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Additional stories are on WWW.CWA.NET
08/11/2004
CWA'ers meet with management to respond to their last proposal and to hear details of their proposed profit sharing plan...
Present for the company were ECLAT consultant Doug McKeen, Vice President of Reservations Kerry Carstairs, Vice President of Customer Service Donna Paladini, management from the labor relations, operations, and benefits departments, attorneys and contracted analysts.
Present for the union were Local presidents, CWA analysts, staff and attorneys.
CWA'ers presented our response to management's last proposal. We began with a review of the process so far by presenting this preamble:
This, CWA's third written cost-reduction offer (6/22, 7/13, 8/11), is a continuation of our effort to respond to management's stated need to reduce costs to avoid bankruptcy, become more competitive, and put the business on a more sound footing. These proposals describe substantial changes to the CWA Passenger Service Employees collective bargaining contract designed to save millions of dollars in annual costs.
More specifically, this cost-reduction offer addresses management's July 27 proposal, attempting to accommodate many of management's concerns about our earlier offers, and drawing management's attention to major parts of our earlier offers to which they have not responded.
Finally, this cost-reduction offer reflects the CWA stance, stated at the bargaining table and at subsequent meetings, that management's July 27 proposal was not a good-faith response to our earlier offers. That proposal incorporated all the cost savings of those CWA offers, but did not reduce in any way the company's long-standing demand to radically reduce or eliminate employee income and benefits to conform to an imaginary contract composed of the worst (from the employee's point of view) of the working conditions at America West and/or Jet Blue. Management's proposals would, among other things, cut employee take-home pay by about 50 percent.
CWA'ers then presented a revised Early Out program designed to reduce cost by reducing seniority, and a revised voluntary Work At Home Res proposal designed to reduce cost by eliminating overhead as well as lower pay grade.
We also drew management's attention to the part of our Early Out program that called for those filling buyout vacancies to be placed on the X Scale (the Southwest Airlines scale) which is, itself, a cost saving feature that management did not acknowledge or respond to in their last proposal.
We also presented several proposed Scope modifications that would cover work not currently covered by the contract and provide additional job security for our members. These changes are warranted by the fact that our contract is fully competitive in terms of salaries and productivity with competitors doing similar work.
Management asked for a meeting of our analysts for Friday (that we agreed to) and also asked to have a meeting early next week to reply to our proposal, which we will set up as soon as they name some dates.
Management then reviewed their profit sharing proposal, which is posted at our website www.cwa.net. These are the primary points they made:
The profit sharing plan is part of the overall package of pay and benefit cuts presented on July 27;
The plan will not be offered if the company again goes bankrupt;
If the company's profit margin is in the range of 0% - 5%, the plan will provide for an annual pool of 10% of all pre-tax profits to be shared by all employees on the basis of your W2 annual earnings (i.e. your percent share of the pool would be the same as your percent share of all employees earnings combined).
If the company's profit margin is above 5%, the pool would also include 25% of all pre-tax profits above 5%.
They estimate that the profit share for a person at top of scale for our group for the year 2005 would be about $1,013 (based on a top rate of pay of $13.10), and by 2011 that would go to $2,977. (These are estimates, because nobody can predict how profitable the company will actually be in those years).
CWA'ers ended the meeting by presenting copies of our petition (see your stewards for details) signed by over 2,000 agents and reps in the last two days. We will continue to collect signatures and present the additional amounts at our next meeting.
We'll keep you informed as we have further meetings with management.
CWA Local Officers and Staff
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Additional stories are on WWW.CWA.NET
08/11/2004
CWA'ers meet with management to respond to their last proposal and to hear details of their proposed profit sharing plan...
Present for the company were ECLAT consultant Doug McKeen, Vice President of Reservations Kerry Carstairs, Vice President of Customer Service Donna Paladini, management from the labor relations, operations, and benefits departments, attorneys and contracted analysts.
Present for the union were Local presidents, CWA analysts, staff and attorneys.
CWA'ers presented our response to management's last proposal. We began with a review of the process so far by presenting this preamble:
This, CWA's third written cost-reduction offer (6/22, 7/13, 8/11), is a continuation of our effort to respond to management's stated need to reduce costs to avoid bankruptcy, become more competitive, and put the business on a more sound footing. These proposals describe substantial changes to the CWA Passenger Service Employees collective bargaining contract designed to save millions of dollars in annual costs.
More specifically, this cost-reduction offer addresses management's July 27 proposal, attempting to accommodate many of management's concerns about our earlier offers, and drawing management's attention to major parts of our earlier offers to which they have not responded.
Finally, this cost-reduction offer reflects the CWA stance, stated at the bargaining table and at subsequent meetings, that management's July 27 proposal was not a good-faith response to our earlier offers. That proposal incorporated all the cost savings of those CWA offers, but did not reduce in any way the company's long-standing demand to radically reduce or eliminate employee income and benefits to conform to an imaginary contract composed of the worst (from the employee's point of view) of the working conditions at America West and/or Jet Blue. Management's proposals would, among other things, cut employee take-home pay by about 50 percent.
CWA'ers then presented a revised Early Out program designed to reduce cost by reducing seniority, and a revised voluntary Work At Home Res proposal designed to reduce cost by eliminating overhead as well as lower pay grade.
We also drew management's attention to the part of our Early Out program that called for those filling buyout vacancies to be placed on the X Scale (the Southwest Airlines scale) which is, itself, a cost saving feature that management did not acknowledge or respond to in their last proposal.
We also presented several proposed Scope modifications that would cover work not currently covered by the contract and provide additional job security for our members. These changes are warranted by the fact that our contract is fully competitive in terms of salaries and productivity with competitors doing similar work.
Management asked for a meeting of our analysts for Friday (that we agreed to) and also asked to have a meeting early next week to reply to our proposal, which we will set up as soon as they name some dates.
Management then reviewed their profit sharing proposal, which is posted at our website www.cwa.net. These are the primary points they made:
The profit sharing plan is part of the overall package of pay and benefit cuts presented on July 27;
The plan will not be offered if the company again goes bankrupt;
If the company's profit margin is in the range of 0% - 5%, the plan will provide for an annual pool of 10% of all pre-tax profits to be shared by all employees on the basis of your W2 annual earnings (i.e. your percent share of the pool would be the same as your percent share of all employees earnings combined).
If the company's profit margin is above 5%, the pool would also include 25% of all pre-tax profits above 5%.
They estimate that the profit share for a person at top of scale for our group for the year 2005 would be about $1,013 (based on a top rate of pay of $13.10), and by 2011 that would go to $2,977. (These are estimates, because nobody can predict how profitable the company will actually be in those years).
CWA'ers ended the meeting by presenting copies of our petition (see your stewards for details) signed by over 2,000 agents and reps in the last two days. We will continue to collect signatures and present the additional amounts at our next meeting.
We'll keep you informed as we have further meetings with management.
CWA Local Officers and Staff
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
