8.03.07 – (LAA) – Arpey Letter, Contact Congress to Include OSHA Protection for FAs

This is Leslie Mayo, National Communications Coordinator, with the APFA Hotline for Friday, August 3, 2007.

Employees received a “Dear Colleague/Thank you” letter from Gerard Arpey this week re: the 2nd Quarter Earnings. That’s a whole lot of money to spend on a letter that could’ve gone toward next year’s profit sharing that we’re all crossing our fingers for. If you haven’t yet tossed your non-personalized letter in the circular file, APFA is recommending that you write “Return to Sender” on the outside of the envelope and drop it in any mailbox. If you haven’t yet opened your letter, don’t bother – there’s no cash bonus in there – just our CEO asking you to work even harder so that management can increase their bonuses for next year, the year after that, and as of last month’s AMR Board Meeting, in April of 2010 as well.

APFA hosted a meeting today with the newly-elected national officers of APA – Lloyd Hill, president; Tom Westbrook, vice-president; and Bill Haug; secretary/treasurer, along with TWU-ATD International Reps Dennis Burchette and Tony McCoy. This meeting continued the practice established in ’04 for the three unions on AA’s property to meet regularly on issues of common interest. Presently, the major issue at hand is Negotiations ’08. The next meeting will be hosted by APA, with TWU hosting the meeting in September. With all nine labor contracts amendable in í08, we have a lot of work ahead of us – and collaboration with APA and TWU on common issues will prove beneficial for our members.

From the Communications Department: If you are attempting to email an APFA Representative, please DO NOT use Jetmail either from AA Operations or your home computer once logged into JetNet. APFA has no way of knowing how secure AA’s Jetmail email system is and since many of your emails to your Union are of a confidential nature, it is important that you utilize another avenue to send your message. You can access the APFA Web site within Operations and email a Representative from there by clicking on “Contact.” Please be careful when sending information to your Union that it does not end up in the wrong hands unintentionally.

As a reminder, please encourage Congress to include OSHA Protection for Flight Attendants in the ’07 FAA Reauthorization Act by visiting www.apfa.org and clicking on the link inside Action Alert. Also, you can contact your Congressperson on the issue of Family Leave for Crewmembers and the Extension of Recall Rights for our furloughed Flight Attendants at www.apfa.org as well.

At APFA’s request, Senator Claire McCaskill (D-MO) introduced a stand-alone bill today – S. 1992 – that would mandate a ten-year recall period for furloughed employees of a company that received federal financial aid after 9/11. This bill will be introduced as an amendment to the FAA Reauthorization bill when it comes to the Senate floor for a vote. Next week we will have a revised letter to email to your State Senators via the CapWiz feature on APFA’s Web site requesting support for S.1992.

Visit www.apfa.org to review a letter written by Sen. McCaskill to APFA President Tommie Hutto-Blake regarding this legislation as well as notice of her full support for further funding of FA Fatigue also included in the FAA Reauthorization Bill. Senator McCaskill takes special care in this letter to dispel any opinions or misbeliefs AA FAs may carry that her amendment to the FAA Reauthorization Bill contains language requesting any retroactive measures to current Seniority Agreements, INCLUDING the 2001 AA/APFA Seniority Integration Agreement. In other words, her previously-introduced amendment to the FAA Reauthorization Bill addresses the application of Allegheny-Mohawk provisions to future airline mergers and their employee’s seniority lists. This will not affect our current seniority list IN ANYWAY, since it is not retroactive. Furthermore, APFA’s Collective Bargaining Agreement already contains Allegheny-Mohawk language in the event of a merger with another airline, so McCaskill’s previously-introduced amendment will have no impact on APFA members whatsoever.

Again, please take a moment to visit the APFA Web site and click on the link above the APFA Hotline text entitled: ACTION ALERT to ask your Congressperson to co-sponsor S.1992 – the extension of recall rights to ten years for all furloughed employees of airlines receiving financial aid after 9/11.

Industry News: It looks like Northwest Airlines and ALPA have come to a tentative agreement (T/A) on relieving the workload from the NW pilots who have been maxing out before the end of the month or calling in sick from fatigue. This TA would require NW to pay time and a half over 80 hours of flying; NW can now fly pilots up to 90. We are told this TA also includes a potential of 15% of their pay – up to $1,000 – if they don’t call in sick between August 4 and September 3rd.

United Airlines has decided to hire 100 pilots with training scheduled for October. United received well over 1,000 applications in the first 10 days.

Rumor Control:
Q: I hear management is giving themselves more bonuses next year. Could this really be true?
A: Not only is it true for ’08, but it is also true for ’09 and 2010. The PSP Plans were renewed by the AMR Board of Directors in ’05, ’06 and ’07 and are awarded three years after they are set. You can bet that Senior Management won’t be turning down these awards, despite the fact that their Board “made them do it.”

Q: I hear several Flight Attendants were fired traveling through customs in Miami. Is this true?
A: No. A few Flight Attendants were detained by U.S. Customs in MIA and AA Corporate Security was called. As a result, there are two ongoing investigations into this occurrence and we will keep you advised as much as possible, without compromising the confidentiality of the FAs involved.

Next week, we plan to publish an area on our Web site containing some of the Company-initiated investigations – aka 31R’s – named after the Article in our Contract – throughout the system. This will contain general information to protect the confidentiality of our members, but reveal enough information for FAs to dispel and/or confirm rumors you may be hearing on the line. Stay tuned!

Donít forget we have 2,084 Flight Attendants waiting to be recalled

Thatís it for this week. Thank you for calling the APFA Hotline.