President’s Response to Managements Proposal
Dear Member:
Instead of relying on the input from this team, you instead felt you knew better than these elected voices and took your last proposal directly to our Members and the public. You complained that the process is too slow, yet here at this table you have been evasive with information, taken months to honor basic requests for information and refused to give some information at all. You have busied the Union’s economist in making predictions of numbers you could have provided. You have taken time away from the negotiators by communicating information directly with our Members that was misleading. You have publicly stated that you are concerned with the amount of time this negotiation has taken, yet in reality you are not interested in addressing the needs of the workgroup that serves this airline with dedication and heart. You are more concerned with getting a quick deal and making few changes. We have been told you have the sufficient bargaining authority to make decisions, yet the leader of the team featured in your public video, Vice President of Labor Relations Russell McCrady, is never present.
Other factors that are increasing the time needed at this table are entirely within Management’s control. If the desire to meet a deadline is the goal, then stop violating and misinterpreting the Contract we currently have. Items affecting the pace within your control are :
- No longer considering Flight Attendants special circumstances. Flight Attendants are providing solid proof of calls made on time to Scheduling, evidence of significant highway accidents, and evidence of floods affecting their ability to get to work, yet Management has not removed the the associated points.
- Promulgating and applying more stringent work rules than ever before as the mindset of Management shifts from giving the benefit of the doubt to applying punitive actions.
- Using a recent Board of Adjustment hearing objection ruling as a manipulative tool to demand a change in our longstanding process for filing grievances.
- Weakening the Union’s abilities by demanding we file points grievances in a manner that switches the burden of proof from Management to the Union, disabling the Flight Attendant from speaking to their base leaders at a Step Two hearing, and changing a decades-long process.
- Refusing to provide the information needed to process and evaluate grievances properly.
- Continuing to reschedule Flight Attendants off of original assignments causing havoc in their lives, as cancellations have increased at Southwest, surpassing Delta, American, and United in the number of cancellations (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
- Mistreating those injured while working in the line of duty with exhaustive processes and unfair fit for duty evaluations.
- Not abiding by local laws and ordinances that guarantee time off for Flight Attendants.
- Requiring Flight Attendants to remain onboard with passengers during unpaid ground time and the end of their duty day.
- Pressuring Flight Attendants to begin working prior to the beginning of their duty time by not giving enough time to perform safety checks and receive briefings.
- Installing a new credit card sales program without negotiating those changes or compensating Flight Attendants for their contributions to those onboard sales.
- Never implementing the agreed-upon 45-minute boarding times during the life of this Contract.
- Releasing a check-in app without negotiating the required Contract language or ensuring technological protections for Flight Attendants.
- Implementing harsh requirements for those with pet allergies and denying those affected specific contractual provisions.
- Requiring more duties of the “A” Flight Attendant.
- Removing pay for LODO Flight Attendants.
- Having continued Open Time issues.
Let it be known that your “complete” Contract comprehensive proposal that includes the changes you seek is highly incomplete and is silent on much of what Flight Attendants need to see in order to vote yes to ratify an agreement.
Your proposed reserve assignments do not mitigate fatigue and doubles the time some will sit on call. In your proposal, many will have to return to sitting Airport Standby. You stated that you could not even implement the changes in the next three years, so this agreement does nothing to aid Flight Attendants daily strife, regardless of any deadline.
Flying with Supervisors with the current application of work rules and no longer applying the benefit of the doubt is utterly unacceptable for a workgroup that has historically self-managed itself into high customer satisfaction rankings.
We must have hotel standards; Flight Attendants were left with no hotels and Management must show that it is important where a Flight Attendant lives while working.
Safety could not be a more important issue with the recent grounding of the MAX 8 and a number of whistleblower complaints against Southwest. We must see a dedication to ensuring Members’ safety with Union oversight codified in the Contract.
Removing report times from the Contract and placing them in the manual removes protections and is too uncertain.
Removing the ability to negotiate new onboard sales, meal service, and different aircraft types is unacceptable. We should be able to negotiate these types of changes, and we will not entertain any future proposal that removes these capabilities.
A compensation package must be complete including more pay for the “A” position and addressing those times when Flight Attendants work outside of their original schedules.
This session we have responses to several articles and will continue to negotiate by proposing and responding to the articles passed as part of your comprehensive proposal. Our proposals will contain many items that are important to our Members that your proposal ignored. We will need to see significant improvements in the quality of life issues presented to you in my opening statement last November.
Let me be clear, TWU Local 556 does not desire a lengthy negotiation, but we are also not willing to sidestep the serious needs and concerns of our Members.
Be reminded; Southwest Flight Attendants are the ones who will ultimately vote to ratify or not ratify an agreement. Prior to that, an agreement must meet the requirements of this Negotiating Committee and the approval of the TWU Local 556’s Executive Board. Both the Board and this Committee answer to the Members, and we are dedicated to them. Negotiating around us and the Executive Board dishonors this process and extends time at the negotiating table.
We are the voice of Southwest Flight Attendants, and we serve only them.
Flight Attendants are standing strong with Southwest, but Southwest is not standing strong with them. Southwest Flight Attendant’s originality, “Fun-LUVing Attitudes,” and incredible dedication to service allow Southwest to lead the industry in customer satisfaction. They will accept nothing less than better than the best Contract.
In Service to TWU Local 556 Members,
Lyn Montgomery
President and Lead Negotiator TWU Local 556