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Another Week Wasted

Another Week Wasted

April 07, 2023
In the worst-case scenario for reaching an agreement anytime soon, and against the mediators’ wishes, this week Labor Relations presented their Reserve counter working from current book rather than SWAPA’s last proposal. The Company’s subject matter experts have admitted in the past on the record that our language capturing current practice is well-written and more understandable than today’s CBA. There have been few disagreements on meaning and intent between both parties, and yet in the least controversial section of scheduling — Reserve — we have exactly zero provisions agreed to after more than three years past our contract’s amendable date.

You must be asking yourself, “Why!?”

The answer is that the Company has drawn a line in the sand and made it clear that they want nothing to do with a work rules rewrite that addresses the scheduling chaos you face every trip. They don’t want clear language that both sides agree on. They want to rely on past practice and their misinterpretation of outdated and sometimes conflicting wording to give them the advantage. The fact that the Company is fighting so hard against a rewrite proves how important it is for us to have one.

SWAPA has made every effort to work with the Company to reach an agreement that our Pilots deserve and our airline needs. We presented them with our fully rewritten offer in January 2020. We then spent most of 2021 reading our proposal to them line by line. We wrote executive summaries and built presentations. We supplied supporting data and analysis to go along with those. We answered every question they had and adjusted our language based on their initial concerns, all to expedite a deal. In retrospect, it’s obvious they were biding their time, hoping that slow-rolling our negotiations would wear us down and give them an edge.

They miscalculated.

Skyrocketing demand for professional Pilots and red-hot competition to recruit and retain them has shown that management lost that bet. Delta set a floor for pay, benefits, and retirement that other carriers will exceed. Meanwhile 65 Pilot have left this year, at an accelerating rate of more than one a day since the beginning of last month. The Company has started to make moves since Delta’s deal, but they are carefully aiming to match them, taking great pains not to overshoot the market by a single penny. Their tactic is bound to fail. SWAPA and our Pilots know that the market is climbing, and we cannot lock ourselves into today’s market rate knowing that it will only continue to rise in the months it will take before we get a tentative agreement. The Company needs to make a compelling offer now that won’t be subpar by the time our Pilots get to vote. To paraphrase hockey legend Wayne Gretzky, the Company needs to skate to where the puck is going, not to where it is.

If the Labor Relations team chooses to work from our rewritten proposal, we can reach a deal by the end of what is going to be a long, difficult summer. If they choose to continue fighting against a rewrite, these negotiations will drag on until winter, or worse. Make no mistake, this Negotiating Committee will get a rewrite, not because we want it, but because the Company needs it. Even if it takes chipping away current book with a dozen passes of every remaining open section, including those with few conceptual disagreements like Reserve, we will get there. We’ve had that many exchanges of General language already. (And even with that many passes, the Company has still never put a proposal in writing for crew meals beyond current book.)

With the Strike Authorization Vote just a few weeks away, the Company needs to accept that the market is continuing to rise, and SWAPA will wait until their offer meets our Pilots’ needs. With you behind us, we will continue to hold the line for the agreement you deserve.

SWAPA Negotiating Committee

 

Update On C2020 By Section
SWAPA posts a C2020 Scorecard each month in the Reporting Point publication, but here’s a little more detail about the current state of our Section 6 negotiations as we approach the SAV. For these negotiations, an AIP is an agreement in principle, meaning both sides agree to the provision. Together with the Company’s team, we go line by line through C2020 and mark every provision (even section titles and subsection headers) that we agree on with (AIP [date]). The parties (and the mediator) measure progress with AIPs, which are expected to be final when we initial them off, although just this week the Company “un-AIPed” some provisions.

 

Section 1   
Purpose of Agreement – SWA due to counter. Both sides agree there will be little changed, but those changes, like Management Rights and Re-Opener requirements will be critical to get right and challenging to agree to.

 

Section 2    
Compensation – SWA due to counter. This section is wide open. Training pay is the only section we have discussed in detail, and we are not in agreement on it.

 

Section 3    
Expenses – SWA due to counter. Major open items are per diem, FAA medical, and parking costs.

 

Section 4    
Benefits – SWAPA due to counter, but unable to without SWA’s sick leave proposal. Very little agreement so far. Resolving sick accrual/bank should allow us to expedite this section.

 

Section 5    
Retirement – SWAPA due to counter, but unable to without SWA’s sick leave proposal. NEC rate and funding sources of a new Market Based Cash Balance Plan are the major open items.

 

Section 6    
General – SWA due to counter. Crew meals, joint SWA/SWAPA budgets, and medical freedoms are the major open items.

 

Section 7    
Seniority – Closed

 

Section 8    
Vacancies – Closed, except one provision contingent on Lance Captain.

 

Section 9    
Schedule Planning – SWA due to counter. We have many AIPs throughout our rewritten proposal, but SWA’s decision to ignore our rewrite and try to maintain current book has these agreements in doubt.

 

Section 10    
Schedule Adjustments – SWA due to counter. This section is wide open. It’s worth mentioning SWAPA’s rewrite focused primarily on codifying current practice with modern language while gaining some additional flexibility. Not many conceptual disagreements, but we have zero AIPs.

 

Section 11    
Schedule Execution – SWA due to counter. This is the section SWA is most resistant to change and it is the one most needed to help recover our operation. We have zero AIPed provisions and we are far apart conceptually.

 

Section 12    
Reserve – SWAPA currently countering. After SWA presented current book, your SRC worked late to move over their proposals into our language. We started our counter this week and will continue next session if the mediator approves. We are conceptually aligned in this section but we have zero AIPs.

 

Section 13    
Vacation – Closed

 

Section 14    
Training – SWAPA due to counter. Disagreements on training pay and training slot inventory for bidding. And the Company wants to end the Lance Captain program, but our Pilots disagree.

 

Section 15    
Hotels – Closed

 

Section 16    
Leaves – SWA due to counter. Sick leave is the major open item in leaves and we cannot resolve benefits, retirement, or this section until the Company gives up trying to cut our accrual or locking our sick banks in exchange for long term disability.

 

Section 17    
OJI – Closed

 

Section 18    
Physical Exams – Closed

 

Section 19    
Safety – Closed

 

Section 20    
Investigation/Discipline/SBOA – Closed

 

Section 21    
Furlough – Closed

 

Section 22    
Supervisory Duty – Closed

 

Section 23    
Dues – Closed

 

Section 24    
Definitions – Work in progress.

 

Section 25    
Terms – SWA due to counter. SWA mischaracterizes this simply as the dates of C2020. SWAPA’s language includes voiding all unlisted policies, agreements, and interpretations upon ratification of C2020. They have ignored that so far, in line with their desire to stick with current book on work rules. They don’t want to list the out-of-date documents that they use to twist our current contract and they want to use them in the future.

 

Section 26    
IT – SWA due to counter. SWA often mischaracterizes this section as “implementation.” It is not. It includes performance standards, EFB MOU protections, and other minimum collaboration/access requirements.

 

Ratification Bonus Letter of Agreement (RB LOA)   
SWA due to counter. SWAPA proposed a Ratification Bonus letter of agreement when we updated our Compensation proposal about a year ago. It is modeled after the 2016 ratification bonus calculated based on annual rates from 2020 until ratification. Our RB LOA applies to all current Pilots and those who have retired since the amendable date. SWAPA understands that we cannot allow any bonus less than full retro because we cannot reward management’s delay tactics.