Following through on the process changes we all agreed to last in Washington DC, subcommittees worked on subjects ranging from Hours of Service, Vacations, Trainings & Meetings, Benefits, Reserve, Sick Leave and Language Qualified.  Subcommittees are still made up of Joint Negotiating Committee (JNC) members, Flight Attendant subject matter experts from all three subsidiaries, AFA staff negotiators and company representatives who are discussing Contract sections and formulating proposals on how to move them into a merged Contract. The subcommittees are still listing interests and developing options when talking about these sections, however now when they begin working on solutions they try to see if there is existing language in one of our current Contracts that can be adopted or amended for use in the merged Contract. This does not preclude us from looking at other ways of dealing with a section, however we all agreed this approach recognizes that, in many instances, we don’t need to reinvent the wheel.

In addition to the subcommittee work, the JNC has been reviewing all our Contracts to see if there are sections, which we believe can be adopted in whole.  We have identified a number of sections and are working with the Company to see if they agree with our recommendations, or where necessary, how can we make amendments that will result tentative agreements.

We have just completed two weeks of work in Houston for a total of four weeks since we met with the National Mediation Board (NMB) last month.  We can report there has been an increase in the subjects and sections being worked on.  Over the course of the last two sessions we have been working on:

Another two week Negotiations session will resume in Houston on March 9th.

In Solidarity,