AMFA National - Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association

On Monday February 17, 2005 open contract negotiations between the Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association and Alaska Airlines continued at the Double-Tree Hotel at the airport.

February 14 – 17, 2005

Participants for AMFA:
Louie Key – Region 1 Director
Kurt Kadel – Region 1 Coordinator
Alan Templeman – Local 14 Airline Representative
Russ Grant – Local 34 Airline Representative
Earl Clark – Local 9 Airline Representative

Participants for Alaska Airlines:
Kurt Kinder – Director of Maintenance Control
Dave Schwartz – Manager, M&E Union Relations
Ronald Henson - Attorney at Law, Ford & Harrison LLP
Elizabeth Ryan – Manager, Labor Relations
Steve Zerda – Director, Maint. Planning & Mat’l. Control

Article 9 – Seniority Discussions continued on the Seniority Article. The Company removed their proposal on the restructuring of the seniority system. With this development the negotiation committee agreed to T/A the Article with the other changes incorporated. Major changes within Article 9 include the inclusion of the Letter of Agreement language for OJTs, the elimination of the "40 or more" proviso in Par. K2a, and more structure to the furlough and recall procedures.

Other Articles T/A’ed this week include Article 3, 5, 13, 17, 18, & 31. All with very minor changes and/or clarifications. The Company’s opening proposal in Article 13 Vacations was to reduce the accrual rate, ours was to increase the accrual rate. The Article was T/A’ed with no changes to the current accrual rates. The only change was the elimination of the obsolete language in Par. B2 as no current employees fall under this stipulation.

Bringing the total number of Articles we have T/A’ed to 16.

Negotiations continued briefly on Article 4 -Classification of Work. Differences centered on the ratio of leads to technicians. The parties agreed to leave the Article tabled for the time being.

The week ended with discussions on Article 8. The Company wanted to discuss the idea of an AOG Team concept to perform major repairs to out of service aircraft on the system. We will continue these discussions when we reconvene.

As always, we would like to thank the observers that were in attendance and encourage others to attend in the future, during this important process. Due to security issues at the Gold Coast Center members may have problems gaining access through the key-pad doors. Signs will be posted next to each door with the telephone number to call for those needing admittance assistance.

The next round of AMFA – ASA negotiations in Seattle; will take place at the Double-Tree Hotel at the airport: dates listed below. Please watch the Local 14 website for specific locations. For additional negotiation information and other AMFA carrier updates, please call the AMFA National Hotline at (800)-520-AMFA (2632).