11.06.07 – (LAA) – AA Issues Misleading Message Addressing Decision to Extend Recall Rights, Skyword Express

This is Leslie Mayo, National Communications Coordinator, with the APFA Hotline for Tuesday, November 6, 2007.

As an update to last week’s hotline the company issued a misleading HI6 message on Friday that attempted to address AA’s decision to extend recall rights for two months for those furloughed AA Flight Attendants set to fall off the seniority list November 1st, 2007. This HI6 message wrongly stated that AA and APFA “will continue to seek a mutually acceptable solution to the issues involved.” Last week APFA simply accepted AA’s agreement to extend recall rights for two months ending December 31, 2007. In fact, Senator Claire McCaskill, along with several other U.S. Senators persuaded CEO Gerard Arpey to delay allowing the most recent furloughsÇ recall rights to expire. APFA has been encouraging the company to allow this extension for years. Last Friday, the Company apparently changed their mind, no doubt as a result of the pressure they felt from Capitol Hill.

Since 2004, APFA has demanded that AA resolve certain grievances APFA inherited with the TWA-LLC acquisition. APFA has argued that the value of these outstanding grievances could be the exchange for AA to extend recall rights for all APFA members on furlough. The complete history of the efforts by APFA to obtain recall extension beyond five years was carefully explained to our entire membership in the June 2007 Skyword Express (currently posted on www.apfa.org).

Other that discussing the exchange of these eight grievances for the extension of recall rights for all furloughed members, APFA has and will continue to refuse to discuss any other options – up to and including opening our contract on this subject. This simply is not a possibility!

Meanwhile, the APFA Negotiating Team is preparing a members’ survey, which will become the foundation for APFA’s 2008 Contract proposals. We urge each of you to participate in the opinion survey that will be available to all members in good standing in January 2008.

In order to prepare for our next round of negotiations, it is imperative that APFA members remain up-to-date during the pre-stages of collective bargaining. Come talk to your Negotiating Committee next week in all base city operations – as the Team begins a Negotiations Listening Tour. See the schedule posted on our website and on all APFA bulletin boards.

In other news relevant to our rather disjointed recorded hotline lately, AT&T has told us they are still attempting to sort out the issues that prevent us from recording more than four minutes. We are hopeful that AT&T will resolve these problems soon as it has created some confusion with our weekly hotline.

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