AMFA–Southwest Airlines AMT Contract
Negotiations Update
Update #50 January 10, 2017
The Negotiating Committee is providing this update to the AMFA Membership at Southwest Airlines.
This report is the only official authorized source of negotiating communications by the Committee.
We met with the Company on January 5, for a scheduled day-and-a-half mediated negotiation session
to continue work on the Maintenance Controller appendix language. As noted earlier, the appendix for
the Controllers will contain all language that is specific to their group, and it will reside in the back of
the Mechanics’ Collective Bargaining Agreement.
At the conclusion of our last session of 2016, we presented a counter offer related to the Controllers’
appendix, and the Company began this first session of 2017 presenting its counter offer. The Controller
specific language that we are continuing to work on is related to Article 4: Classifications, Article 5:
Hours of Service, Article 6: Overtime and Holidays, Article 7: Training, Article 8: Field Service,
Article 9: Seniority, Article 10: Filling of Vacancies, Article 11: Vacations, Article 12: Leaves of
Absences, Article 14: Wage Rules – Shift Premiums – Longevity, Article 15: Wages, and Article 24:
General and Miscellaneous. After we received the Company’s offer, we caucused as a Committee with
the Controller Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) to work on our next counter offer.
We returned to meet with the Company later in the afternoon to present our counter offer. Of the items
that we identified (roughly 30) as changes that the Company made to our last proposal, we agreed to
accept approximately a third. We also proposed minor housekeeping changes to several other items in
the Company’s proposal. Several sections that we were not able to currently make any movement on
were related to bidding in and out of the Controller classification, protecting a member’s seniority in
the event of a furlough, duty limits of 16 hours, capturing the Out of Service Desk and its functions,
and items related to the Relief Controllers. Also, as with the Mechanics’ portion of these negotiations,
Article 14 and Article 15 will be addressed as part of the overall economic package. After we
presented our proposal, the Company said they would work on a counter offer in the morning and
planned to present it to us before we adjourned this session.
On Friday, the Company presented its counter proposal where they again proposed language that
would be extremely problematic in regards to a member’s seniority by: NOT allowing any
interchanging between Mechanics and Controllers in the event of a furlough; only allowing one (1)
Controller to bid out every 90 days; a draconian process outlined to bid into the Controller
classification, including being locked-into the classification and waving your bid rights for two years; a
16 hour duty limit; and a host of other issues. We have the Company’s proposal and will be working
on a counter offer prior to our next session. Unfortunately, Maintenance Control management still
seems unable to fully understand how to acclimate to a unionized workforce, and the Company
Negotiating Committee appears unable or unwilling to steer them in the proper direction.
We would like to thank the SMEs – Rob Cush, Jason Leyda, and Tim Ananiadis – for their time and
contributions to the process. Please contact your representative to answer any questions you may have
related to these negotiations. As we cautioned previously, please continue to watch what the Company
does as opposed to what it says. We are scheduled to resume negotiations on February 7-9, and again
on February 14-16. We also are working to secure dates the weeks of March 7 and March 27.
Sincerely,
Your Negotiating Committee
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