Part time hours reduction?

[kao]

I agree, its even in the company's best interest to have a MANAGEMENT / NON-UNION employee on duty the entire shift, day and night. Shift managers usually work from an office and should monitor employee attendance, sick calls, and on-time arrival to work etc. They should make all the mandatory OT decisions and monitor all oversold and late flights on their shift. They should be on duty to over see any irregular ops (diversion, buses etc) until closing. Remember new hire agents are on duty late.

Unionized supervisor (CSS's) are on the floor and very busy all day assisting customers and co-workers (CSA's). CSS's should constantly be in training mode, teaching new agents and helping agents new to their position. CSS's should be assigned to assist on all over sold, and delayed flights when connections are a problem.

These duties should be clearly defined somewhere.

This is Management 101

you should submit this to the company...I am serious!!! OUr current CSS --and not all-certainly do not think this way...very frustrating. Title it "what is a working CSS?"

 

[kao]

there are many stations out there that management treats Unionzed Sups as management and they are not out there all the time working the oversales etc and taking their 15/30/15 breaks.. i know of stations out there where the sups have been told. yes you are in the union but you are given other rights because you do management work .. you will see it all change the sups will become Lead Agents with no power like they have on the ramp and you will see more Shift Managers like they do with the America West side.. the sups should not have been included in the union.. but like i said they made up the majority of the original negotionating team for the contract. original US management did not want them in the union and they were right... A UNION SUPERVISOR... whats that all about..

gosh..I hope you are right...a change is needed....right now it is whacked that they are part of the union....sorry...

 

[john john]

I think we have good upper management and they'll do the right thing at the station level soon.

Let me guess your upper management or want to be, are have been

 

[john john]

Shift managers are more mindful of the budget and are rewarded for a good operation.

Is that what you call what we are experiencing

 

[kao]

I think we have good upper management and they'll do the right thing at the station level soon.
[/quote]
Soon...? LOL...I might be able to order my uniform "soon" too right? Mysteriously not in the system....hahaha....its the whole station...maybe we should be worried...instead of laying off 6 in January maybe they are trying to tell us something!!!!

 

[deltawatch]

Let me guess your upper management or want to be, are have been

Nope, not interested.

Lets see how they restructure ATO's and then we'll revisit the "good upper management theory ". Fair enough?

 

[john john]

Shift managers are more mindful of the budget and are rewarded for a good operation.


I think we have good upper management and they'll do the right thing at the station level soon.

Report of the Labor-Management meeting
November 1, 2007
Velvet Hawthorne, CWA Staff Representative
Doug Parker reviewed the Earnings release for the Third Quarter 2007 with Management and Labor representatives in Phoenix, AZ at the company headquarters on October 30, 2007.
Among the regular Management attendees, newly hired EVP and COO Robert Isom was present as were two new VP's Kerry Hester, VP- Customer Service Planning and Daniel Pon, VP- Human Resources.
Net profit for the third quarter 2007 was $177 million. On a year to date basis, US Airways has accrued $55 million for its annual employee profit sharing program. Profit sharing for 2007 looks like it will be very similar to 2006, Doug stated. The operation continues to show improvement, but still a lot of work is needed.
The focus is "Get back to basics". After merging the two airlines, the focus is on running a great airline. Doug said there are NO MERGER talks going on right now, despite the many rumors out in the system. Costs per ASM is going up faster then any other carrier right now. We had a high amount of FIMS, hotel and meal vouchers this quarter that caused our costs to rise. We are on the way to getting our foundation back to flying an on-time airline, and decreasing baggage and customer complaints is one of our main goals. In recapping the 3rd quarter, Doug talked about breaking ground on the new OCC in PIT and the 2009 China route. He announced recalls to 140 Express pilots and plans to hire 350 new hire pilots.
The filing for a single certificate was delayed from June to September, the company did not want to go forward before they were ready and praised the work done by the people who made this happen.
Robert Isom, EVP and COO stated that some of his main goals right now are to improve our on-time performance. Safety goals, reliability on maintenance, convenience and appearance are some of the things he and his team are working on. He is concerned about our international operations and feels they are sub-par and not acceptable as they are.
He felt the ramp, customer service and the towers are not as connected as we should be and they are working on better communication.
The main focus right now is on Philadelphia. Catering is also not in compliance in many areas and they are looking at staffing changes there. Overall aircraft appearance is also on the list of items he is focusing on.
Kerry Hester, VP -Customer service planning, stated that she is working on letting the employees know the goals we are trying to achieve through better communication. Reducing the amount of overtime in the system and improving the customer interaction that is not so great right now for the employee groups system wide.
I attended on behalf of the CWA-IBT Association members and again stated that our staffing is not adequate in the ATO's and the use of mandatory overtime on a regular basis to fix the problem is a violation of our contract and very wearing on the members. There are managers violating our contract by stepping in to do our work when they have already worked the maximum allowed hours in our contract. The turnover rate is very high and senior agents are looking at retiring sooner rather then later. We have had calls from Stewards in LAS, SFO and SEA, just to name a few, where local managers are not following our Contract.
I asked the leadership present if they were aware of the problems with the new bag belt in the new J terminal in MIA, they were not. I shared with them a letter from a MIA CWA steward who wrote to her local President about the problems going on there, including safety issues and customer service problems that are being caused by the inefficient bag belt system there. The DCA agents also sent a letter for us to share with the company that was given to their station manager back in August regarding the baggage problems in DCA. I advised management that nothing has been done by local management in DCA to address the 3 page letter describing the issues they are dealing with there. Kerry Hester was given a copy of the list of MIA problems and the DCA letter written by the members there, she advised us she would look into it and follow up on these issues in the next meeting.
Reservations agents are still struggling with the computer system as are the CTO reps. Customer service is still suffering because of the long work arounds the agents have to perform to get the system to do what they need it to do efficiently. No end is in sight to these fixes, from what I was told at the meeting. I shared with them the frustration the agents in reservations are feeling trying to continue to do their job in a timely manner, without it affecting their job performance.
The issue of probationary employees being allowed a steward to represent them was raised. They are being allowed to have a steward in some locations but not all and Al Hemenway was asked what the company's stance was on this. He said he would have to get back to us on this.
Part Time agents that work 5 days a week also asked that I raise the question to management about their Uniform allowance verses a Full Time employee. Management was advised that a Part Time agent working 5 days a week needs as many uniform pieces as a Full Time agent, without the same amount of pieces they incur higher cleaning costs. The company stated they would look into this request and get back to us. I also asked about the winter coat orders and Al Hemenway said they have not yet determined which locations will need winter coats. I am hoping they figure that out soon, since it was 38 degrees in Charlotte, NC when I landed on Tuesday night after the meeting.
The company listened to each groups concerns, took notes and told us they would follow up in the next meeting with Management and the Board of directors, which will take place in Phoenix on November 14, 2007.
Who wants to be a CSS?
From Janice Garris, CWA Local 3641 President;
I thought you might be interested in this scenario. I have an employee that wants to panel for CSS in SDF. He was scheduled per the contract to go for his panel interview on a working day without pay. He makes $18.00 an hour and will be gone his whole shift. He will be out $144.00. If he gets the CSS position, it will take him 253 hours to make up the $144.00 that he is out. This calculates to working 6.3 weeks as a CSS without any additional compensation. If he does not pass the panel, he is just out $144.00.
Now, I wonder if the company can understand WHY they have very few employees interested in this position. Just think about this for a minute. A CSS makes $4.56 a day more than an agent and this is before taxes. They must be CRO, GSC qualified and also be random drug and alcohol tested. Give me a break, why would someone want to lose pay for the day, take on more responsibility, be drug and alcohol tested for .57 an hour? This will not even buy them a cup of Starbucks coffee.

 

[deltawatch]

Report of the Labor-Management meeting
November 1, 2007

Velvet Hawthorne, CWA Staff Representative

Who wants to be a CSS?

My question is, what is a CSS, a union member or management? Can they write another member up? Can management hold close door meetings with them as a group? Can they mandatory another member without a shift manager on duty? Are they still managements protected group, will 10 year CSA's be laid off before 2 year CSS's like last time?

Will they be loyal union members or will they be forced to turn on other members to gain favor with real management? Will the union police CSS if they don't behave like union brothers and sister :unsure:

 

[leprechaun]

gosh..I hope you are right...a change is needed....right now it is whacked that they are part of the union....sorry...

Why would the Union want to give up jobs? The union is here to protect jobs, not give them away.

The problem is the company wants more than they're paying for. NO, a CSS should not mandatory, cannot write up agents, and should be loyal to his brothers and sisters, not management.

What the union should be pushing for is an increase from 57 cents an hour for CSS's.

 

[deltawatch]

Why would the Union want to give up jobs? The union is here to protect jobs, not give them away.

The problem is the company wants more than they're paying for. NO, a CSS should not mandatory, cannot write up agents, and should be loyal to his brothers and sisters, not management.

What the union should be pushing for is an increase from 57 cents an hour for CSS's.

Sounds like the company loses that way, unless real managers sweet talk CSS's behind close doors to do their job for them.

Sounds like a dis-functional situation ..... why would a company want leave someone with no authority in charge of an operation. :down:

I hope our NEW leaders are wiser than the old.