Negotiations Team Response to Management's Calculator

By now, you have probably seen management’s latest update, including its proposed pay scale and boarding pay calculator. It is important to remember that AFA has not agreed to a tentative agreement with management, and nothing in management’s calculator represents an agreed-upon contract or a final deal. The calculator reflects management’s current proposal, not terms that AFA has agreed to or that are guaranteed to be in our final contract. AFA did not participate in its creation or publication. It is solely a management tool. 

We know the numbers in the calculator may raise questions, particularly when it comes to how the proposed pay changes would affect Flight Attendants at different points on the pay scale. We want to make sure you have the information you need to understand what management is actually proposing, how those numbers are being calculated, and how they compare with the proposals AFA has made at the bargaining table.

• What management calls “base pay” should be your guarantee multiplied by your pay rate. They used the lineholder guarantee, so your numbers will be lower than they should be if you fly reserve.
• If you bid/fly reserve: Remember that under management’s proposal, you will not receive the $2.50 per block hour override for hours flown from reserve. Their proposal has removed the override from the contract.
• Management is continuing to use 41 boardings per month as a lineholder average. They claim this is based on historical data. However, when we demanded and received the full data on boardings, we found that very few Flight Attendants board that many flights in a month. Management acknowledged this reality at the table. We have not received any satisfactory answer from them on why they are continuing to use 41 flights per month. We suggest that you look at your last few months of flying and determine your own average number of boardings per month.
• We have agreed to the boarding pay formula that management used in the calculator. If you want to see what your increase in pay over today’s pay would be under AFA’s compensation proposal, you can test it this way:
•  
  • Multiply your guarantee by your pay rate from AFA’s proposed scale, which is at the end of this email. This would be your AFA-proposed base pay.
  • Subtract management’s calculation of your current base pay from your AFA-proposed base pay. This will give you the increase in your base pay under AFA’s proposal.
  • To calculate your boarding pay under AFA’s proposal, divide your pay step under our scale by 4, then multiply that by your estimated number of boardings.

Of course, we do not know where pay rates will end up, as these calculations are just both sides’ current proposals. Management is using this calculator as a way to divide us, because they know that most of the money in their proposal would go to junior Flight Attendants. While they definitely deserve a raise, so do Flight Attendants who have worked here for more than a few years. Under AFA’s proposal, all steps would receive the same percentage increase (except for Flight Attendants in their first year, who would receive a bit more to ensure they would not be paid less than SkyWest). We feel that our pay proposal honors the contributions of all Flight Attendants and ensures that we all keep pace with the cost of living.

Needless to say, we have received some questions about management’s calculator. We will answer a couple of them here, but feel free to send in more. Also feel free to let management know that we are united, not divided, in our demand for a fair contract.

Q.            Why am I only getting paid ¼ of my pay rate for boarding?

A.

1. You are not. You will receive 30 minutes of pay at 50% of your pay rate, which totals 15 minutes of pay for 30 minutes of work. Although we would have liked that number to be higher, of course, two things are true: 

2. Right now we do not get paid for boarding at all, so even half pay for boarding is a big gain. And remember, too, that block pay is already greater than a true hourly rate in order to make up for work done outside of actual block hours. That’s also why we have our rigs. 

3. Almost all other airlines with boarding pay calculate it at 50% of the hourly rate, times the scheduled length of boarding for the applicable aircraft. These airlines are United, Delta, American, SkyWest, Mesa/Republic, and GoJet. 

Alaska Flight Attendants are the only ones to get their full step rate for their 40 minutes of boarding.  We opened by using our full step rate. Management was not willing to stretch beyond the industry standard. It was a painful decision to reach a compromise, but it still puts us in a much better position than we are in today.

Q. I am pretty junior, and even management’s proposal would be a decent increase for me. Why would I not want to get that raise if they are willing to pay it?

A. There are a couple of reasons why we cannot accept their proposal. First, it might seem like a good deal today, but think about what this looks like as you advance through the pay scale. The further down the scale you go, the worse it gets. You want to protect your own future, too. Second, management has proposed cuts to our contract to offset some of those raises. This means you might not end up making what you expected either because of proposed cuts or because management later proposes a lower pay scale because we didn’t agree to their cuts. Finally, every Flight Attendant deserves a fair wage for their labor, regardless of seniority. Management has to understand that we are united in our demand to make this a reality. They need to quit playing games and make a proposal that is fair for all of us. That is the value of a union, and each of us is the union.