Participants for AMFA:
     Jack Coonrod - Region II Director
     Lee Rhame - Local 11 Airline Rep
    Bob Cramer - Local 18 Airline Rep
    Mike Young - Local 32 Airline Rep
    Carla Foster - Appearance Technician Rep

Participants for Southwest Airlines:
    Mike Ryan – VP, Labor Relations
    Jim Sokol – VP, Maintenance
    Tony Lowery - Senior Dir Maintenance
    George Tompkins - Director, Employee Resources
    Mark Lyons - Manager, Employee Resources
    Keith McCormick - Manager, Employee Resources
    Christina Bennett - SWA Legal Counsel
    Mike Hunter - Manager, Production Appearance
    Sam Moser - Planning Manager, Finance

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

The above AMFA and Southwest Airlines Representatives participated in open, formal negotiations, seeking contract changes in Section VI negotiations.

The Company began negotiating session by presenting a cost analysis based on there in-house and out sourced cleaning expenses in 2009. This analysis concluded their cost were much higher in house and much of that cost was due to paid and unpaid lost time (paid and unpaid sick leave and OJI hours) which appeared, much higher than any other group within the Maintenance and Engineering department per the presentation.

The Company then presented new counter proposals for Article 4, and 5, and an initial proposal for Article 13.

Their Article 4 proposal wanted to change the requirement to have a Lead, by increasing the requirement from 3 Technicians to 5 Technicians on duty. The proposal also would have reduced the work scope of the Appearance Technician, but still allowed the Company to assign them to any of the work that had been previously covered.

Their Article 5 proposal sought the ability to have multiple start times and multiple 8 and or 10 hour shifts during the same shift, within any bid location. They proposed to modify the graveyard start time to between 5:00pm and midnight. They proposed the elimination of Letter of Agreement Number 2 dated December 6th 2000, which states, “This is to confirm our agreement that the Company will utilize employees in the classification of Appearance Technician at any future Maintenance Bases (not Line Stations). At Maintenance Bases where ground equipment maintenance is performed, there will be a Ground Equipment Appearance Technician bid location.” They proposed removing Article 5 paragraph 6, which states, “The Company will endeavor to maintain the four (4) day week for employees on B/C Check crews whenever phased B/C Checks are performed.” The Company struck AMFA’s earlier proposal to have the Company provide and keep current a list of all Appearance Technicians bid locations and positions in each work area and on the Company’s maintained website. They also proposed to reduce the current number of bid locations to 4. See below.

1. Line Ron, (overnight interior/exterior detail)

2. Line Service, (Gate calls, Line MX support)

3. Hangar, (Shops, Wash, C-Check, Hangar RON)

4. Structures, (Structures, Shops, Wash, C-Check, Hangar RON)

At the same time the Company proposed consolidating the bid locations, it wanted the ability to reassign employees to other bid location under certain circumstances as in example, you had completed your line RON work early on any particular night, the Supervisor could at his discretion send you over to the hangar to do something else.

In Article 13 the Company proposed to implement an attendance and tardy policy that included the ability to terminate an employee that saved less than 3 days of his 12 days of awarded sick time in a 12 month period along with a myriad of other punishments for any perceived violations. The policy proposed was word for word from their Guidelines for Employees. I believe this was formerly called, Guidelines for Leaders.

Your Negotiating Committee countered the Company proposal on Article 4 with our original proposal, to leave Article 4 unchanged.

Your Negotiating Committee countered the Company proposal on Article 5 wanting multiple start times, and different 8 hour and or 10 hour crews on the same shift and bid location. To limit this to no more than 2 different crew start times and if one crews start time or ending time fell outside of the other crews shift, they would be considered separate groups thus requiring their own separate Leads, vacation bids, etc per Articles 4 and 11. Also these shift crews could only be changed, utilizing the provisions of Articles 5 and 10. AMFA countered the Companies proposed change to the graveyard shift start times of 5:00pm to midnight, by proposing changing the evening shift start time to between 1:00pm and 6:00pm and a more reasonable 7:00pm to midnight for graves. Your Negotiating Committee struck their proposed removal of Article 5 paragraph 6. Your Negotiating Committee countered the striking of our proposal to have the Company provide and keep current a list of all Appearance Technicians bid locations and positions in each work area and on the Company’s maintained website, by removing the “in each work area” language.

No tentative agreements were accomplished on Article 4 or 5, although each side stated they felt significant progress was made.

Your Negotiating Committee worked on a counter to the Company’s Article 13 proposal, but it was neither, presented or finalized.

We agreed to resume negotiations in Dallas on Tuesday, March 30th and 31st 2010 at 9:00 am. We will secure future dates when we next meet.

The Negotiation Committee would like to thank Kenneth Dawson from Houston, Darlene D. Warren, Dawn Bud, and Vertis Hawkins from Dallas, Ron Kerfoot from Chicago, Dave Widerski from Phoenix, and Louie Key and Floyd Looney from AMFA National, our observers who participated this past week. Their input in caucus was very helpful and welcomed. We know that they will communicate with other members from their locals on how the Union is working to protect their jobs and contract language.

Sincerely,
Your Negotiating Committee