish list” items on social media due to the potentially negative strategic impact.

AFA Alaska will publish a series of educational articles covering some of the topics being talked about on the line, such as “Block hours vs. TFP” and “Block or better vs. block delay.” See the “Coming Soon” section for a more comprehensive list.

Coming Soon

Stay tuned for the following AFA negotiations special updates (order of release subject to change):

  • Open Time Negotiations – October 21 Recap
  • Block hours vs. TFP
  • Block or Better vs. Block Delay
  • Incentive Pay vs. Productivity Premium Program (PPP)
  • Inflight Team Leader (ITL) Pay vs. “A” Pay
  • Section 6 Negotiations Overview
  • Negotiating for Our Future

Jeppesen Crew Access Failed. Again. (…and Again and Again…)

Crew Access went down as SEA Open Time opened

Your Master Executive Council (MEC) is aware that Flight Attendants could not log into Jeppesen Crew Access (JCA) for approximately twenty minutes. Although access has now been restored, the outage started at 1:59 PM PT—just as Seattle Open Time trading was opening. This all went down despite a whole crew of IT personnel monitoring Open Time.

Likely not a server issue

Many of you have asked if this is related to the number of servers dedicated to Crew Access. It is too early to say whether this latest outage is a server issue, but Alaska Airlines IT and Jeppesen have sworn in the past that the number of servers is not a significant contributor to the various problems that we continue to experience.

“Real-time” trading grievance and related mediation

AFA filed a contractual grievance alleging a violation of JCBA §12.C.1 when the Company failed to provide a “real-time” trading system, and we mediated that issue in July 2017. (See “Grievance Report – July 2017” for more info.) The MEC continues to pressure management to have Jeppesen program a more “real-time” trading system as was agreed to in that mediation. Small incremental changes have been implemented in the interim, but there have been few significant fixes. Glaring system shortcomings continue to negate the various mostly cosmetic improvements so far.

Management needs to do the right thing

The MEC knows you are tired of apologies. You want accountability and action. We have asked management to provide a meaningful response to Flight Attendants. As usual, management is “looking into it.”

It is beyond time for Alaska Airlines management to provide Flight Attendants with a functional real-time trading system: Just do the right thing and fix it!

In Solidarity,

Your MEC – Jeffrey Peterson, Brian Palmer, Linda Christou, Lisa Pinkston, Terry Taylor, Mario de’Medici, Melissa Osborne, Tim Green and Brice McGee; and MEC Scheduling Committee Chairperson Jake Jones

[AS] Jeppesen Crew Access Update

This message is for pre-merger Alaska Flight Attendants

This evening at 10 PM, the largest update for Crew Access to date will be installed.  The update, which should take approximately 40 minutes, includes a combination of fixes and new items.  Included are approximately 30+ fixes will directly affect our workgroup.

The most anticipated and long awaited installation is the ability for Reserves to Advertise and Trade in Crew Access. Reserves will no longer have to use the “Reserve Trading Board” after this evening.  Attached to this communication is a PDF which gives instructions on how to Advertise, Grab, Trade, Shift, and Split Reserve blocks and days.

Below is the list of the fixes and enhancements that are included in this evenings update.

  1. Will no longer see Pilot flying preferences when logging into Crew Access.
  2. Lineholder will no longer be able to self-assign trip longer than the reserve block picked up.
  3. Lock on last 5 days of month functional
  4. Hotel reservations no longer lost on call-out
  5. Server clocks are now synced
  6. FA now able to advertise SIP departing more than three hours out
  7. Quick Trip Report – TFP now showing and Times displayed
  8. Premium trips on Published Roster will now show 1.5, 2.0, 2.5 etc.
  9. Hotel information no longer lost on SIPs
  10. “Ignore” button added to Notification window in Crew Access
  11. Days will now show as limited at 10am day prior once self-assigning starts
  12. Sipped trips that do not report on same day as original trip will now show correct day and trip number
  13. Addition of vertical delineation between calendar days
  14. HomeBase filter will no longer show all bases
  15. LAX no longer listed as Co-Terminal on LTFA
  16. Charter rest rules being applied correctly
  17. Notifications that were acknowledged but still popping up will go away
  18. “HTTP method POST not supported” message resolved
  19. Issue of check in time same as departure resolved
  20. Limiting FAs to single session. If logged in twice, you will have some functionally in the first session but will NOT be able to process transactions.
  21. “Enter” key no longer functional when trying to complete consecutive trades

Reserve Specific Changes

  1. Ability to Grab, Trade, Split Reserve days now functional
    • Ability to Direct Trade multiple reserve blocks with another FA
    • Ability to Advertise end of month and/or beginning of next month’s reserve blocks individually.
    • Reserve FAs able to give away their FAS to another FA with the same reserve block and classification
    • Able to direct trade multiple reserve blocks
    • Able to grab multiple reserve blocks
  2. LTFA will recognize start time based on release time of previous trip. 11.5 hours and 9 hours if waived rest.
    • New FAs will now show on LTFA Report
  3. Standalone airport standbys will receive 5.0 TFP
  4. Reserves that self-assign Premium trips will no longer see “1.5, 2.0, 2.5” in Roster or “Premium” in Published Roster

After this installation, we will be receiving regular updates from Jeppesen every six weeks. We still have a laundry list of items and we have been working hard with Alaska Airlines management as well as Jeppesen management to resolve these issues quickly. We appreciate your patience and we will continue to advocate for Flight Attendants and use all resources available to ensure timely fixes.

If you have any questions about this update to Crew Access, please contact your Local Scheduling Committee.

In Solidarity,

Your MEC – Jeffrey Peterson, Brian Palmer, Linda Christou, Lisa Pinkston, Laura Masserant, Cathy Gwynn, Melissa Osborne, Tim Green, Brice McGee and MEC Scheduling Committee Chairperson Zac Weeks

JCA Launches Tonight

Your new crew scheduling system launches tonight at 8:00 pm.

There will be a freeze placed on all

trading / dropping /pickups while the system is being installed

After this time you will access the new system under Schedule & Bidding.

It’s going to be very important that you view the videos to learn more about the new system.

Then, take the simple 3-question quiz to receive 1.0 tfp.

NOTE: Make sure you receive an email confirmation that you took the quiz. If you didn’t receive an email, take the quiz again. You do not have to re-watch the videos to retake the quiz.

​

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Update your contact information in PeopleSoft!

It is important to list a phone number for the company so they can contact you or your family in the event of an emergency. It is not required to list a cell phone number and the act of listing a number does not mean that you are required to answer a call from Crew Scheduling unless you are required to do so per the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA).

REMINDER: You will need your PeopleSoft ID to access the new crew scheduling system. Your Peoplesoft number is located on your crew ID (and is not your Arctic Number).

You also have the ability to list for TEXT Alerts. You can sign up for Text Alerts on AlaskasWorld.

Preferential Bidding System- PBS

The only change to the bidding system is how you log in:

In order to log into PBS, you must now use your ‘PeopleSoft’ number.  It can be found on your company I.D. card.  Arctic numbers will no longer be used for logging into PBS, Buddy Bidding or using Avoid or Award bids.

For more information, log into PBS and read the PBS Info Page.

​

Terminology:

Make sure to review the new “Terminology” for using the Crew Access trading system. You will find Crew Access Quick Tour cards available in the Inflight Resource Center.

Note:

1. In the new system your schedule is called your roster.

2. Your bid position on the trip is called role.

3. Pairing number is called Trip Number.

You can view your roster by tapping the airplane icon at the top of the screen. Use Publish Roster available at Navigation Bars/Reports/Publish Roster to print your roster.

If you wish to have your crew info shared on Trip Assignments you will need to “Opt In” under the Settings tab on the menu.

Looking to pick up or trade your trip? Make sure that you have the “Home” button selected to ensure that you are looking in the San Diego trip pool.

When you click on the ‘Pickup’ or ‘Trade’ button on a transaction the process is complete.  There is no secondary window that will open to complete the trade unless you need to waive rest or to allow pickup of a 4k trip.

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Tips on How to Locate Trade Codes

Note: If the trip assignment has a code attached (TO), it would be located under the FAR Block Time.  The trip counts towards the TSN.

Note: “No code” located under the FAR Block time means the trip has no impact on the TSN.

Remember: The change in the system does not mean that we are going “Back to Book” with trading. If you want to process a multiple trade the same rules apply.

Trading rules for trips with or without codes are in Section 12 of the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA).

  • A trip isn’t yours until you finish the transaction. The Trade Cart doesn’t “hold” it for you
  • When you advertise your trip you won’t see it listed in the Trip Pool
  • Trading or Splitting Reserve Trips? Search in First Class, Submit request via Outlook
  • There isn’t a clock within the application to indicate time related to trading windows. You will need to use the clock on your device / computer
  • Patch coming soon that to make TSN codes more visible

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