TWU Local 556 Negotiation Update # 3

Your Only Official Source of Factual Information

We met with Management at the TWU 556 offices on December 3 and 4 of this week for the third session of bargaining. Before we passed any proposals, we addressed several concerns regarding Management’s actions.  We reminded Management that in years past, we had one of the most productively unique labor management relationships in the aviation industry. We may not have always agreed, but could rely on our processes. The relationship between both parties was so unique, Local 556 made Herb and Colleen honorary Members of the TWU.

Management has, for some time now, been challenging and ignoring processes and current Contract language that previously would not have been an issue. One example is the refusal of Labor Relations/ General Counsel to provide all attendance point history data for termination cases. This disables our Union from being able to calculate accurate point totals and to determine if a Flight Attendant was justly or unjustly terminated.  Furthermore, the General Counsel/ Labor Relations team no longer feels it must honor certain contractual timeframes. Additionally, the Company is trying to dictate how our Union files grievances. Management’s disrespect for the parties’ longstanding processes creates distrust and erodes the professional working relationship which, in turn, negatively affects productive negotiations. We addressed alleged statements made by members of Management in which they conveyed a perception that our Union is preventing the expansion of Satellite Bases and precluding implementation of the Check-In App. This is simply not true. We have made it clear that our Union is the exclusive representative for Flight Attendants and, as such, we must be informed when the Company intends to negotiate changes to the Contract.

The Company has repeatedly stated its desire to reach a tentative agreement by November 2019. Your Negotiating Committee has made it clear:  while we want to work as expeditiously as possible to reach an agreement, we will not sacrifice substantive changes sought by our members simply to meet Management’s self-imposed timeline.

We also advised the Company that the comprehensive airline comparison presented during the last bargaining session was the Company’s benchmark, and while we appreciate the work done by the Company compiling the information, the needs of our Flight Attendants at Southwest Airlines are the driving factor behind how we formulate proposals. We expressed our displeasure that our Union requested information to enable us to prepare for negotiations 4 months ago, and that information still had not been delivered.  The Company never indicated they would require us to sign a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) to receive the requested information until the first day of negotiations. The original NDA proposed by the Company was overly broad in its application, but we were able to work through that issue, and we were able to agree upon joint ground rules for negotiations. Finally, we passed three Articles (1, 6, and 7) across the table.  The parties engaged in discussions related to these articles, but Management indicated it needed more time to review the proposals before it was able to respond. We are hopeful the Company will be prepared to discuss our proposals further at the next bargaining session.

The next scheduled meeting dates are December 13 and 14 and the two teams will be meeting at the Southwest Airlines Headquarters.

This has been your Official TWU Local 556 Negotiating Committee Update.

In Unity