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Dear Teamster Brothers & Sisters:
First let us say how proud we are to be representing such a fine group of safety professionals. We have watched this group grow and prosper from the small group it was back in 1993 when we first started representing you, to the 1900 dedicated Flight Attendants that we have today. The road has been a long one and has seen many changes over the years, especially in the last year and a half.
The most significant of changes has been embracing the group's wish to govern itself and play a more active role in the day to day business. This has proven to be a wise decision and very successful. We are very pleased with the results and progress that Chief Steward Nicole Zimmer and her Leadership team have been able to accomplish in such a short period of time. Due to their hard work and dedication, we are pleased to continue helping them implement the many changes needed to reach their goals.
Your Chief Steward and Union Reps will continue to work with Jeff Combs, Assistant to the President/Organizing-Trustee who was assigned to oversee your account, and will continue to look for new and improved ways to engage the membership, and encourage a more active involvement from the group. You can also count on them to continue looking for better ways to represent the Flight Attendants to the best of their ability.
Some of their accomplishments in the past year include:
- Co-Creation and implementation of the CATS Program. Provides for a more streamlined dispute resolution process for attendance. Provides Flight Attendants with bi-monthly attendance reports.
- Approximately 250 grievances resolved with Grievance Panels scheduled monthly. More job restorations and Arbitration's in the past year than in the last 5 years.
- Terminations down by at least 25% in the past year due to trained and knowledgeable Union Reps.
- More issues resolved "on the spot" resulting in a reduction of new grievances by at least 50%.
- Electronic updates designed to educate, with an average readership of 80% of the members, up from 32% less than 2 years ago.
- Creation and Implementation of a dedicated new website created specifically for RAH Flight Attendants. Website averages 25,000 hits per month. Updated and maintained daily. IBT4RJET.ORG
- Implementation of an active Scheduling Committee. Presence and input at the bid runs each month. Scheduling committee learning to run the bids and take a more active role in the bidding/scheduling process.
- Implementation of Electronic FAM. Currently being tested at Shuttle. Have been working with Management on adoption of electronic FAMs and implementation at all carriers.
- Creation of the Mentor Program designed to encourage members helping members. Currently over 200 Flight Attendants participate in this program.
- Creation of the FA Helpline and Support Ticket System to better represent Flight Attendants and keep track of current issues.
- Integration of the Lynx Flight Attendants. Worked with Management to lift the fence and bring those FA's into our contract. All former Lynx FA's should have received pay raises averaging $2.00 or more per hour and have been fully integrated into the master seniority list.
- Distributed over 1000 Union pins, and also distributed 1900 flyers announcing the ibt4rjet.org website.
- Union Reps have visited every base in the system at least 2 times in the past year.
Some of the current projects they are working on:
- Negotiations - Committee has asked that the Tentative Agreement be rejected by the IBT legal department so that they can get back to the negotiation table. Currently awaiting answer, and then will resume and schedule negotiations accordingly.
- Mediation - Mediation on contract disputes scheduled for this Friday, May 18th, and June 29th. Numerous long time issues in dispute, such as the transfer training pay & days off pro-ration, commuting disputes and more.
- Creation of the E-Learn system for contract education, as well as Steward & Committee training programs. Many volunteers are assisting with this project and not all modules are completed and uploaded. Please watch the website at ibt4rjet.org for more information as each learning module is uploaded.
- Cooperation with Management for the implementation of an active Professional Standards Committee. Commitment from Management to refer more crew member disputes and compliance issues to Prostan, which will result in less discipline. Just this week alone, three Flight Attendants were able to avoid discipline by agreeing to have their issues referred to the PSC, with Management's blessing. We believe that establishment of true professional standards for Flight Attendants is absolutely necessary as we head back into contract negotiations.
- More effective communication with Management through monthly Operational meetings.
- Full color union informational posters in every base so that every Flight Attendant knows how to reach their Union Reps, and where to go for helpful information.
- Increased communication and cooperation with the Pilot's Union to build a stronger Teamster presence at Republic Airways Holdings.
- Establishment of a GO Team with training scheduled for July of this year. Implementation of a true safety committee to address safety related concerns.
- Working with Crew Planning to implement the hi/lo sked provision in the contract that would allow Flight Attendants to bid outside the normal bidding windows of 75-92 hrs.
- Working with Company's IT Department to develop a user friendly crew pay system.
These are just a few of the many things your Union team has been working on and will continue to work on in the coming months. We want to thank Chief Steward, Nicole Zimmer, her team of Assistants, and all the volunteers, for working so hard to make the changes needed to lead this group into the future. We understand everyone's frustration about lack of information regarding the Midwest Flight Attendants seniority integration, as well as the joint resolution agreement we spoke about in previous updates. So far what we do know is that whatever was agreed upon at the mediation session between IBT and AFA regarding the integration of the Midwest FA's, has now been rejected by the Midwest Flight Attendants. Until this issue is resolved, there can be no resolution on the possible integration (or lack of integration) with the Frontier Flight Attendants. Regarding your Tentative Agreement that never went out for a vote, it has been held in legal review for several months, mostly because of the tension between Management and the Pilot's union. However, had it been ratified, your team would have been back to the negotiation table by now. For this reason, your Negotiation Team has asked the legal department to reject the TA, so that they can get back to the negotiation table as soon as possible. As soon as we get an answer back, we will notify everyone immediately. Lastly, this past weekend we attended the IBT Unity Conference on behalf of the Flight Attendant group. The Joint Council adopted a resolution against Republic's Management regarding issues of concern to our Flight Attendants. We will be sending another update out shortly regarding that resolution and what you can expect from IBT in the coming months. Keep a watch on the website at ibt4rjet.org for further information, as well as Steward and Committee News. In Solidarity, Danny Barton, President Brian Buhle, Secretary Treasurer - International Vice President IBT Local Union 135 |
