NWA Part-Time Issues

December 5, 2007

District 143 is pleased to report to the membership that the ongoing dispute over the interpretation of the ESSC agreement, specifically Article 5.A.4. and 5. has finally been resolved with NWA. District 143 contract negotiators have maintained their collective position of the negotiated intent that part-time employees could work a minimum of 16 hours and a maximum of 30 hours.

The Company argued the District's negotiated intent, rather the Company’s intent, was they included the word “amend” to mean they could work part-time employees 8 hours any day or combination of days up to a maximum 30-hour work week. Therefore, we refused to sign off on the contract until we were able to provide resolution to this dispute.

So what will all of this mean? It means that part-time ESEs can only work 8-hour shifts on Saturday and Sunday only, and a maximum of 6 hours per day Monday through Friday not exceeding the 30 hours per week rule. “This dispute has carried on far too long and I am proud of the resolve from our negotiating committee to finally see what they truly negotiated,” stated President Gordon.

Final/signature copies of the ESSC agreements are going to print. Once received, the negotiating committee will convene to sign the agreements and copies of the executed agreement will be distributed.

COFPS Vacation
After several meetings with the Company, District 143 and the COFPS negotiators want to give you an update on our position regarding part-timers having a fractional week (ex. 4 weeks and 4 DATs).

First, the only two pieces negotiated/ratified pertaining to vacation were the loss of one week and to:

“…provide for vacation at a rate of accrual which is 60% of the applicable rate for full time employees…”

This is from the booklet dated January 20, 2006 ratified in April. Please see page 4, Item 11 (e) Part Time Employees.

Then, in October of 2006, when vacation committees started doing the math, the fractional weeks amounting to the loss of more than one week was discovered. It needs to be pointed out that this was not the intent of your elected negotiators nor the Company negotiators. The intent was for one week; period. Partial weeks were never even discussed in negotiations.

Also, the calculation rate for part-timers was being done wrong and, thanks to the input of some of our vacation committees, Labor Relations fixed that piece. Last year a chart was circulated showing an interpretation of what a part-timer would end up with. The numbers don’t lie: you will come up with a fractional week.

Since this wasn’t anyone’s intent, we attempted to get the Company to fix it so people could bid a full week and only lose one as negotiated.

We suggested:

Allowing a different number of DATs (not just 0,5 or 10 DATs as the declaration forms indicate). The Agreement says in Article 19.K.1.“…an employee may take up to 10 days of his/her vacation on a day-at-a-time basis.” That could allow an employee to plug in a DAT and complete the partial week.

That the local manager and local committee work out a process that works for their station per Article 19.G. It could be to plug a Company convenience leave day, use a substitute BH/AH (which can now be floated throughout the whole year) or go in the hole (not real desirable but we are allowed to do it).

That some people will be going up to the higher rate in 2008, that could have set the partial week.

The Company refused all options. We were even willing to delay the bid a week or two to get it right but to no avail. It’s very frustrating when neither side intended or anticipated this happening yet the Company could fix it if they want.

If this is the “NEW NWA” where the Company is treating us with respect, trying to make up for last summer, winning us back and fixing morale, we’re off to a very shaky start. Fixing this would go a long way towards making us believe. The fix morale, New Day at NWA, NWA Experience issue is being touted in newspapers, inflight magazines, and everywhere except where it’s needed most…to the employees. To quote Greg Hickman, “Opportunity is just success looking for a place to happen.” This was one big blown opportunity.

November 9, 2006
Part time is an issue in both the grey and black book. DL143 will be establishing a meeting time about this with the Company the first week of December. One of the issues to be discussed is vacation hour accrual.

November 2, 2006
The meeting on October 31, 2006 produced no movement off the Company’s stance on part-time application for the ESSC work group. DL143 says we never agreed to 8 and 10 hour shifts for part-time ESSC employees during the workweek. The Company says the opposite. Since our positions are on opposite ends, DL143 would like to ask all our Committeepeople to continue to file et al grievances if the Company schedules part-time ESSC employees to 8 or 10 hour shifts during the workweek. With not being able to reach agreement through the meetings we’ve already had with the Company, we’ll pursue the matter in the grievance process, up to and including arbitration.

October 19, 2006
DL143 is still having ongoing discussions with the Company about part-time. The part-time issue is not limited to one work area. We differ with the Company on interpretation of the part-time language and we also don’t see eye-to-eye on the Company’s intent on part-time usage. Our position that we agreed to was to lower the minimum hours and increase the maximum hours of part-time. The rest of the applicable contract language remains as previously intact. Nothing has been resolved yet and we anticipate more discussions regarding this subject, with our next meeting scheduled for October 31, 2006.