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CONTRACT NEGOTIATIONS
Feburary 2005 - American Eagle Negotiations Update
The AFA Negotiating Committee met with the Company again on
February 1-4 at the American Airlines Training and Conference Center in DFW. Our MEC President, Reggie Salas (LGA); Flight
Attendants Pat Davis (BOS), Laurette Espeland (ORD), and Diana Kishaba (LAX); and our Professional Negotiator and Attorney, Kimberley Chaput, represented AFA. Armando Ramos, LEC
President from SJU, joined us as a guest.
Representing the Company were Marc Esposito from the law firm of Ford & Harrison; Linda Kunz, Vice
President, Inflight; Keith Curtis, Manager, Crew Scheduling; Doug Matalucci, Director, Crew Scheduling and Planning; Tammy Coffey, Regional Managing Director, Flight Service; Cassy Ralat,
Regional Managing Director, Flight Service; and Stephanie Babish, Employee Relations Counsel. NMB mediators Pat Sims and Terri Brown directed the session.
Session Overview
This was a long and often exhausting session. As we get closer to a contract, we are left with only
the most difficult issues: duty, rest, vacation and, of course, compensation. Although we are still
resolving a handful of minor issues, it is officially crunch time! For both sides, this means a
simultaneous willingness to reach a deal and to dig in our heels for the things that matter most to us. We saw that this week, and expect to see that even more in the future sessions.
Tentative Agreements. On the positive side, we were able to reach two tentative agreements:
Section 18 Leaves of Absence. This section had been on hold for a period of time. It was worth
taking a second look, as we were able to wrap it up this week. We’ve negotiated improvements to
bereavement leave. We also agreed that flight attendants called to testify by the Company (and in certain other situations) will be pay protected.
More importantly, we succeeded in increasing the maximum duration of a medical leave from two
years to four. If you are on a MLOA when the contract ratifies, you will receive the benefit of the full
four years. We achieved a significant victory on maternity leave when management agreed to notify AFA of changes to the company policy before they are implemented—and to refrain from
implementing them until AFA agrees with the changes. We did not achieve our goal of spelling out
Family and Medical Leave rights in the contract. If you need, or think you need, FMLA leave, please
contact your local leadership to assist you with the process. The rights are still there, as granted by
law and Company policy; they’re just not expressly stated in the collective-bargaining agreement.
We negotiated the ability to perform transitional/light duty at your domicile or at the Eagle station
nearest your residence (if work is available there). This should alleviate inconvenience to injured
flight attendants who happen to be commuters. Finally, we obtained strong language stating that a
leave of absence will not count as an attendance occurrence (unless the flight attendant fraudulently obtained the leave).
Section 27 General. As we have discussed before, we created some additional protections for flight
attendants facing disciplinary actions. Management will now have to put their accusations in precise form and will not be able to discipline based on an uncorroborated comment card.
We also made the Company understand that flight attendants do need to eat during the duty day.
Management accepted our proposal that flight attendants may call crew scheduling and will be granted a meal break, if it is reasonable. By reasonable, we mean that you’ve been working for a
period of time without a break. We don’t mean that you can have a break after every leg! Medical conditions, such as pregnancy or diabetes, will also be taken into account.
Additionally, the Company has agreed to provide sufficiently large and comfortable crew lounges in
each primary domicile, and areas with computers, phones and printers in secondary co-domiciles.
Finally, we negotiated a provision requiring the Company to pay for passports, visas and required
vaccines. This will become even more important as American Eagle continues to increase its international flying.
Other discussions. At the mediators’ suggestion, we tried a new technique this week, known as
“mini-packaging.” It’s a way of discussing more than one section simultaneously with the goal of
reaching tentative agreement on multiple sections at the same time. Although it didn’t work out
exactly that way, we did find it helpful in isolating the issues that really matter to flight attendants.
Section 7 (Hours of Service) and Section 8 (Scheduling). We very nearly closed out these sections
but stumbled over the maximum length of a duty period. Since every proposal was tied together with
every other one, we can’t really report much, since it can still change. We apologize for this, but we
don’t want to give out information that later proves inaccurate. We do hope to finish out these sections at our next session.
Section 32 (Flow Through) tied with Section 26 (Safety and Health) and Section 34 (International
Flying). As with Sections 7 and 8, we cannot report too much because these proposals are all tied
together. AFA continues to push its proposal to allow a flight attendant to be removed from a trip if
she or he is too fatigued to perform all required safety duties. The Company claims that such a program is currently in effect; AFA does not believe that a flight attendant should receive an
attendance occurrence when she or he is too tired to fly. It’s a safety issue whose gravity the Company does not quite seem to appreciate.
We’re also at odds over the pathetic workers’ compensation benefits paid to San Juan-based flight
attendants. While all other flight attendants receive two-thirds of their average weekly wages, our
brothers and sisters in SJU are receiving only about $60 a week. The Company doesn’t care, because that’s all that’s required by law. But it’s not enough to live on.
Once again, we apologize for the scanty details, but we don’t want to tell you we achieved something
and then later have to backtrack
We discussed Section 24 (Conduct of Union Business) all by itself. We did not reach a tentative
agreement, but we did come closer together on several issues. Management accepted AFA’s proposal
that we print the contract and the Company will pay half the cost. This should avoid future fiascos
such as when the Company contract contained different language than ours did! We spelled out the
procedures for obtaining union leave, and the Company agreed to provide AFA with flight attendants’
addresses twice a year. We need current information to make sure that you get ratification and
election ballots in a timely manner. The only remaining issue is the override percentage attached to
flight pay loss. It’s currently 17%, but the Company wants to bump it up to 35%. Since this is our members’ dues at issue, we want to be the best possible stewards of those moneys.
===================SPECIAL EDITION=========================
RUMOR CONTROL
WE ARE NOT IN RECESS!!! Under the law, the NMB can place us into a “recess” if the mediators
believe we are not making sufficient progress toward a new agreement. When we are in recess, we
do not mediate. This is intended to be a period of time in which both sides give serious thought to how
realistic their proposals are and whether they are worth striking (or in the case of management, taking a strike) over.
It is true that the NMB has not scheduled more dates, but they have NOT declared a formal recess.
They want the Negotiating Committee to meet with the MEC and make sure we are all on the same
page with respect to our proposals. The NMB does not appear pleased with our wage proposal; we
keep telling them we want the Comair pay scale. But Delta, which owns Comair, is on the brink of
bankruptcy. Comair has already asked its flight attendants to freeze their wages, and may yet ask
for concessions. This is a great unknown in our struggle for an industry-leading contract.
The MEC will be meeting with the Negotiating Committee at the next MEC meeting, March 8-10. Clare
Burt, AFA International’s Manager of Collective Bargaining, will join us to lend her insight into the
industry and the process. We hope that the NMB will give us more dates after the MEC meeting. It’s time to reach the finish line and sign the contract we all deserve.
In the meantime, please give your feedback to your Info-Reps and Local Leaders. As we said before,
it’s crunch time. We have to remain unified to show the Company that we stand behind the Negotiating team and that its members speak for all of us.
In Solidarity,
AFA-American Eagle Negotiations Team
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