April 27, 2015
Participants for AMFA:
Earl Clark – Region I Director
Michael Nelson – Region II Director
Bob Cramer – Airline Representative Local 4
Matt Townsend – Airline Representative Local 11
Shane Flachman – Airline Representative Local 18
Mike Young – Airline Representative Local 32
Danny York – Facility Maintenance DAL
Lucas Middlebrook – Legal Counsel
Participants for Southwest Airlines:
Mike Ryan - VP, Labor Relations
Gerry Anderson - Sr Director, Labor Relations
Cindy Nagle – Sr Director, Labor Relations
John Zuzu - Sr Director, Corporate Facilities
Clint Auton - Director, Corporate Facilities
Robert Dorsey - Director, Corporate Facilities
Tim Hooyman - Sr Manager, Corporate Facilities
The Negotiating Committee is providing this update to the AMFA Membership at Southwest Airlines. This report is the only official authorized written source of negotiating communications by the Committee.
We met with the Company in Dallas, Texas on Tuesday, April 21, 2015, for a scheduled two-day negotiation session. Although, we were prepared to work on all counter offers that we expected from the Company, they notified us at the onset that they had little prepared and that they could only envision meeting for one day. They also notified us that they were not prepared to present any of the other unopened articles including wages and duration.
At the March session we presented counter offers to the Company’s 14 items they identified in their “supposal,” and we were prepared to work on those items. Unfortunately, the Company only had counter proposals ready for two articles: Article 5: Hours of Service and Article 10: Filing of Vacancies. In Article 5, the Company dropped their “Employee remains in good standing (not in discipline) minimum 14-day advance notice for suspension/cancellation of Flex-Time” request. In Article 10 they struck the Union’s language detailing Temporary Vacancies in the Lead Classification and the selection process therein. They did agree that an “Employee awarded a permanent vacancy in a bid location will assume the vacant position in that bid location upon the effective date of the bid award” as opposed to when he arrives at the new bid location. The Company also dropped their proposal to have a Final Warning level (Final Letter of Warning) of the discipline process as a non-qualifier for the right to bid on vacancies away from their current station/facility.
Although we did ultimately Tentatively Agree (TA) to Article 5, there are still several items from the Company’s March “supposal” that remain unresolved. The Company is insistent on language that would give them control over filling Lead positions based on an arbitrary selection process. The FMT management team fails to understand the probationary language, which encompass basic structures of a unionized workgroup, based on a current process utilized on property successfully for over 40 years. The issue of a 16-hour duty day maximum also remains problematic as AMFA views this as an unnecessary restriction. The final two major items remaining open from the Company’s ”supposal” are “bump” rights, which we see as based solely on seniority, and enhancement to your Holiday provisions.
Our next scheduled session is for two days to commence on June 3, 2015. If you have any questions, please call your Local representative or the Region I or II Directors.
Sincerely,
Your Negotiating Committee