|
Local 591 Administrative Executive Board Member
Russ Dittmer - 2024 Q2/Q3 Lookback
Sisters and Brothers,
With the hectic contract negotiations preparations schedule, and then the announcement of a possible economic contract extension, I thought it best to wait until after the dust had settled to send out a mid-year Lookback this time.
Before the announcement of the possible extension, your Negotiation Committee representing M&R, MLS, MCT, and MTS met numerous times in CLT, DFW, ORD, PHX, and TUL, as well as a multitude of Zoom meetings when travel was not a viable option for some on the committee.
In addition, because it has been a goal of Local 591 to add/incorporate a mediation option into the Grievance Process in the upcoming renegotiated contract, I attended a week of intensive training on advanced mediation concepts and techniques. While I was disappointed that I could not participate in the TWU Legislative conference in Washington DC this year, we felt that the mediation training was of far greater value in the short term for our Local 591 contract negotiation preparation goals.
For non-negotiations related travel, as usual I attended most of the Quarterly Membership Meetings in the five Local 591 Regions. I also spent a great deal of time at the new Local 591 office building in Grapevine Texas working on needed building and technology improvements. The response from the Members who have attended meetings, or just stopped by for various reasons, has been quite positive, and we continue to work to make your TWU Local 591 building more useful for the Local Membership and also for your Representatives. In addition I attended the National Safety Council in MCO, as well as two TWU International meetings, in DFW and DEN.
As with my previous lookback, I doubt there is a topic on the minds of more Members than the contract negotiations preparations and the economic contract extension, so I’ll focus more on that.
Prior to the offer of an economic extension, your Negotiation Committee (M&R, MLS, MTS, MCT) planned for and discussed in great detail the “what if” scenarios of full negotiations, ‘expedited’ negotiations, and/or any possible contract extension request. The Committee was aware that any of these, and/or possibly some variation of them, might be suggested or asked for during the course of negotiations. Your Negotiation Committee was prepared to respond to any of those situations. When asked, our prepared response was that we would consider any economic proposal the exceeded the best pay in the industry. During the period of time when the company and Association economist were working through the exact numbers and details for each classification and pay step, we capitalized on the time to attempt to work through a number of open contractual and grievance related issues with a reduced committee on the company and Union side. The understanding was that those discussions would take place until the economics were resolved. We had previously agreed as a committee that once we received the final numbers, and if as a committee decided to bring the economic offer to Membership to vote on, we saw no value in anything delaying that vote. Both the company and our Committee brought quite a few issues to those accelerated discussions. In the end, when the final economic numbers were completed and presented to the committee on September 18th, the issues contained in the final and signed Settlement and Clarification Agreements (M&R, MLS, MCT, and MTS) were the only items both parties could come to agreement on. After that, the goal of your three Local 591 Negotiation Committee Members (President Gary Schaible, MLS E-Board Mike Jezierski, and myself) was to travel to get in front of as many Members as possible to answer any questions you might have, and to also walk you through the details of both the economic package, and the details of the settlement and clarification agreement. In all I think we did pretty good. By my count, in under five weeks, and with two east coast hurricanes, we visited fourteen stations, and either walked the floor on as many shifts and locations as possible, or we had more structured meetings on or off the field. We also provided Zoom webinars to all Members for all of the more structured meetings where functional Wi-Fi was available.
One question I was asked quite often is: What happens to all of the negotiation preparation documents, and surveys, since the contract extension was ratified by the Members? The Negotiation Committee has committed that all of the documents, and all of the negotiation preparation work product, along with the substance of each of the nearly 2500 Local 591 Member contract surveys, will be preserved and maintained by the Negotiation Committee for the 2027 negotiations. The goal is to ensure that the Negotiation Committee does not need to expend unnecessary energy on issues and contractual language that has already been worked on and constructed.
Finally, I want to discuss the topic of professionalism and the important work that every one of our TWU Local 591 Members do every day. For every Worker in every Classification, every job, the work that our Members do is what makes American Airlines happen. The airline doesn’t operate without us, without our efforts, and without our professionalism. It is comforting to know that when my wife and I fly, which is quite often for both of us (she’s an APFA Flight Attendant working for American), that the professional Members of TWU Local 591 are inspecting and fixing the aircraft, training our maintainers, processing and handling the parts, repairing and checking the facilities, working on and examining the vehicles, providing planning and support, and cleaning the aircraft, as skilled professionals. All of us at TWU Local 591, together, work to provide our customers and fellow workers the safest airline possible. We do that by remembering that our professionalism on the ground is what builds the highest level of safety in the air for our passengers and fellow workers.
Fraternally
Russ Dittmer
Local 591 Administrative E-Board Member
russ.dittmer@local591.com
Download:
|
