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AMFA - SWA Technician Negotiations Update #50
Jan 10, 2017
January 10, 2017

Participants for AMFA:
Bret Oestreich – National 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 Collins – Director, Central Region
Mark Lyon – Sr Manager, Labor Relations
John Donnelly – Manager, Financial Planning
Shawn Jensen – Manager, Maintenance Control


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, for a scheduled day-and-a-half mediated negotiation session to continue work on the Maintenance Controller appendix language. As noted earlier, the appendix for the Controllers will contain all language that is specific to their group, and it will reside in the back of the Mechanics’ Collective Bargaining Agreement.

At the conclusion of our last session of 2016, we presented a counter offer related to the Controllers’ appendix, and the Company began this first session of 2017 presenting its counter offer. The Controller specific language that we are continuing to work on is related to Article 4: Classifications, Article 5: Hours of Service, Article 6: Overtime and Holidays, Article 7: Training, Article 8: Field Service, Article 9: Seniority, Article 10: Filling of Vacancies, Article 11: Vacations, Article 12: Leaves of Absences, Article 14: Wage Rules – Shift Premiums – Longevity, Article 15: Wages, and Article 24: General and Miscellaneous. After we received the Company’s offer, we caucused as a Committee with the Controller Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) to work on our next counter offer.

We returned to meet with the Company later in the afternoon to present our counter offer. Of the items that we identified (roughly 30) as changes that the Company made to our last proposal, we agreed to accept approximately a third. We also proposed minor housekeeping changes to several other items in the Company’s proposal. Several sections that we were not able to currently make any movement on were related to bidding in and out of the Controller classification, protecting a member’s seniority in the event of a furlough, duty limits of 16 hours, capturing the Out of Service Desk and its functions, and items related to the Relief Controllers. Also, as with the Mechanics’ portion of these negotiations, Article 14 and Article 15 will be addressed as part of the overall economic package. After we presented our proposal, the Company said they would work on a counter offer in the morning and planned to present it to us before we adjourned this session.

On Friday, the Company presented its counter proposal where they again proposed language that would be extremely problematic in regards to a member’s seniority by: NOT allowing any interchanging between Mechanics and Controllers in the event of a furlough; only allowing one (1) Controller to bid out every 90 days; a draconian process outlined to bid into the Controller classification, including being locked-into the classification and waving your bid rights for two years; a 16 hour duty limit; and a host of other issues. We have the Company’s proposal and will be working on a counter offer prior to our next session.  Unfortunately, Maintenance Control management still seems unable to fully understand how to acclimate to a unionized workforce, and the Company Negotiating Committee appears unable or unwilling to steer them in the proper direction.

We would like to thank the SMEs – Rob Cush, Jason Leyda, and Tim Ananiadis – for their time and contributions to the process. Please contact your representative to answer any questions you may have related to these negotiations.  As we cautioned previously, please continue to watch what the Company does as opposed to what it says. We are scheduled to resume negotiations on February 7-9, and again on February 14-16. We also are working to secure dates the weeks of March 7 and March 27.

Sincerely,
Your Negotiating Committee


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