May 16, 2016
Participants for AMFA:
Louie Key - National Director
Earl Clark – Chairman and Region I Director
Jason Munson – Airline Representative, Local 14
Mark Dahl – Airline Representative, Local 32
Participants for Alaska Airlines:
Greg Mays – VP Labor Relations
Kurt Kinder – VP Maintenance & Engineering
Constance Von Muehlen – Managing Director Airframe, Engine, Component MRO
Bob Hartnett – Director, Labor Relations Ground
Sonia Alvarado – Manager, Labor Services M&E
Meagan Koering – Sr Financial Planning Analyst
The Negotiating Committee is providing this update to the AMFA Membership at Alaska Airlines. This is the only official authorized source of negotiating communications by the Committee.
On May 9–11, 2016, AMFA and Alaska Airlines met to continue negotiations at the Alki Bakery in Seattle, WA. We started the first day, which was a half-day session, reviewing our agenda. The Company informed us that they have drafted a Commuter Pass Policy and are sending it to the Travel Bureau for review before bringing it to the next Airlines Contract Committee (ACC) meeting on May 26, for us to review. We then began reviewing Article 4, Classification of Work. The Company brought up cross-utilization across bid locations. After discussing Kurt Kinder’s memo from February 10, 2015, which outlined the procedure for Supervisors, and highlighting the fact that there is already language in the Contract on cross-utilization, both parties agreed that no changes were necessary. The Company then expressed their desire to update the Technician Helper job description to include towing and wing walking. We informed the Company that we were not interested in making language changes to the benefit of one classification at the detriment of another. After a Company caucus, they came back and told us that they were withdrawing their proposal as this work is currently being performed by multiple classifications. We then moved on to Article 5, Hours of Service, which was the Company’s proposal on a productivity matrix; after a discussion, they told us that they wanted to leave this article open at this time.
The next article discussed was Article 6, Overtime. We brought up our talks from the negotiation session in Anchorage, AK on February 9, 2016, in regards to receiving comp time off in lieu of overtime pay, which if not used throughout the year, it would then be converted to vacation or can be rolled over into the employee’s 401 K plan at the end of the year. This language is already written in Article 6 G of the Clerical, Office & Passenger Service Employee (COPS) Agreement. The Company is concerned with additional costs when comp time is rolled over into vacation time due to benefits being paid at the time of vacation use, and they were not interested in adding this language into our Agreement. We then told them that we had no plan to withdraw our proposal and would leave this article open to be included in the economics talks. We then broke off talks for the day.
We started off on the morning of May 10, 2016, with Article 12, Training. Our issue was when a ten (10) hour employee is assigned to an eight (8) hour class; we wanted to capture in the language what is currently being practiced today. We also wanted to change the standby time when traveling to and from training from 1½ hours to 2 hours to reflect the time it takes to get through TSA security at various airports. After a lengthy discussion, both parties agreed on a verbiage change so that no employee would receive less pay than he would have received on his regular scheduled work day or week and not be required to return to his regular bid location for the remaining hours. We also agreed to change the 1½ hours to 2 hours for additional travel time. We then reviewed and tentatively agreed (TA’d) this article with those changes.
Next we presented our proposals on Article 7, Holidays, which included adding an additional two (2) holidays and also banking a day for day off rather than hours banked. We informed the Company that we would keep this article open to be discussed during economics talks. We then returned to Article 6 and both parties agreed to language changes to reflect an electronic overtime (OT) sign-up sheet/award process to reflect this process when it is implemented in the future. We then TA’d Article 6 and moved on to our proposals on Article 13, Vacations regarding extending the vacation bank cap and removing the cap on selling vacation time. The Company told us that they would like to do more research and have a few ideas on the issues; therefore, they would like to get back to us at a later date for a discussion. We then discussed our proposals on Article 14, Sick Leave, which included removing the sick leave cap and allowing an employee to be able to donate sick leave to an individual in need. We left this article open for now and broke for the day.
On May 11, 2016, before we started the negotiations for the day the Company explained the new Shared Leave Program to be rolled out on June 1, 2016. The program will replace the current vacation donation program, which enables an employee to donate vacation to another employee with a medical condition who has exhausted their sick leave. The new program will comply with the IRS regulations, where an employee donates to a vacation pool that everyone could donate to and the employee in need would then apply for the help through the Shared Leave Program.
When we resumed negotiations, we reviewed the articles that have been TA’d thus far and as well as the remaining open articles. The open articles are: Preamble; Article 2, Scope; Article 3, Status; Article 5, Hours of Service; Article 7, Holidays; Article 13, Vacation; Article 14, Sick Leave; LOA # 9, Job Protection; and all of the economic articles. We then agreed to our next session’s agenda, which will be Scope, Status & Job Protection.
Our Committee would like to thank the observers that took the time to attend. Remember to check your Local’s website for the most up-to-date information on times and locations of negotiations: www.amfa14.org and www.amfa32.com. If you have any questions, please contact your Airline Representative or attend your next monthly membership meeting for a question and answer period.
If you plan to attend a future negotiation session, please contact your Airline Representative to RSVP, by RSVP’ing you are guaranteed a seat if the room is full.
Sincerely,
Your Negotiating Committee
Upcoming Negotiation Dates - Upcoming meeting accommodations and times are yet to be determined.
May 31 – June 2 |
Bay Area |
June 28 – 30 |
Seattle, WA |