Visitor Put up by Nameless Southwest Crew Member
An environment of uncertainty has enveloped the continuing contract negotiations of Southwest Airways flight attendants and Transport Staff Union Native 556. Current occasions have given rise to allegations of questionable techniques and a scarcity of transparency on the a part of TWU 556’s Government Board.
A lot of the controversy lies within the aftermath of the flight attendant’s decisive rejection of a tentative settlement final week by a margin of almost two to at least one. Southwest’s flight attendants have been demanding increased pay and higher work guidelines within the new contract. The earlier contract got here up for renewal in 2018. This new settlement would imply a 20% increase to subsequent 12 months.
Detroit News reported:
For 5 years, Transport Staff Union Native 556, the union which represents Southwest’s over 20,000 flight attendants has been combating for a brand new contract with the Dallas-based provider. The pandemic, nonetheless, put a pause on negotiations in 2020. Flight attendants will vote on the settlement starting Nov. 16 to Dec. 8.
For 5 years, Transport Staff Union Native 556, the union which represents Southwest’s over 20,000 flight attendants has been combating for a brand new contract with the Dallas-based provider. The pandemic, nonetheless, put a pause on negotiations in 2020. Flight attendants will vote on the settlement starting Nov. 16 to Dec. 8.
Alongside the pay price enhance starting Jan. 1, flight attendants will get 3% annual raises on Jan. 1 in 2025, 2026, 2027 and 2028, leading to a 36% enhance over the lifetime of the contract for flight attendants at top-of-scale and as much as 90% for different seniorities.
Additionally an “trade first,” in response to Montgomery, is paid parental and maternity go away with insurance coverage protection. Flight attendants may also have a brand new reserve system, ending a 24-hour on-call interval, and changing it with three 12-hour shifts.
The issue is that for years we’ve additionally been asking for pay whereas boarding or prolonged floor time. Many individuals don’t understand that when the plane is on the bottom, the vast majority of flight attendants will not be getting paid.
Mockingly, Delta (who isn’t unionized) lately turned the primary airline to offer paid compensation during boarding. Membership at Southwest has been vocal in asking for this as nicely, however it has fallen on deaf ears. This possible contributed to an amazing rejection of the newest tentative settlement put forth by the union.
Through the vacation meltdown of 2022 flight attendants sat round for hours, lots of them sleeping on flooring of airports or getting lodge rooms on their very own dime as a result of crew schedulers couldn’t be reached. Wait occasions of 16 hours weren’t unusual when making an attempt to get in contact with the corporate to safe lodging or the place to fly to subsequent.
Flight attendants and pilots are the front-line workers of an airline and, for therefore lengthy, have been ignored by administration when operations go haywire. Final Christmas was an ideal instance of that. Anybody who labored via that debacle wants greater than verbal reassurance that it will never happen again. We’ve heard that earlier than.
The opposite downside is these negotiations have a tendency to tug on for years and years-in many instances nicely previous the “expiration date” of the signed settlement. This has grow to be the norm. So, whereas figures like a 20% increase might sound important to some, in an setting of compounding inflation 12 months over 12 months, many are weary of locking in a pay scale that will rapidly be outpaced by our risky economic system.
Quick ahead, what adopted was a delayed response from TWU 556, which, virtually 5 days later, claimed the voting course of had, in reality, been compromised and they might not be capable of certify the outcomes of the election.
That electronic mail is included under:
On Tuesday, December 12, 2023, the Government Board was made conscious by the TWU Native 556 Board of Election (BOE) that the safety in our voting course of was compromised.
Regrettably, the BOE has notified the Government Board that they can not verify the accuracy of the outcomes of the Tentative Settlement vote due to this problem. True Poll, the third-party vendor chargeable for administering the voting course of, has acknowledged its function within the scenario. The TWU Native 556 authorized staff is actively exploring all out there choices to rectify this matter.
We now have full confidence within the subsequent steps for the BOE to conduct a good and correct re-vote that upholds the sanctity of your votes. We’re dedicated to preserving our Membership knowledgeable of the scenario’s developments and can talk instantly with you as this case unfolds.
You obtained a correspondence instantly from the BOE and additionally, you will obtain correspondence from the third-party voting vendor, True Poll. To deal with any questions or considerations you’ll have, the BOE and Government Board can be internet hosting a Zoom assembly quickly. Particulars for this assembly can be communicated to you promptly.
To be clear, your Government Board deems it completely unacceptable that the integrity of our voting course of was compromised. This by no means can be tolerated, and we are going to work diligently to resolve this matter to make sure the sanctity of the voting course of.We admire your understanding and persistence.
TWU 556
This timing, coupled with the urgency to cross the settlement, has led some to query the union’s motivations. Inside the union itself, an intricate political panorama is unfolding. It ought to come as no shock that in 2021 this exact same union voted out a bylaw that handled the “recall of officers”, additional cementing unhealthy actors inside TWU556. The complete TWU 556 Government Board, up for re-election, faces heightened scrutiny over their dealing with of the negotiations which have been dragging on for years now.
The overwhelming rejection of the proposed contract has forged doubt on their management capabilities, prompting allegations that the union is utilizing worry, uncertainty, and doubt techniques to deflect consideration from their perceived shortcomings.
Flight attendants, already dissatisfied with what they view as an insufficient tentative settlement, are more and more disillusioned, as morale on the struggling airline reaches new lows. Many are questioning whether or not the union, below immense strain to safe a contract, is prioritizing political maneuvers over addressing the real considerations of the membership that pays their payments. Focused character assassinations towards dissenting members’ voices, in addition to collusion with the corporate have each been proven-most lately throughout a lawsuit introduced forth by flight attendant Charlene Carter.
She was fired by Southwest Airways in 2017 for her non secular stance on abortion. Final 12 months, her employment was reinstated, and Charlene was awarded a 5 million greenback settlement after profitable her case towards each Southwest Airways and TWU 556.
TrueBallot, the third-party vendor tasked with overseeing the latest flight attendant vote, maintains that any safety points occurred post-election and had no affect on the vote’s final result in any way. Regardless of their assurances, flight attendants discover themselves caught within the crossfire of conflicting narratives, struggling to discern the reality amid a fog of accusations and veiled threats of litigation on each side.
As Southwest flight attendants grapple with the challenges of securing a good contract, they now confront a further obstacle- a union they will not belief. The turbulence within the skies mirrors the uncertainty on the bottom, as flight attendants demand a decision to a contract negotiation that has been dragging on since 2018.
Thursday evening, TrueBallot doubled down on their claims that the election was not compromised, and the decertification of the vote is totally unwarranted.
Their assertion is included under:
In an age the place misinformation and disinformation are prevalent, it’s tough to distinguish reality from hyperbole. We perceive that there’s sure misinformation being unfold by different members that we are going to try and appropriate. We don’t intend to electronic mail you once more.
1. The Contract ratification was safe and correct. The numbers are what they have been as we introduced. We now have the information.
2. The information intrusion that occurred was enabled on the RESULTS presentation, AFTER the election was accomplished. It didn’t and couldn’t have affected the election. We imagine know when and the place this occurred (IP tackle)
3. The information intrusion was capable of see and duplicate your title, electronic mail tackle and whether or not or not you voted. (90+% of you probably did). It didn’t and couldn’t reveal the way you voted.
Following the outcomes presentation, we have been made conscious that somebody had gained entry to the outcomes web page via the URL proven on the outcomes presentation, and voter checklist. They have been capable of copy that checklist. We have been requested the particular query by the Board of Elections, whether or not or not a voter’s vote might be decided from that that entry. We instructed the BOE that the how somebody voted might NOT be decided, and that names and emails addresses might be copied however not modified. The election was OVER.
The next day, the BOE requested us to ship an electronic mail to the membership. We agreed and despatched drafts of yesterday’s electronic mail, however we by no means heard again from them relating to their approval. After listening to from a number of of you, we despatched yesterday’s electronic mail with out approval from the BOE.
We NEVER spoke wth or in any other case had any communication With the Government Board or anybody claiming to be a member of the Board. Any illustration on the contrary is False.
We now have the information. We all know who voted and when. We all know how the outcomes proceeded, and we all know how they concluded.
The voting sample and ratio of Sure/No didn’t change all through the method. The result’s that the referendum was rejected by almost 2 To 1.
We instantly patched the revealed safety gap in order that the topic web page (and related pages) couldn’t be accessed with out going via a password Protected login. Had the Government Board or the BOE requested, we might have and will have run the identical referendum the following day, with none value. They didn’t ask or counsel.
We are actually conscious of the video by the Government Board, which makes sure factual representations which might be merely Not True. They impugn each our competence And integrity. We’re not positive why selected the trail they did, reasonably than have us to run it once more.
We offer and have offered a service to labor for almost 3 many years. Our mission includes the empowerment of labor unions and the flexibility to successfully govern themselves. We now have performed on the order of three,000 elections over almost 29 years. Not each election has been with out obstacles, however we’ve all the time completed our greatest to conduct them and ourselves actually and ethically. No election performed by TrueBallot has been overturned for actions taken by TrueBallot. We now have no real interest in a battle and want no hurt to any union, together with TWU 556.
It’s for the membership to make choices relating to issues of contract and management. We merely present the means.
As an apart, I fly SWA commonly. The flight attendants are the place the ‘rubber meets the street’. I/we’ve profound respect for who you’re and what you do.
As of yesterday, our union has now filed a stop and desist towards TrueBallot. They’re doubling down on the “re-vote.”