4.07.00 – (LAA) – Negotiations Update

Hello, this is John Ward, APFA President with a Negotiations HotLine for Friday, April 7.

As a reminder, at this point the opening proposal for Round II of bargaining has been prepared and presented to the Company. This week your Negotiating Team made some important decisions regarding the internal structuring of our Team. Active bargaining sessions will continue with our table committee bargaining directly with management, while the remaining members of Team 2000 will continue with negotiations research and developing the communications strategies.

Your table committee will now consist of myself, Laura Glading, Art Cline, Alexis Boilini, and Thelma Dodson. Negotiators Ray Baylis, Robin Madison, Peter Day, Sam Morales and Colleen Brenner will continue to assist and support the negotiations process.

In keeping with the APFA Constitution and Policy Manual, the vacancies created by the resignations of Dan Richardson and Rosie Trescott will not require replacement at this time.

The Negotiating Committee will be meeting internally next week in Dallas for strategy and planning sessions. Negotiations that had been scheduled for April 10-12 were canceled as the Company wanted additional time to review our contract proposal. The next scheduled session with the Company will be during the week of April 17th. Additionally, the negiotiations meetings will be moving to the New York area effective May 1st so that the parties may reduce distractions and concentrate on negotiating a contract.

Members of the Negotiating Team and the Special Advisory Committee will be present at two InfoRep and Base meetings scheduled for IDF on April 11 at APFA headquarters in Euless, Texas and on April 19 for the bases of IOR and ORD at the Wyndham Garden Hotel on Cumberland Avenue near O’Hare. Negotiations information will be shared at the meetings and will be hosted by local Base Representatives. The IDF InfoRep meeting begins at 10 a.m. and is open to members in good standing at 11 a.m. The Chicago meeting will be begin at 10 a.m., open to members in good standing at 1 p.m.

Recruitment efforts are in full swing for new InfoReps. Our goal is to have an InfoRep ratio of 1 to 10. Volunteer to be an InfoRep during one of these meetings or contact your Base Chair to sign up. We need more people for this program to disseminate important information covering negotiations and other APFA issues. Wearing the InfoRep pin will let your co-workers and the Company know that you are an active participant in the program to facilitate important communications to our membership.

Tell your co-workers to call this HotLine every week for updates. Thanks for calling and stay on the line for more APFA and industry news…

Part II

Hello. This is Peter Day, JFK based Flight Attendant and member of the APFA Negotiating Committee, with more APFA HotLine news for the week ending Friday, April 7th.

President John Ward has announced the selection of the full service labor and employment law firm  Cohen, Weiss and Simon  of New York as APFA’s new General Counsel. The main partner assigned to our account will be Steven Moldof, who is presently one of the two professional negotiators on APFA Team 2000. APFA wishes to welcome Cohen, Weiss and Simon into our ranks.

On April 6th, American announced the selection of Dell Computers as the supplier for the employee PC purchase program. More details can be found in the Jetwire link on the APFA web site. Also included is an e-mail address for submitting your questions. Administrative details are still being worked out but it is expected that employees should be able to start ordering computers directly from Dell sometime this summer.

Some good news regarding increased flying…First, American has replaced American Eagle on the Baltimore to Chicago route with several daily Super 80 flights. Second, American has applied for slots to operate two daily 757 nonstop flights from Reagan Washington National Airport to Los Angeles. Congress recently authorized limited long distance service from DCA, and of the 14 slots expected to be opened soon, American has requested four to permit the transcon flights. The new Baltimore to Chicago service is operating now, while the Washington Reagan to LA service will require government approval.

Meanwhile, closer to American’s Texas home, Legend Airlines has finally begun its long-awaited service from Dallas Love field to Washington Dulles, Las Vegas, and Los Angeles. American, which has promised competitive service to both Los Angeles and Chicago starting in May, recently passed the mini-evacuation tests on its 56-seat Fokker 100 aircraft, to be used on the routes. Service from Love field to cities beyond the states bordering Texas is limited to aircraft with no more than 56 seats.

In airline labor news, the Master Executive Council for the Association of Flight Attendants at US Airways has approved the tentative agreement reached with management and is endorsing a ‘yes’ vote by the membership. The unanimous endorsement sends the deal on to US Airways Flight Attendants, who will vote on the proposal over the next several weeks. Ballots will be counted on May 1st.

Talks between Northwest Airlines management and the Teamsters, representing Northwest Flight Attendants, are again at a standstill. The National Mediation Board has called a recess to negotiations so that both parties could reevaluate their bargaining positions. Though some progress was reported in the areas of work rules, the sticking points remain retirement, compensation, and domestic partner benefits. Union negotiators have asked several times to be released by the NMB into a thirty-day cooling off period, which the NMB has so far refused to consider. No further talks are currently scheduled, but the Union is hopeful bargaining will resume later this month.

American Airlines and the Allied Pilots Association, representing American’s 10,500 pilots, have both agreed to continue talks on extending the current APA contract. Talks on an extension began last year, with an initial deadline of March 31st. The joint decision to continue discussions now gives the parties until May 31st to reach agreement on extending the contract beyond the current August 2001 amendable date.

Your APFA representatives will be holding several base meetings around the system during April. The meetings, open to all members in good standing, will be held for: IDF on Tuesday, April 11th; DFW and LAX on Wednesday, April 12th; ORD/IOR on Wednesday, April 19th; and SFO/SFO-I on Wednesday, April 26th. Check your local base bulletin boards, or the APFA web site, to verify meeting places and times.

Hotel reviews will be conducted during April in: Greensboro; Washington Reagan, short; Washington Dulles, short; Rochester, New York; San Jose, Costa Rica; San Juan; and Rome. Please direct your comments regarding our layover hotels to the APFA Hotel Department at headquarters extension 8306, use the hotel debrief form in operations, at the APFA website’s hotel section..

That’s it for this week. For those of you on the Internet, be sure to check out the various links attached to this HotLine on our web site at: www.www.apfa.org. Remember to always wear your APFA pin proudly as a sign of our independence, unity and strength. And thank-you for calling the APFA HotLine.