20 INTL PRESIDENT FRIEND: Oh, well, it's
21 something to aim for. Scott, Agenda Item 22.
22 MR. SCHULTZ: Agenda Item No. 22,
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1 Committee No, 5, ratification process. The Committee
2 sends this motion to the Board without
3 recommendation.
4 INTL PRESIDENT FRIEND: So, the Committee
5 has debated Agenda Item 22, and essentially they have
6 no recommendation for you, so it is on the floor, as
7 it was originally proposed. Is there discussion? We
8 are amending the Policy Manual, so, when we get to
9 the vote, it is a majority. Discussion on Agenda
10 Item 22? Mike -- I'm sorry, Gary's first, and the
11 Mike, the dueling MEC Presidents. Gary?
12 MR. RICHARDSON: Richardson, Council 66,
13 for America West Airlines. I'd like to thank the
14 Committee and the delegates for accepting this as a
15 late Agenda Item.
16 As I had told you before when I proposed
17 this as a late Agenda Item, at our last Council
18 meeting, over a hundred of our members attended that
19 meeting, carrying with them, 300 proxies, and
20 requested that I bring this forward as a late Agenda
21 Item.
22 I also would like to recognize that we do
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1 have members of AFA Council 66 in attendance today.
2 Thank you for attending. I appreciate that.
3 What this Agenda Item contemplates, is
4 that in the event of merger between two or more
5 carriers, and the ratification vote for a single
6 agreement, that that ratification vote will be taken
7 and it will be a separate ratification vote.
8 Each of the carriers would have a say in
9 that ratification process. My members feel that that
10 would be in their best interests, that they would
11 have an equal voice in the ratification process.
12 It's important for the delegates to remember that
13 single-contract negotiations, at least in this
14 particular case, don't fall within the purview of
15 Section 6 negotiations.
16 Our Constitution is rather silent on that
17 aspect. As you know, there is a membership
18 ratification under Section 6, but under single-
19 contract talks, it doesn't necessarily address that
20 in our Constitution.
21 We need to ensure that there is a
22 membership ratification and that members do have the
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1 ability to ratify a single agreement, and I think
2 that the delegates do need to take into account, that
3 particular issue and the silence in the Constitution
4 and Bylaws.
5 My members -- in this particular instance,
6 we have about 2,300 members at America West and 4,400
7 or so at USAirways. If you took the combined vote
8 and a 50-percent-plus-one of that combined vote, you
9 would have around 3,000 or so members that would be
10 needed to cast a vote, affirmative, to accept an
11 agreement.
12 With America West having only 2,200 votes
13 our members believe that their vote doesn't count.
14 This Agenda Item allows that vote and their voice to
15 be heard and that vote to be counted.
16 It may be a perception issue, but it's
17 reality for our members. I urge the delegates to
18 vote for this Agenda Item in the affirmative. Thank
19 you.
20 INTL PRESIDENT FRIEND: Mike and then
21 Lynne.
22 MR. FLORES: Now I'm going to make a
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1 speech. I want to thank the Committee --
2 INTL PRESIDENT FRIEND: Could you identify
3 yourself for the record, please?
4 MR. FLORES: I'm sorry. Mike Flores,
5 USAirways MEC.
6 I want to thank the Committee for the
7 consideration and time that they spent in allowing us
8 to come and talk to the Committee and give them our
9 views, and, you know, thank Gary. Gary and I work
10 very well together; we always have.
11 This really is not an East-West issue.
12 That's why I'm glad that the Committee actually, you
13 know, offered it back to the Board with no
14 recommendation, because that's where it really
15 belongs.
16 This is about the entire body, the entire
17 membership in AFA, and the Committee did do the right
18 thing by sending it back to the floor without a
19 recommendation.
20 I appreciate that. It's here on the
21 floor, because that's where it needs to be. The
22 Board needs to understand the consequences of what
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1 this Agenda Item is asking. It's my belief that what
2 it's going to do, is cause nothing but havoc and
3 divisiveness.
4 No one has been merged, you know, as a
5 verb, more than USAirways. I mean, it seems like --
6 I've been here since 1982, and people are still
7 talking about Allegheny-Mohawk, literally.
8 You know, we've gone through PSA, gone
9 through Piedmont, Trump Shuttle, and now America
10 West, and there was never a split vote, there was
11 never a separate ratification on each side.
12 I believe that the Constitution and Bylaws
13 is silent for a reason, and, in fact, I don't even
14 think it is silent. It creates a voice for both
15 sides, and that's called the Joint Negotiating
16 Committee.
17 Each side is represented by an equal
18 number of members and that Committee comes together
19 to look at the two contracts and look at the needs of
20 both memberships and tries to work into a contract
21 that meets everyone's needs.
22 And that's where the voice is. What this
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1 Agenda Item would do -- and as an aside to that, at
2 last year's Board, I actually put an amendment out,
3 that passed, to increase the size of the Joint
4 Negotiating Committees by one member on each side,
5 because I thought, after I got into it, that two is
6 not enough from each side.
7 And "side" is the wrong word, but from
8 each carrier. And that did pass, so there will be,
9 in future mergers, an increased Joint Negotiating
10 Committee, which increases the voice for both
11 carriers.
12 What this item would do, it would give a
13 more weighted voice to the smaller group. And so the
14 smaller group, then, would end up, rather than
15 getting what they seek, which is equality, they would
16 end up having control.
17 Is that what we're about? I don't think
18 so. I think we're about a majority. That's the way
19 we do things. That's the way we ratify contracts,
20 and this Agenda Item, if passed, would have the
21 potential to inevitably take that process away, allow
22 the minority to continue to stall or -- and I'm not
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1 saying that's what's happening here, but it would
2 give that smaller group, the ability to overrule the
3 larger group or the majority, and that isn't what we
4 want, I don't believe.
5 And as far as single-Council/multi-
6 Council, here's the way it works: When a multi-
7 Council airline ratifies a contract, we don't do it,
8 base by base. One base can't hold up a contract
9 ratification vote, yes or no; it is the majority of
10 the people that vote, that would ratify or not, that
11 contract, and that's the way it needs to stay.
12 We can't -- this is too dangerous to allow
13 a system that would allow a minority group to control
14 the process. This is a democratic Union and we need
15 to keep it that way, and I urge you to consider my
16 thoughts. Thanks.
17 (Applause.)
18 INTL PRESIDENT FRIEND: Len, I had you on
19 the list. Pass? Shawn?
20 MR. FIVECOAT: Council 93, Shawn Fivecoat.
21 I was on the Committee for this, and we debated and
22 hashed this thing for a good amount of time.
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1 And I promised them that I wouldn't get up
2 and speak on this particular issue, but I -- and I
3 don't want to be critical in any way. I think this
4 is a basic communications problem.
5 You're geographically challenged, that you
6 have a huge group of people in the Northeast, and you
7 have a huge group of people in Phoenix, and there's
8 no connect between the two.
9 We're all Flight Attendants, we all want
10 the same thing. I think that this problem can be
11 solved, if there's an improvement in communication,
12 and build trust between these two groups. Thank you.
13 (Applause.)
14 INTL PRESIDENT FRIEND: Anyone else?
15 Gary?
16 MR. RICHARDSON: Yes, and thank you for
17 those comments, and, thank you, Mike, for sharing
18 your concerns on that.
19 It's not about an equal issue at the joint
20 negotiating table. We are speaking as one voice on
21 the joint negotiating table.
22 This is about a ratification process for
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1 the membership, and in that process, as you know, in
2 our Constitution and Bylaws, we have a separate
3 process in place, keeping the MECs separate, keeping
4 the contract separate, keeping all aspects of the
5 identity of the individual carrier separate, until
6 the time that there is a ratified, single agreement.
7 What this Agenda Item allows, is to also
8 keep that ratification process separate. It's not
9 unheard of in other Unions within this country. ALPA
10 has a separate ratification process, not to be saying
11 that we should be listening to ALPA, but, you know,
12 they do have that separate ratification process.
13 And we are talking about majority. Each
14 side in this merger, or each carrier in this merger,
15 the majority of those members would decide whether to
16 ratify an agreement or not. So we do still speak to
17 that majority issue. Thank you.
18 INTL PRESIDENT FRIEND: Okay, Mike.
19 MR. FLORES: To Shawn's point --
20 INTL PRESIDENT FRIEND: And you are?
21 MR. FLORES: I am the same as I was five
22 minutes ago, Mike Flores, USAirways MEC. I'm sorry
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1 that I always forget to introduce myself at every
2 Board that I've been to. I don't know why. I
3 apologize.
4 INTL PRESIDENT FRIEND: And we only do