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AMFA-SWA Technician Negotiations Update #9 (Text and Video)
Apr 11, 2013

Participants for AMFA:
Michael Nelson Region II Director
Bob Cramer – Local 4 Airline Representative
Nino DiMaggio Local 11 Airline Representative
Shane Flachman – Local 18 Airline Representative
Mike Young Local 32 Airline Representative

Participants for Southwest Airlines:
Mike Ryan –VP, Labor Relations
Gerry Anderson- Sr Director Labor Relations
George Tompkins – Director, Employee Resources
Michelle Jordon – Director, Employee Resources

Mark Lyons – Sr Manager, Employee Resources
Sam Moser - Planning Manager, Finance


The Negotiating Committee is providing this update to the AMFA Membership at Southwest Airlines. This is the only official authorized source of negotiating communications by the Committee.

We resumed negotiations on April 2 with the Company at the Mecca Meeting Room in Dallas, Texas. We began discussions where we left off in our last session with Article 8; the International Field Service issue remains the topic of discussions. We currently have language in LOA #1 that gives us ownership over “all international emergency field service where parts are required to return the aircraft to airworthiness.” The Company is no longer comfortable with this language since the acquisition of AirTran and their own plans to service international destinations. We also discussed Domestic Field Service, specifically the definition of the word “interrupted” as used in Article 8, Section 2 (b). The final major Field Service issue discussed was what the geographical definition of “international” will be as applied in this Article. After discussing these topics with the Company in the morning, we spent the remainder of the afternoon as a Committee working on an Article 8 proposal to present the Company the next day.

We identified the fact that nothing relating to “operational” articles could be TA’d this week since Jim Sokol would not be present for this negotiation session. Unfortunately, the three articles we are currently working are all “operational.” We raised this concern to the Company in regard to future sessions as Jim Sokol’s presence is required to TA “operational” articles and Mike Ryan’s presence is required to TA “corporate” articles. . After we have a chance to begin work on articles that the Company sees as “corporate,” we can work on the “operational” articles in an absence of Mike Ryan as Jim Sokol makes the decision to TA, and we can work on the “corporate” articles in the absence of Jim as Mike can make the decision to TA; therefore, ensuring the time spent at the negotiation table is as productive as possible.

We met again on April 3. We notified the Company that we were leaving at lunch since we would be unable to TA anything this week without Jim being present. We then presented our Article 8 proposal, which after clarifying, the Company said they would have to discuss amongst themselves later. The Company did present a counter proposal to our Article 21 and Article 22 “Discovery” language. We will be sending the counter language to our legal counsel to review and give us their recommendations prior to our next session.

Our Committee continues to be committed to making a concerted effort to reach an agreement that addresses our members’ and the Company’s concerns. The next scheduled negotiation dates of April 29-30 and May 1-2 have been reallocated to dealing with the announced maintenance station closures, but these dates could be reinstated for negotiations if the issue is resolved before then. Next confirmed dates are June 4-7.

 


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