April Negotiations Update
April Negotiations Update
During the week of April 3rd , we addressed three issues: Preferential Bidding, Reserves, and updating outdated communication terms and methods in the contract. Although we have not reached a formal agreement in any of these areas, the discussions were productive and identified several important areas of mutual interest.
PBS: We made progress discussing PBS and its related issues and identified areas we are seeking to improve for Flight Attendants. The parties spent a significant part of the time discussing how unstacking works and how to decrease its negative impact on awarded schedules. We’ve begun to explore different methods of unstacking and both parties expressed commitment to continuing discussions on ways to temper the adverse effects. We also focused on specific provisions of PBS including elevating the role of AFA’s PBS Committee in working with the company to improve the bidding and awarding experience for Flight Attendants.
As a direct result of our talks, the company will begin emailing the bid packets directly to the Flight Attendants via company-email, so be sure you look for them on the 10th. The company will continue to print out the bid packets and make them available in the crew lounge.
Reserves: As we had stated in our previous meetings with the company, transparency, consistency, and flexibility for the reserves were our main concerns. You told us that this is an important issue and both the AFA and the company agree this must be addressed. We don’t necessarily see eye-to-eye; however, the company and AFA are researching “best practices” at other carriers and we will pick this discussion back up at the next session.
Communication Terms: The general trend is to move toward more electronic communication to speed up notification, decrease cost and move the department into the 21st century. However, we have to work through identifying and maintaining those important areas which require more formal written methods of notification (e.g. certified mail).
We will be back at the bargaining table for a two-week session in May: 15th – 26th.
As a reminder, our email address is open and available for questions, comments, or suggestions. Our address is AFAcontract2017@halafa.org
Mahalo from the Negotiating Committee,
Sharon Soper, Diana Huihui, Ka'imi Lee, Martin Gusman, Jeff Fuke and
Paula Mastrangelo, AFA Senior Staff Negotiator