8.13.04

This is Michael Truan, DFW InfoRep Captain, with a Special Hotline update for Wednesday, August 13, 2004.

The Department of Labor recently counted 16 additional ballots for the position of APFA President. This resulted in a change in the outcome of the election. On the basis of this result, the Department of Labor has expressed the position that Tommie Hutto-Blake should be installed as the President of APFA. The Department of Labor will shortly be providing additional information pursuant to its investigation in the near future.

The APFA Board of Directors will be meeting on Wednesday, August 25th, to consider an appropriate response to the Department of Labor’s findings and recommended action, and to consider the further information that is to be forthcoming from the Department of Labor.

This Hotline will be updated as events warrant. Now please stay on the line for the regular InfoRep Hotline.

Hello. This is Michael Truan, DFW InfoRep Captain, with the InfoRep hotline for August 13th, 2004.

As was previously reported on the APFA Hotline, the Department of Labor determined that, as part of its ongoing investigation into election complaints filed in connection with the recent national officer runoff election, it would count an additional 16 ballots that were previously cast but not counted in the election for APFA president. That count took place on Thursday August 12th and the results are as follows:

Of the 16 additional ballots counted, Tommie Hutto-Blake received 14 votes and John Ward received 2 votes. When combined with the previous totals, Ms. Hutto-Blake has received a total of 7,407 votes and Mr. Ward has received a total of 7,400 votes.

Of the 16 ballots, 5 were not previously counted because there were thought to have been dues delinquent at the time the ballots were initially counted on March 12th, 2004. The remaining 11 ballots were not previously counted because they were thought not to have been a member at the time the ballots were initially counted on March 12th, 2004.

The Department of Labor has confirmed that this additional ballot count does not trigger an immediate change in office holder. It is anticipated that the APFA will, in the near future, be receiving additional information from the DOL with respect to its findings with regard to all the pending election complaints. Following that, the APFA Board of Directors will formulate an appropriate specific response to the DOL that will outline its intended course of action. APFA will continue to fully cooperate with the DOL in its conduct of the ongoing investigation into the pending election complaints.

The APFA Constitution last underwent major revision in 1991, with more minor changes thereafter. The ballot count for the proposed Constitutional changes took place on Wednesday, August 11th, 2004. The referendum for these Constitutional Changes did not pass. The APFA National Ballot Committee, in conjunction with the Accounting Firm of Whitely Penn and Associates, has certified the results of the Proposed Constitutional Changes Referendum as follows:

2,728 YES

5,032 NO

The breakdown by base is available on the APFA website at www.www.apfa.org under the icon "Hot Topics".

Ask your fellow flight attendants to continue to contact their Senators on the issue of Flight Attendant Fatigue. You may refer to the "ACTION ALERT" icon on the opening page of the APFA web site, which will take you directly to the Capwiz feature. This feature allows you to submit an e-mail to your Senator asking for his/her support on this issue. You may also obtain a list of Senate phone numbers by going to the Government Affairs page of the APFA web site and clicking on 108th Congress-U.S. Senate. We need our voices to be heard in Washington, so log onto the APFA website and keep sending those letters and making those calls. Senator Boxer will also be introducing a Bill in the Senate on flight attendant security training and making it MANDATORY that TSA develop "detailed guidance" for this very important training. This language makes NO distinction between a basic and advanced training program, which means that the carriers would have to pay for flight attendants to be trained for the basic elements and the advanced hands-on training. We will soon be posting an additional "ACTION ALERT" on the Capwiz feature of the APFA website.

That’s it for this edition of the InfoRep hotline. Please visit the APFA Web site at www.www.apfa.org for more information.

Thanks for calling.