6.09.07 – (LAA) – 2nd Quarter EC Meeting, WTS Notices for Negotiating Committee, Skyword, UnitedHealthcare

This is Tommie Hutto-Blake, APFA President, with the APFA Hotline for Saturday, June 9, 2007.

The second quarter APFA Executive Committee meeting took place this week at APFA Headquarters. As a reminder our Executive Committee (EC) is made-up of the four APFA National Officers and five Ad Hoc members who are elected by the 18 APFA Base Chairs, the voting Board of Directors of our union. The five Ad Hoc members act as agents for and on behalf of the Voting Board and serve staggered three year terms of office. Currently, the Ad Hoc Members of our EC are Lenny Aurigemma (BOSI), Steve Watson (IDF), Tim Weston (DCA), Anne Loew (IMA), and Laura Glading (JFK).

One of the most important topics of this weekís EC meeting was discussion surrounding the initial steps of the next round of contract negotiations with our employer. Never in the history of American Airlines have all nine contracts had the same amendable date. The seven TWU contracts, the pilot contract, and our APFA contract all have the same amendable date of April 30, 2008. The Railway Labor Act, the law establishing the rules that govern all contract talks in our industry, as well as our own APFA Constitutional rules surrounding negotiations, are very firm procedures as the collective bargaining process begins. 

The first step in preparing for labor/management contract talks is forming our APFA Negotiating Committee. Our Negotiating Team is made up of five permanent members and eight alternate members, representing both domestic and international bases. The team is formed by both APFA leadership appointments and membership elections. Thus, the APFA Negotiating Team has six appointed members and six elected members, with the APFA President serving as the committee chair. The President nominates the appointed members and the Executive Committee confirms these nominations.

During this week’s APFA Executive Committee meeting, in accordance with APFA policy, the EC confirmed the six appointments to our 2007 APFA Negotiating Committee. These six members will not assume their duties until the elected members of the team are confirmed in the upcoming membership elections. I am very pleased to announce that the following appointments were unanimously confirmed during Thursday’s meeting:  Jaimie McNiece (DFW) Domestic Permanent member and Anne Loew (IMA) International Permanent member; Jeff Pharr (MIA) Domestic First Alternate member and Clinton Breen (IOR) International First Alternate member; Kathy Lord-Jones (DFW) Domestic Second Alternate member and Mario St. Michel (IOR) International Second Alternate member. I will more formally introduce these members of our soon to be formed Negotiating Team in the upcoming Summer Edition of the SKYWORD. The complete minutes of this meeting will be published on APFA.org as soon as they are finalized.

The Willingness-to-Service Notices for the elected members of our Negotiating Committee will be in this next SKYWORD mailed to our members later this month. I will address the negotiations process in my SKYWORD article, underscoring the importance of this first step in our next round of bargaining – forming the Negotiating Committee. There is no greater responsibility for a union – than negotiating the best possible contract for its members . . . and that it what APFA intends to do in 2008. It will be most important for all of us to turn our focus to this responsibility very soon.

From the APFA Health Department: APFA is pleased to announce that at long last the Adventist Group of both Illinois and Kansas has signed a renewed contract with UnitedHealthcare. The new UHC/Adventist contract will be effective June 15. We would like to extend our thanks to all of our members who called and emailed your specific examples of lost healthcare providers. Many of you gave direct examples of the negative impact of losing the Adventist Group from the UHC network. We believe that because of your activist involvement APFA members now have the Adventist Group back in the network at UHC.

From the APFA Contract Department: APFA is also pleased to announce that the Company will be offering reinstatement to MIA Domestic to all remaining FAs on the MIA reinstatement list.  This is the result of an agreement reached between the Company and APFA in August of 2005 to facilitate the return of those FAs displaced from MIA due to the restructuring agreement and subsequent furloughs and forced transfers.  Reinstatement will be effective July 2, 2007. The deadline to respond to the reinstatement offer is 0830 Central Time on Wednesday, June 13^th.

Since reinstatement is being offered to all remaining FAs eligible for reinstatement, failure to accept the reinstatement by the deadline will result in forfeiture of reinstatement rights. Contact Sheri Hammett in Crew Resources by calling VIP Crew and using hotpath:  2-5-3-1. Or you can email her directly at [email protected] to confirm your acceptance.

From the APFA Archives: The deadline for submitting an application for the APFA Archivist position is Friday, June 15, 2007.  Send your resume to APFA, c/o APFA Archives at 1004 W. Euless Blvd., Euless, TX 76040. You can also email your resume to [email protected].

Please don’t forget that we still have 2,121 furloughed APFA members awaiting recall. It is APFA’s desire to have all furloughed AA FAs received recall notices from our employer.

That’s it for this week. Thank you for calling the APFA Hotline.