1. Airlines earnings: This week Delta reported it's fourth quarter earnings and Southwest reported it's annual earnings. Delta posted a fourth quarter loss of $712 million dollars while Southwest reported it's first annual profit above one billion dollars.Southwest's record earnings are interesting because they are currently negotiating with seven different groups for new contracts including their Flight Attendants and Fleet Service Clerks (both represented by the T.W.U.). It's hard to understand when a company records record profits and won't resolve contracts with the employees that helped attain those profits. Please click on the links for more details. The information about the status of their open contracts is in the article about their desire to grow more at Love field.
2. Virgin imitates AA: This week Virgin America announced pay raises for employees while decreasing their profit sharing awards for all employees. One group was left out of the raises. Their Flight Attendants, who recently organized and are represented by the T.W.U., will not get a raise. They are negotiating their first contract. Sound familiar? Please click on the link for more details.
3. Weekly banking meeting: We met with senior management this week to discuss the upcoming banking schedule. There was not much new information shared in this meeting but we again addressed some non banking related concerns. The company told us they are having some trouble getting new employees badged. - Envoy moving to the outbound AA bagroom: This has been place on hold for the time being. After our conversation with them last week the company realized they are not prepared to move forward with his but have told us that they are still looking at this option in the future. As for not communicating with us.... I don't have an answer for that. We were told that before this goes any further that we would be involved in the process. As we find out more information we will share it with you. - CR-1's for missed training. We discussed this issue again and after considering the points brought forward by us the company has backed off their position on issuing the CR-1's for those members that missed the lesson in question. Any CR-1's that were issued will be rescinded and removed from the affected employees files and there shouldn't be any more issued. If someone is issued a CR-1 for this particular lesson we need to be notified immediately so we can address it. Anyone who was issued a CR-1 for this issue should review their personnel file later this week to verify that the CR-1 was removed. ORD V.P. Tedeschi was very clear that this was a one time arrangement due to the circumstances surrounding this lesson and that going forward the company will continue to enforce their policy about training lessons. He asked that we stress the importance of getting lessons done in a timely fashion and we re-iterated that some members are having trouble getting lessons done. If you have trouble getting a lesson done; contact the training department and ask for help in completing a lesson. They should try and relieve you or make other arrangements to see that you get the lesson completed in a timely fashion. If they don't please notify an Officer. Notification to the training department shouldn't be left to the last minute either. A few days before a lesson is due or a week would be a good place to start. New work: Effectively immediately we are ramp connecting ALL AA and possibly AE bags off USAir flights. Rob Koval will post 3 shifts for this work and this work will temporarily be done by OT or pool clerks. The clerk doing this work will report to the B-Con Crew Chief. The company was supposed to notify those who will be involved and make sure the tools to do this work are in place. As with any new work, I would expect some hiccups in getting this up and running but we will gladly take this work on. If you have any questions, please call the office and speak to an Officer. The company has also reached out to the I.A.M. leadership and gotten their approval for us to do this work. If you are assigned this work and have an issue with an I.A.M. represented member, call the office and speak to an Officer.
4. Equity Distribution: The company announced this week that it will release more shares from the disputed claims reserve. These shares were set aside in the BK for those entities that still had claims against the company. As claims are settled and if there are leftover shares remaining after those settlements, they are to be distributed to those who already have claims against the employer. That means us. This distribution will be very small and these shares will be held in reserve because many of us would only receive a fractional distribution not netting any real money. Please click on the attached letter for more information.
5. Office phones: The phone system in the office is about 12 years old and the manufacturer is no longer in business making parts hard to come by and expensive when needed in time of repair. Recently, the phones were hacked into costing a significant expenditure to re-secure the system. Additionally, the system has broken down more than once since then. The most recent breakdown has forced us to lose our voicemail. This is an issue that needs to be addressed. This Wednesday the system will be replaced and the phones will be down for 1- 2 hours in the morning. If you need to reach the office on Wednesday morning please see a Steward and get our cell phone numbers to call us.