AFA propose mainline wages!!

to which management claimed Horizon will "cease to exist"!

AFA led off our session last week by passing our proposal for Article 3, Compensation. The items we proposed included: 

• Pay rates equal to the Alaska TA (that did not pass)
• A daily, rather than a monthly, guarantee for Reserves, at five (5) hours per day
• Improved duty, trip, minimum day and average daily minimum credit rigs
• Increased instructor and trainer pay
• Increased rate for premium pay
• Holiday pay at five (5) hours for all holidays observed for management
• Pay for sit time in excess of two (2) hours
• Boarding/deplaning pay at .75 hours per leg
• Minimum leg value of one (1) hour
• Productivity Premium for flying an average of 10 hours monthly over your bid award, for four-month blocks of time
• Hazardous duty pay for flying during pandemics, epidemics or other destabilizing events

Management did not respond to our proposal, despite having more than two days to do so. Instead, they prepared a PowerPoint presentation showing how Horizon will “cease to exist” if they met our demands. They claim that increasing our pay as we proposed would make them unable to compete with other carriers (mainly SkyWest) and that Alaska Airlines would not give us flying if we were too expensive. In other words, the exact same thing they said in 2015-16 when they asked us to “commit to compete” so that they could get jets. We—not so gently—pointed out that we had not reaped the promised rewards of Commit to Compete, and that our most recent contract had been reached just as COVID-19 was hitting the United States, cutting our bargaining power off at our knees.

Management continued to insist that they knew we need a raise but that they were not willing to agree to (regional) industry leading wages. We replied that it was offensive that Air Group could offer Alaska Flight Attendant raises in the range of 30-40% and not offer us anything even close to that. They had no response to that.

We expect management to have a compensation proposal at our next session. We also expect it to be unacceptable. We know, of course, that we will not achieve every item or amount demanded in our first proposal. We hope, however, that management will take a long, hard look at the situation and give us a proposal that does not completely (and offensively) low-ball Flight Attendant pay. They need to do the right thing; after all, that’s one of their core values.

We are seriously considering filing for mediation with the National Mediaion Board if our November session is not fruitful. This is a decision made by the MEC, the Negotiating Committee and the International President of AFA. What that means for us is that we will be asking the government to help us resolve our bargaining stale mate. If we do so, we will explain this process in detail for you in a future communication.

We will update you again after our next session, which will be November 5-7. Until then, remember that we are Stronger Together, Better Together—and don’t forget to wear your white AFA pin!