TEAMSTERS FOR NORTH AMERICAN F/As

IBT LOCAL 210/ NORTH AMERICAN FLIGHT ATTENDANT MEETING

NORTH AMERICAN FLIGHT ATTENDANT MEMBERSHIP MEETING

We will be holding a membership meeting to discuss contract negotiations and other current issues.

We will hold 2 meetings to accommodate as many people as possible. Please try to attend!

 

Tuesday, January 31, 2012

10 AM and 2 PM

JFK Sheraton

132-26 South Conduit Avenue

Jamaica, NY 11430

1-718-322-7190

Map and Directions: JFK SHERATON

We look forward to seeing you there!

MEMBERSHIP MEETING

Dear Flight Attendants:

The past month has been a busy one for your Negotiating Committee. On November 30^th, Your Union committee met internally at IBT Local 210 Headquarters on Wall St. to discuss preparations for our January 2012 Flight Attendant membership meeting and work on some of our counter proposals.

We have scheduled a membership meeting for January 31, 2012, so please try to bid around that date. Please check this blog at the end of the December for the time and location of the meeting. We hope to see you there so that we can discuss our progress in negotiations face to face.

Your Union Negotiating Committee met with the Company on December 8 and 9 for another round of negotiations. We presented them with our Compensation proposal and spent a considerable amount of time working on a Scheduling counter-proposal. Scheduling is one of the most critical and complex areas of any Flight Attendant contract and is invariably takes a considerable amount of time to reach agreement on.

Note: We need your contact information to keep you informed. If you have changed your contact information,PLEASE SEND YOUR UPDATED INFORMATION to Hector at the email address below. We ask you to share this message with your fellow flight attendants and encourage them to send their contact information to us if they have not already done so. Also, if they have changed their contact information, please ask the to provide that as well. Please send your contact information to braceheadsdown@earthlink.net or to call Hector at 631-882-0899

In Solidarity

Hector Matias, Kathy Leone

UPDATE

Dear Fellow North American Flight Attendants,

It has been a while since we have updated this blog. As most of you are aware our representatives, the TEAMSTERS, have been working alongside you negotiating committee since the beginning of the process four (4) years ago. We know that there is a lot of frustration out there, and understandably so. Progress has been slow and extremely frustrating. Each advance has been difficult. While four (4) years is a long time, please keep in mind that the goal is a just and fair contract, and that is what this committee has been striving for.

The good news is that we have made significant progress in many areas, but there are still a few critical areas that remain unresolved. Based on the feedback that we have received from you, this committee believes that it is imperative that we achieve improvements in areas such as work rules that include duty time and crew rest, as well as a fair and equitable sick leave policy and a reasonable method of flight allocation.

While we can't go into specifics of these proposals in this blog, I can assure you that we will do our best to get this done SOON. In the meantime, we need YOUR help.

You can be a HUGE help to us by talking to your fellow Flight Attendants. The Company has declined our requests for contact information for North American Flight Attendants. Our only means of contacting most Flight Attendants is through word of mouth. Please make sure that your co-workers have the contact information for the Union Stewards listed at the end of this post as well as the URL for this blog.

WE WILL BE SCHEDULING A GENERAL MEMBERSHIP MEETING IN JANUARY, SO PLEASE WATCH YOUR EMAIL AND/OR THIS BLOG FOR THE DATE. WE WILL POST THE DATE EARLY ENOUGH FOR YOU TO BID AROUND THE MEETING.

PLEASE NOTE: After the beginning of the year, we will be overhauling the blog to include additional features and information. At some point, we will add password protection on the site, and we will make that information available to you as soon as the new features are in place.

Remember The Union is US. We are the Union. We need you behind us because we are working for YOU.

In Solidarity,

Your Union Negotiating Committee

HECTOR MATIAS, KATHY RIEDMAN

EMAIL: braceheadsdown@earthlink.net

PHONE: 631-882-0899

Update

NEGOTIATIONS

Progress in negotiations has been slow, although there has been some recent movement during the meeting on July 24-26.

The next set of meetings were originally scheduled for August 27-29, but the Company has a last-minute conflict with those dates.  Your Negotiations Committee will be using those dates to work on more proposals.

MEMBERSHIP MEETING

IBT Local 210 will hold a membership meeting on August 28, 2008 at JFK.  We will mail and email specific times and location  shortly.  We have tentatively scheduled 2 meeting for 11 AM and 1 PM in an effort to accommodate different schedules.

CONTACT INFORMATION

As new Flight Attendants are hired and other Flight Attendants resign, it is important to you keep you contact information updated with your Stewards and Local 210.  If you were recently hired or have moved since you last provided you mailing information, please send your updated mail and e-mail information ot
local210@earthlink.net

IMPORTANT SCHEDULING INFORMATION - FARs

Until 1994, there were NO federally-mandated duty time or rest restrictions for Flight Attendants.  Unless the carrier was unionized and succeeded in negotiating reasonable duty time and rest provisions, F/As could be kept on duty indefinitely and provided with minimal rest.  24 hour duty periods were common.   It took over 20 year of lobbying by various Flight Attendant Unions to convince the government to enact minimal duty time and rest rules.  The result was 14 CFR Part 121.467.  The full text of those rules are here. http://ecfr.gpoaccess.gov/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=ecfr&sid=070f945dc7b9a1f959dd2bcbb1845318&rgn=div5&view=text&node=14:2.0.1.4.19&idno=14#14:2.0.1.4.19.16.10.4

These provisions are mandated by LAW and CANNOT be waived by the Company or the F/A.

One of these provisions is a requirement that each F/A be given 24 hours off, FREE FROM ALL DUTY, in a 7 day period.  A 2005 interpretation of this provision by the FAA further requires that this provision be applied to F/As who are assigned to a trip after sitting Reserve, since a F/A who is sitting Reserve isn't really "free from all duty".  We posted an outline of this provision in April, but because NA has not applied this ruling until quite recently, we are posting an outline of the ruling again.

• Reserve doesn’t qualify as “duty” time.   
  
• Reserve doesn’t qualify as “rest” either.   
  
• If you have been sitting Reserve for 6 consecutive days, you are not legal to fly on the 7 th day because you have not been free from all duty. You must have 24 hours off before you can take a flight assignment.   
  
• 24 - in-7 is calculated on the basis of 7 “calendar” days.
• A “calendar”  day is midnight to midnight.
• That  means Scheduling must look BACK at seven (7) calendar days from midnight of the day of the proposed flight assignment to see if you have had 24 hour off during that period.
  
• You must receive notice of the 24-hour rest period in ADVANCE. For example, your pairing must indicate that you are to have 24 hours of rest, or Scheduling must tell you that you are released for the next 24 hours. Scheduling can't claim that you have had  your 24 hours off because they didn't use  you the day before.

The full FAA decision is somewhat lengthy, so we strongly recommend that you read the full FAA document by downloading it at:

www.faa.gov/safety/programs_initiatives/aircraft_aviation/cabin_safety/regs/legal/media/
24in7edwardscallisonfinal.DOC

 If you do NOT receive 24 hours off in 7 days before a flight and after sitting  reserve, please contact one of your Union Stewards immediately.  Remember, this is a LAW and the Company is in violation of FEDERAL LAW if you do not receive 24 hours off in a 7 day period before a flight assignment.

SURVEYS/ NEGOTIATIONS UPDATE

we have been pleased with the response to the Contract Survey that was mailed this Summer.  Your input has been extremely useful in determining the direction we should take.  If you haven't yet returned your survey, please do so.  If you haven't received a survey, it is because we do not have your mailing address.  To obtain a survey, contact one of you Stewards, Hector Matias, Judi Harwood or Kathy Riedman.

Negotiations will resume Oct. 24, 25, 26.  We have discussed a number of different areas and feel that we have made some progress.  Nonetheless, the process takes time and we want to take as much time as is required to get the best contract possible.

SURVEY ENVELOPES

We recently mailed a survey to all North American Flight Attendants for whom we have an address.  Unfortunately, return envelopes were not included with the survey.  You should be receiving a second mailing shortly with a return envelope for the survey.  Our apologies for the oversight.

NEGOTIATONS/ CONTRACT SURVEY

Negotiations resumed on Wednesday, June 13 and will continue through June 15.

In light of the large number of Flight Attendants who have joined North American since this process began, the contract survey has been revamped and has been mailed to those for whom we have mailing addresses. Please look for your copy of the survey in the next week. If you do not receive the survey it is undoubtedly because we do not have your current mailing address. If you have not provided your mailing address to one of your Stewards, please send your mailing information to your Chief Steward, Hector Matias at braceheadsdown@earthlink.net

FLIGHT ATTENDANT FATIGUE SURVEY

 

Flight Attendant unions have struggled for decades to have meaningful legislation enacted to limit the number of hours that a Flight Attendant can be required to remain on duty as well as ensuring that they will receive adequate rest during a trip.  It wasn't until the early '90s that there was ANY restriction on the number of hours that an airline could keep the cabin crew on duty, and even those restrictions are minimal at best.

In an ongoing effort to improve the lives of Flight Attendants, Flight Attendant unions are collecting real life examples of the unreasonable and unsafe working conditions that F/As are subjected to as a way to getting the attention and understanding of Congressional leaders. If you have an example of how the Company's application of the current work rules and/or led to actual duty and/or "off duty/rest period" that left your entire crew knee-walking, or a back-to-back trips left you with unreasonably short sleep, please email your story to braceheadsdown@earthlink.net.

 

WORLD AIR HOLDINGS ACQUIRED BY GLOBAL AERO

Late Thursday afternoon, World Air Holdings, Inc. announced that it had been purchased by Global Aero Logistics, Inc. the parent company of ATA.  While the sale is pending both regulatory approval and approval by the shareholders, little information is available regarding plans for the actual operation of the 3 carriers.

Attorneys for Local 210 are reviewing the details of the sale and its possible ramifications for our members, and we will provide any relevant information as it becomes available.  In conversations yesterday with your Business Agent, representatives of both World and North American stated that it is the intent of Global Aero to operate the 3 carriers as separately held entities which is good news for our members.

World will convene a "Town Hall" meeting for its Peachtree City, Georgia  employee on Friday, April 6.  If any additional detail is provided at that meeting, we will post it here immediately.

You will find the full text of the yesterday's press release here: http://worldairholdings.com/news/20070405.php