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AMFA - SWA Technician Negotiations Update #36
Jan 13, 2016

January 12, 2016

Participants for AMFA:
Louie Key – National Director
Earl Clark – Region I Director
Michael Nelson – Region II Director
Bob Cramer – Local 4 Airline Representative
Craig Hamlet – Local 11 Airline Representative
Shane Flachman – Local 18 Airline Representative
Mike Young – Local 32 Airline Representative
Lucas Middlebrook – AMFA Counsel

Participants for Southwest Airlines:
Mike Ryan – VP, Labor Relations
Gerry Anderson – Sr Director, Labor Relations
Cindy Nagel – Sr Director, Labor Relations 
Bill Venckus – Director, Labor Relations
Scott Collings – Director, Central Region
Mark Lyon – Sr Manager, Labor Relations
John Donnelly – Manager, Financial Planning


The Negotiating Committee is providing this update to the AMFA Membership at Southwest Airlines. This report is the only official authorized source of negotiating communications by the Committee.

We met with the Company on January 5, 2016, for a scheduled three (3) day Aircraft Maintenance Technician and Related (AMT) negotiation session at the National Mediation Board (NMB) headquarters in Washington, DC.  We began the morning meeting as a Committee and worked with the Mediator to re-establish the list of our concerns and positions regarding Articles 21 and 22. In our last session, we worked exclusively on these two articles. We met with the Company at 11 am and went through the list that was created for Articles 21 and 22 in our last session and informed the Company what items we could discuss further, and which items that we had no interest in pursuing. An example of an item that we were not interested in discussing was the Company’s request to have our arbitrations scheduled and heard in the order they were deadlocked in System Board. One of the items that we were open to discussing was a system of scheduling a set number of arbitration dates annually and plugging in cases as we progressed through the year. Another example of an item we were interested in discussing was a mediation/arbitration (med/arb) tool that the Airline Representatives could use for specific grievances. After we completed presenting our positions regarding the entire list of twenty-nine (29) items, the Company went through the list and informed us as to what items they were and were not interested in discussing further. We also worked together to identify items from the list that could be combined, and we identified several which cut our list of twenty-nine (29) items approximately in half. We finished the first day with the understanding that we would work on the “discovery” proposal and the Company would work on proposals regarding the rest of the items.

On Wednesday we began the day working as a Committee finalizing our discovery proposal. We met with the Company at approximately 11 am and presented our proposal. The Company presented their proposals, which included the med/arb system, rules detailing System Board timelines, and the scheduling annual arbitration dates concept. We spent the rest of the day working with the Company in an interest-based format going into greater detail on each of the items.

On Thursday we met as a Committee to finalize our proposals for Articles 21 and 22. We later presented the package to the Company, and after a short Company caucus, we agreed to Tentatively Agree (TA) on Articles 21 and 22. The Company then wanted to discuss their concerns with not having enough qualified (HGS, engine run and taxi) technicians at a particular bid location. We spent time discussing and working to address their concerns. The Company also presented us with their proposal, which detailed a discussion process that we would jointly engage in if they identified a bid location that had an insufficient number of qualified technicians. We met in a Committee caucus and worked on addressing our concerns to their proposal, and identified where, and if, this piece should reside in the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA). We later presented our counter, which addressed our concerns with the Company’s qualification offer, while providing the Company with the security that the Union will jointly work with them to identify local issues that may cause a bid location to have an insufficient number of qualified technicians. We TA’d this issue and agreed to have this process inserted into Article 24.

The next session was rescheduled for the afternoon on February 1 and a full day on February 2 due to a conflict with the Mediators schedule. We will meet in Dallas, TX and we will begin discussion on the topic of our concerns in Article 23, No Strike-No Lockout. If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to contact your representative.

Sincerely,
Your Negotiating Committee


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