July 31st Bargaining Update

July 31st, 2015

Your CWA/IBT Association Bargaining Committee met last week on July 28th, 29th, and 30th. You’ll find details of each session below and specifics about the status of each article in a downloadable PDF.

On Tuesday, July 28th the Union presented a counter to the Company’s proposal on Article 6, Customer Service Overtime; Article 9, Filling of Vacancies; and Article 34, General and Miscellaneous . The Bargaining Committee worked on the seniority integration proposal.

On Wednesday July 29th, the Company presented a counter to Union Article 34, General and Miscellaneous and Article 6, Customer Service Overtime. The Union passed a proposal for a Seniority Integration Agreement. In the afternoon the Company countered the Union proposal on Article 9, Filling of Vacancies and Article 34, General and Miscellaneous.

On Thursday, July 30th, the Union presented Article 10, Temporary Employees and a counter to Article 34, General and Miscellaneous. The Company passed the counter Union Article 10, Temporary Employees. The Company and the Union then reached a tentative agreement on Article 10, Temporary Employees.

The Company and the Union are far apart on Customer Service Overtime but are very close on the General and Miscellaneous article. The Bargaining Committee stayed late on Thursday and into Friday, July 31st, to continue work on proposals for our next meeting.
On Monday, July 27th representatives of the CWA and Teamsters attended the quarterly meeting with Doug Parker and a pre-meeting with the Vice Presidents. The representatives also met with representatives of the APFA flight attendants’ association. Doug Parker gave an overview of the financial position of the Company. He compared the company to the other top carriers, United and Delta. Parker believes American is in a better position than either of these airlines. He attributes the increased profitability of American to decreased fuel costs.

In the Parker meeting we brought up member concerns, based on conversations and actions by the Company regarding the possibility of not having a contract by PSS in October. We told Parker that we want a contract by October, but our position is that the contract we have now will still be in place if we don’t have a new agreement by that time. He and Paul Jones, who is Senior Vice President and General Counsel, agreed that our contract would still be in effect and said they intended to honor it.

Our next bargaining sessions are August 11-13, 2015. The Bargaining Committee will be working on August 10th and August 14th to review proposals to give the Company.

STAND UNITED!!  WEAR YOUR PIN!!