March 8, 2018
Participants for AMFA:
Bret Oestreich – National Director
Earl Clark – Director, Region I
Will Abbott – Director, Region II
Bob Cramer – Airline Representative, Local 4
Craig Hamlet – Airline Representative, Local 11
Wayne Lampley – Airline Representative, Local 18
Mike Young – Airline Representative, Local 32
Lucas Middlebrook – AMFA Counsel
Peter Manikowski – AMFA Economist
Participants for Southwest Airlines:
Gerry Anderson – Sr. Director, Labor Relations
Alexa Kern – Labor Relations
Bill Venckus – Director, Labor Relations
Mark Lyon – Sr. Manager, Labor Relations
Scott Colling – Regional Director, Central Region
John Brutlag – Director of Aircraft Standards
John Donnelly – Manager, Financial Planning
Sam Moser – Director of Finance
Russell McCrady (Day 3 Only) – Labor Relations
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.
The parties met in Dallas, TX for a scheduled three-day session beginning Tuesday, March 6, 2018. Your Committee wanted to provide you with an immediate update from this week’s session. The parties worked late into the evening today – Thursday, March 8. This week provided one of the most productive sessions the parties have had in many years.
We are pleased to inform you that the Company finally relinquished its demand to drastically alter our scope language. Instead, the Company agreed to leave our Article 2, Scope clause at current book. This was a productive step in the right direction. The parties were able to narrow the gap on economics, and your Committee is cautiously optimistic that the parameters of a deal may be falling into place.
A more detailed update with specifics associated with each parties’ passes from this week’s session will be distributed in the near future. As always, please reach out to your representatives with any questions you may have. Your Committee is hopeful we could be nearing a deal, and now is the time to advance towards that deal as one solidified group.
Sincerely,
Your Negotiating Committee