Aug 12, 2012 Best of Both Joint CBA 2012

August 12, 2012 FLIGHT ATTENDANT COALITION FOR CHANGE NEWS YOU CAN TRUST Visit Our Blog

Best of Both Contracts??? On August 10th, AFA E-lines stated "There is no denying the past 18 months have been tumultuous." It stated that "the representational election that was required because of the merger was divisive and acrimonious for everyone, and now, like it or not, we are faced with Joint Contract Negotiations." However, the UA MEC is not apologetic and treats the acrimonious and divisive environment they helped create as if it is somebody else's "out of body" experience. It also does not address the monumental differences that exist between these contracts. We will attempt to offer some of the highlights of the differences between the S-CAL and S-UA contracts to better understand what may lie ahead in the Joint Contract Negotiations. S-CAL CONTRACT The CAL contract ratified in 2011 gave CAL FA's a 5% increase in base pay, profit sharing, furlough protection, and improvements in flexibility on top of an industry leading contract. The NEW 2012 S-CAL contract provides additional furlough protection as well as protection for s-CAL sub bases in IAD, DEN, ORD, LAX, and SFO. In less than TWO years from the ratification of the last contract, this additional S-CAL contract includes the following protection and increases: Incentive Increase - Productivity Pay Increase (S-CAL Flight Attendants earn $52.53 an hour at top of pay scale. Incentive pay of $5.00 an hour starts after 67 hours @ $57.53, not including an override of $1.00 per hour for International). Profit Sharing Furlough Protection Trading Enhancements for Lineholders and Reserves Enhanced Job Protections for Satellite Bases (DEN, IAD, ORD, SFO, LAX). NOTHING REMOVED FROM THE CURRENT CONTRACT! S-UA CONTRACT For S-UA flight attendants, Gone were the promises of $64.88 hourly rates and full retention of all work rules. Domestic pay was increased from $39.75 to $43.73 and International pay increased from $43.14 to $47.45 (Domestic is paid almost $10.00 less than S-CAL's pay). A dollar short and a day late; on July 31st, the UA MEC also announced the implementation of another automation change for provisions in the new S-UA Flight Attendant Agreement. Once assigned to an ID, a reserve flight attendant has the ability to RDO trade that ID with a lineholder flight attendant. Trading flexibility anyone?!? HOWEVER NO PAY PARITY ($9 PER HR LESS FOR DOMESTIC) NO METAL PROTECTION GAVE UP WORK RULE PROTECTIONS (35 IN 7, 8.5 IN 24) VACATION BUY OUT IS AT DISCRETION OF COMPANY NO PAY INCREASE FOR PURSERS NO PAY INCREASE FOR LANGUAGE QUALIFIED FA'S NO PARITY IN PER DIEM WITH CAL NO INCENTIVE PAY - ALL SAME HOURLY PAY NO "WHITE FLAG DAYS" FOR COMPANY DESIGNATED IRREGULAR OP DAYS NO IMPROVEMENTS IN RETIREMENT NO PARITY IN SICK LEAVE ACCRUAL NO RAPID RE-ACCRUAL OF DEPLETED SICK BANK NO CATASTROPHIC SICK BANK NO PARITY IN VACATION PAY (CAL @ 3.15 HRS/day) Vacation pay will now be 2:45 hr for each day for UA fa's instead of 3.57 hrs for reserves (RSV) per the old amendable contract (Sec. 18.K.3 on pg.144). The more RSV days in a vacation, the more pay a RSV will now lose with this new REGRESSIVE RSV pay. LOOK CAREFULLY! RSV FA'S ON VACATION WILL BE FORCED TO FLY MORE! CAL'S PROPOSAL The thousands of proposals by S-CAL fa's for the September 2012 amendable contract also included what CAL flight attendants did not want to inherit from the S-UA contract. These included: NO 8 in 24 (now 8.5 in 24) NO 30 in 7 (now 35 in 7) NO PBS (Preferential Bidding System - which is NOT in CAL's contract but it is in UA's contract) Remember the leading statement on the skewed UA MEC 2011 survey on the Afa website for S-UA flight attendants? "I am willing to give up my current work rules, benefits, and legality protections for Continental hourly rates of pay" The UA MEC created an entire platform on which to negotiate a contract for 14,000 flight attendants based on ONE misleading statement. It is the mindset of this inept UA MEC group that continues to produce colossal failures at the negotiations table!! Except this time, UA MEC will not have like-minded people sitting with them to allow them to sacrifice their membership's needs just so they can hang on to their power, benefits, and tenure!! Forward this message to a friend Jack Kande's Grievances! Jack Kande was the Negotiating Committee Chairperson for the recent UA MEC negotiated contract (2012-2016). He is also the LECP of Hong Kong. Biting off more than you can chew can be a real problem. It can also be a problem when the UA MEC Negotiating Committee does not have the full cognitive functions necessary to produce a Tentative Agreement that is not full of loop holes. The following uninspiring contract was brought to the S-UA flight attendants: Sec. 9.G.4.b. - Daily Trade Allocation increased from 4% to 5% vs. Unlimited at CO. Sec.12.M.3. - Reserve ID of more than 5 Days must have 48 hours rest. If your rest falls into your reserve days, UA may move that reserve day elsewhere - MOVEABLE RESERVE DAYS? Sec.22.M. - (NEW) - If you are Internationally domiciled and do not have documents to reside/work in U.S. - BEWARE FRA, HKG, NRT, LHR - in the event of an international base closure, your job is not protected unless you have U.S. resident status to transfer to a U.S domicile. Sec.7.A.1. "ninety-five (95) hours of credited flight time shall constitute the maximum for a Flight Attendant in a month" and Afa's inability to recognize the violation and enforce Sec. 7.A.1. In many domiciles this also increased the need for more flight attendants serving on Reserve. THE WORK RULE GRIEVANCES! On March 30, 2012, Afa filed three grievances after having failed to "nail down" the changes to languages in RSV and Legal Rest in the ratified contract: The company reduced a Reserve Flight Attendant’s Minimum Guarantee of 78 hours if the value of the Vacation Pay is less than the value of the Reserve availability days encompassed by the vacation period. (Section 5.D., 18.K.) The company is not providing Flight Attendants a Legal Rest equal to, or greater than, for Domestic Duty Periods which exceed ten hours and thirty minutes (10:30) (Sections 2.T., 7.J.1.e., 7.K.) The company is not providing Flight Attendants with the appropriate Legal Rest at their next layover point of at least 16 hours when they exceed 8:30 in a 24 hour period (Section 7.D.1.) These Grievances are Still Pending! Jack Kande, the Chairperson of the S-UA Negotiating Committee responsible for these "blunders" has been rewarded by the UA MEC, having APPOINTED him as a member of the Joint Negotiating Committee for the future joint contract. And he is still the LECP of Hong Kong. And NOW, the UA MEC once again, APPOINTS Jack Kande as the new interim LECP of the new S-UA sub domicile in IAH. Afa leadership recognized that "the duties and responsibilities of an Officer with multiple Leadership roles may also run in conflict with scheduled meetings, trainings, events and functions that should be attended and manned at all times by that particular officer\u2019s responsibility and roles". HOWEVER, not surprisingly, the resolution that an MEC and LEC Officer not be permitted to hold multiple leadership roles, including committee chair positions within their elected or appointed term of office failed to pass at the 2009 AFA BOD meeting! S- UA HOUSTON OPENS OCTOBER 1st!! Congratulations! 378 new transfers coming soon to the S-UA domicile in IAH! Please be sure to go to Skynet and download the Flight Attendant Relocation Package. There has already been a warm welcome from CAL LEC 64 in IAH. The Houston Crew Lounge on Facebook is available for s-UA transfers and friends to share information and ask questions about the IAH area and the domicile. It might be very helpful since there are no orientations planned for the new transferees. This facebook page is not associated with the CAL or UA AFA. The new transferees will come from DCA, JFK, SFO, LAX, LAS and several other domiciles. Despite the "puppet" LEC's (Jack Kande has been appointed interim LECP in IAH), there will be elections held before the year end for S-UA flight attendants. FACC will be posting election profiles of all the officers. A "Reform Slate" running against the "Appointees" selected by UA MEC will be announced very shortly in IAH!!! UA MEC can only dictate who will be IAH's LEC Officers for the first 90 days!!! FACC SURVEY ENDS TOMORROW! We would like to thank the thousands of our subscribers for taking the time to take the FACC survey!! The survey is still open until the end of tomorrow PST (Pacific Standard Time, Aug 13th). The survey was kept open for approximately 30 days to give our subscribers the opportunity to take the survey while trying to juggle traveling schedules with home and personal demands. We are incredibly grateful for the interests expressed and the feedback we have received. We plan to publish the results from our survey no later than August 27th, 2012. We hope that questions that were not asked by UA MEC in their joint contract survey will be addressed and several questions related to how our union is serving their membership will be clearly communicated to them with the results from the FACC survey. GO TO OUR BLOG SITE AND TAKE OUR SURVEY! MEMBERSHIP FOR CHANGE! FACC DEMANDS COMBINED CONTRACT NOW! TERM LIMITS (for LEC, MEC, and Afa International). Davidowitch has been the UA MEC President since 2002 and his third term runs through 2014. DIRECT MEMBERSHIP VOTE (amend the Constitution and By-Laws as was proposed by the CAL MEC at the BOD meeting in 2011 and allow flight attendants to vote for ALL UA MEC officers). JOIN THE FLIGHT ATTENDANT COALITION FOR CHANGE AND MAKE YOUR VOICE HEARD IN 2012! Subscribe to our Bi Monthly E-Mails Today!