Things seem to be deteriorating at SWA - Excerpt from AMFA website notice:
AIRCRAFT MECHANICS FRATERNAL ASSOCIATION
AMFA Local 11 ● 1420 W. Mockingbird Lane, Suite 285 ● Dallas, TX 75247 PHONE 214-366-4546 ● FAX 214-366-4546
Final and Binding
Dear Members our Company Leaders recent decision not to honor an arbitration ruling, (SWA -2587) that favored the Union is and should be a matter of great concern. The processes involved in Negotiating contracts requires a certain level of trust between the two parties, the idea being that both parties negotiate in good faith and subsequently honor all the negotiated language/agreements.
Over the past couple of years it has become clear that the Company is not playing fair. Southwest Airlines has a unique advantage over the AMFA covered employees, that whenever they choose they can and have ignored the terms of our CBA and the Union is left with no other option than to follow the grievance process. The slow and cumbersome process favors the Company; while the employees are denied certain negotiated rights the company realizes synergies i.e. cost savings. The monetary gains of the Company are at the direct expense of the employees, for example.
The Company has failed to meet its obligation to start a fourth line of maintenance within the specified time line agreed to in our CBA. A promise they made in order to gain our consent for international outsourcing.
Our Company is currently practicing an attendance policy that causes employees undue stress when they have the misfortune of becoming ill or injured. Per our CBA any employee who is legitimately sick or injured may take sick leave with pay. However per the new Company policy, if this should happen four times or nine days within a twelve month period the employee will automatically receive a disciplinary letter, notwithstanding the employee providing a legitimate Doctors note.
Southwest Airlines Leadership experienced several victories over the Union via the arbitration process, a process negotiated within the guidelines of the Railway Labor Act, and agreed to by both parties. The Company won the Holiday movement arbitration, a ruling that diminished our earning opportunities and saved the company money. The Company won the crown skin arbitration; they successfully outsourced work that is customarily ours. The Company won the Laptop arbitration, again successfully outsourcing work that is customarily ours.
During the month of May 2011 the Company experienced a rare loss via arbitration regarding the filling of temporary vacancies within the inspection classification. Within days of the ruling Company leadership began asking the Union for relief from the ruling, the Union politely said no. The Company next made it known to the Inspectors that if the Union did not provide relief the Company might abolish positions within the inspection classification; only weeks after adding twelve new positions. Now twelve months later our Company Leadership has decided to reinterpret the plain language of the Arbitrators ruling, creating the exact same dispute that originally drove the grievance (SWA – 2587) to arbitration.
