The result of the elections are as follows:

MEC Officers:

MEC President – Roger Holmin

MEC Vice-President – Mark Gentile

MEC Secretary-Treasurer – Glenda Talley

MEC Committee Chairs:

Air Safety, Health & Security – Barrington Johnson

Communications – Brian Clark

Employee Assistance Program – Deborah McCormick

Grievance (Co-Chaired) – Aida Marski and Robin Agee

Hotel – Jody Compton

Insurance & Benefits (Co-Chaired) – Paul Frishkorn and Eva De Castro

Legislative Affairs – Lori Vitto-Glattly

Mobilization – Chris Housman

Reserve (Co-Chaired) – John Pennel and Deborah Breazeale

Scheduling (Co-Chaired) – Carol Austin and Jane Flinn

Uniform (Male & Female) – Brian Morgan and Leslie Roecklein

In Solidarity,

Your MEC Officers

“The Transportation Security Administration and the Homeland Security Department cannot dismiss the grave security concerns of 400,000 people on the front lines of U.S. aviation, including TSA’s own Transportation Security Officers and Air Marshals,” the coalition asserted. The coalition also includes flight attendants, gate agents, pilots, law enforcement and passengers.

The petition makes five critical points:

• Permitting knives in the cabin is an unnecessary risk to the traveling public and violates the Administrator’s duty—as set out by Congress. A TSA-approved knife could be used to stab or kill a passenger, crew member, federal air marshal, gate agent or TSA Security Officer by a terrorist, mentally ill person or drug or alcohol-impaired passenger. A TSA-approved a knife could be used to hijack a plane.

• It would be irresponsible to relax the TSA’s existing policy on knives when virtually every organization representing those directly affected by the change adamantly opposes it on safety and security grounds.

• Federal regulations currently ban all weapons on airplanes and in airport secure areas, and a knife is a weapon.

•  TSA’s argument for the change is false. TSA says the change would bring the US in line with the international standard for knives. There is no international standard for knives: Canada, Israel and Taiwan – to name a few – ban knives on planes.

• One of the nation’s foremost experts on knives provides testimony stating that with many folding knives the only way to be certain whether its blade locks is to open the knife. However, TSA has instructed its Officers to screen knives in only a closed position. Consequently, knives that lock will inevitably wind up on airport concourses and aircraft cabins. Should TSA change its directive and allow TSA’s officer to directly examine knives at security checkpoints, the Officers would have to devote substantially more time to screening knives and security lines would slow.

The planned rule change is arbitrary and capricious and to implement it without using the federal rulemaking procedure would be unlawful. If TSA moves forward with this dangerous change, the petitioners reserve the right to challenge TSA in federal court.

Without warning, TSA announced in March it would allow certain knives (with blades up to 2.36 inches long) through security and into the passenger cabin starting April 25.

Following massive opposition from those on the frontlines of aviation and national security concerns highlighted by the April 15 Boston terrorist bombings, TSA announced April 22 it would temporarily postpone the new knife policy. It has not said it would reconsider the policy shift.

The Coalition’s legal filing is adamant: No Knives on Planes Ever Again.

The organizations signing the petition are:

- The Association of Flight Attendants-CWA (flight attendants at 20 airlines, including United and US Airways)

- The American Federation of Government Employees (TSA Security Officers)

- The Association of Professional Flight Attendants (American Airlines flight attendants)

- The Allied Pilots Association (American Airlines pilots)

- The Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association (including the Federal Air Marshals) - FlyersRights.org(largest airline passenger organization)

- The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (largest aviation union, including flight attendants and gate agents)

- The Teamsters – (thousands of aviation workers including pilots at Frontier, Horizon, Allegiant along with pilots and flight attendants at Republic, Net Jets, Sun Country, Trans States and World Airways)

- The Transport Workers Union (thousands of aviation workers including Southwest flight attendants)

View the full text of the petition, which is also posted on www.NoKnivesOnPlanes.com.

 The legal petition is supported by expert testimony from:

John Bonner – Assistant professor at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. Served with the FBI including providing counterterrorism training to the Iraqi police and military in Baghdad and Fallujah, Iraq. His long list of security credentials includes Instructor at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Va., certified as a Law Enforcement Officer by the State of Florida, and participation in FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force.

Bernard Levine – Recognized as one of the world’s leading knife experts with more than four decades of experience. His books include four editions of the standard reference work in the field of knives and knife identification, as well as Pocketknives, a Collector’s Guide and Identifying Pocketknives. His business website is www.knife-expert.com.

Jon Adler - Federal Law Enforcement Officer Association National President, decorated officer, certified tactical instructor, an Executive board member of the DHS Federal Law Enforcement Advisory Board, and a First Responder at Ground Zero on 9/11.

Paul Hudson – President of FlyersRights.org, aviation attorney, Member of FAA Aviation Rulemaking Advisory Committee. Formerly Executive Director of Aviation Consumer Action Project, FAA/TSA Aviation Security Advisory Committees, and president of Families of Pan Am 103/Lockerbie among several other public policy committees and published author on passenger aviation security.

DALLAS The president of the AFL-CIO is worried that the merger of American Airlines and US Airways will trigger a costly fight between two unions over representation of airline ground workers.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka says that instead of fighting over workers who already belong to a union, the two unions should call a truce and share representation of the airline employees. That way, he says, they could focus on organizing workers who aren’t union members.

The major U.S. airlines are heavily unionized. At many of the biggest carriers, unions represent pilots, flight attendants and ground workers such as mechanics and baggage handlers.

Ground workers at American are represented by the Transport Workers Union, while those at US Airways are represented by the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers.

Over the weekend the unions disclosed that they reached an agreement on merger-related seniority. That’s a big issue in airline mergers because seniority affects pay and work assignments – and, sometimes, who gets laid off – after airlines combine workforces. The two airlines also agreed to the deal.

However a seniority agreement alone wouldn’t necessarily avoid a fight between the IAM the TWU, both of which belong to the AFL-CIO. Both are likely to want to represent all ground workers at the combined airline, which will keep the American Airlines name and become the world’s biggest carrier.

In a letter to TWU President James C. Little and IAM president Thomas Buffenbarger, Trumka said he feared that the two unions would wind up in “lengthy, contentious and bitter campaigns” to keep representing workers that each has held for decades.

• Pilots grounding American Airlines without strike
• American Airlines parent AMR trims loss, labor costs
• Judge approves American Airlines-US Airways merger

“Both of you know that if aggressive representation campaigns are launched, they will inevitably harm both unions,” Trumka told the presidents. “As important, it will also be taken for what it is: a portrait of AFL unions at war with one another at a time when we desperately need to focus organizing efforts on the unorganized.”

Trumka asked the unions to share representation rights, with each keeping its pre-merger membership.

Separately TWU faces a threat from the Teamsters and the Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association to represent American Airlines ground workers.

American, owned by AMR Corp., and US Airways have reached separate seniority agreements with unions for pilots and flight attendants.

AMR filed for bankruptcy protection in 2011 and announced in February that it will merge with US Airways. Executives for the airlines expect the deal to win approval from antitrust regulators and to close before the end of September.

Posted On: April 29, 2013 9:29am

The mistrust that labor harbors for American Airlines management is a feud with a history filled with a powerful vitriol that only duplicitous behavior engenders. It all began back in 2003 when then CEO Don Carty, after multiple years of billions in losses, used the threat of bankruptcy to wring $1.8 billion in wage and other concessions from the three major constituent unions; the APA (American Pilots Association), the TWU (Transit Workers Union, an AFL-CIO affiliate), and the APFA (Association of Professional Flight Attendants). While a somber Mr. Carty preached to labor that in this dark hour the necessity for “shared sacrifice” he failed to mention the deca-millions in retention bonuses of 200 percent of salary that management had concurrently approved for top executives.

The second tranche of perfidy was the major commission of the omission of disclosing the creation of a new “secret” supplemental executive retirement plan (think pension) being squirreled away only for top executives. Apparently, Mr. Carty felt no comfort in being on equal footing with rank and file employees whose primary pensions may potentially be at risk in a bankruptcy scenario. So the CEO in October 2002 clandestinely funded an irrevocable trust for the top 45 executives which specifically delineated in the trust agreement that trust assets “shall not be subject to the claims of the creditors of the corporation in a bankruptcy”….

Employees were so indignant they threatened to abrogate the recently ratified pay cut labor agreements. The retention bonuses were hastily cancelled but the supplemental pension plan remains in place to this day. Further fallout was the swift “resignation” of the woodenheaded Mr. Carty who received no severance package. But thanks to that recently created executive retirement plan, magically Mr. Carty was gifted $8.2 million. The award was actually closer to $12 million as the $8.2 million was an after tax figure.

During the intervening eight year period leading up to the bankruptcy, Mr. Carty’s successor, Gerard Arpey, continued the rich American tradition of, one way or another, of rewarding failure. While recording billions in losses in his own right, Mr. Arpey was insistent in attempting to push through hundreds of millions in executive bonuses. Mr. Arpey, enjoyed regurgitating to the rank and file a pithy little cheer “share the pain, share the gain”. More accurate might have been “all the pain, with none of the gain.”  The perpetual struggles of employees protest of executive bonuses in light of their own reduced circumstances leaves many both acrimonious and disillusioned.

The covert supplemental retirement plan remains a festering open wound. The airline refuses to issue public disclosures as to its current assets or how much money goes to fund it or where the money comes from.

Until the bankruptcy, union representatives had been negotiating since 2008 to reach new labor accords. Only since the bankruptcy with management’s legal right to reject labor contracts has the process moved forward.

The Merger: Who’s Getting What

Judge Sean Lane has blessed the marriage but the couple won’t be cohabitating for perhaps another six months or so. We know the equity split is 72 percent to 28 percent in favor of American shareholders. Given that stock split and an estimated $1.2 billion in cost efficiencies both secured and unsecured American Airlines creditors are likely to be repaid in full. Doug Parker will be CEO of the combined entity, and Judge Lane disallowed Tom Horton’s $20 million bonus not for any moral reasons, but because it is illegal under bankruptcy law. The board of the new company will have the legal freedom to award Mr. Horton whatever compensation they wish. American Airlines has frozen its employee pension plan which has $18.8 billion is liabilities and an estimated $ 8 billion funding shortfall. Because payments under defined benefit programs are calculated on both years of employee service and a certain percentage of final salary the American unfunded gap likely went down by a few billion. Current employees who retire in twenty years have their benefit computed as of today’s years of service and salary so actuarial future pension liabilities will by definition be reduced. The plan has been replaced with a 401k defined contribution plan where American Airlines will match employee’s contributions up to 5.5 percent of their salary. The company will likely save tens of millions annually under this defined contribution scenario as not everyone will save 5.5 percent of salary every month. Also, this shifts the investment risk from the company to the employee. And come now the egregious insult of a $20 million bonus for caretaker CEO Tom Horton. Here is one more depredation. Regardless of whether Tom Horton receives his undeserved $20 million, he has a pension worth at least $5million. Through accounting legerdemain Horton has been given credit for at least four extra years of American Airlines employment.

I almost forgot about employees. Guess what they are getting; the shaft, as usual. I have been in contact with several employees both by phone and e-mail during the past couple of weeks. I got a little detail from a TWU mechanic. In the 2003 giveaway, this gentleman saw his wages reduced 17.5 percent or nearly $20 thousand per year and had vacation time reduced by a week. A decades long American Airlines employee, before the latest new labor contracts he was making a little less than $70, 000 annually. After a decade of wage stagnation, the new post-bankruptcy accord initially calls for a paltry three percent salary increase. But because of increased employee health care cost burdens, a frozen pension and the newly implemented defined contribution 401K program, our example is taking home about $4,400 less per year! While this atrocity was unfolding, the airline and the TWU jointly issued a memorandum which I think was intended as some sort of mission statement delineating myriads of “business improvement opportunities”. There is a climax which specifies areas where “Union and Company agrees……to become best in class.” Like….you just gave me my first raise in ten years which perversely cut my after tax wages by 7 percent………and you throw this nonsense in my face.

Our country is battling terrorism as we send this, yet Administrator Pistole is still planning to weaken our aviation security by allowing knives in our aircraft cabins.

Read this release from our Union and the Coalition of Flight Attendant Unions

Coalition Of Flight Attendant Unions Calls On Homeland Security Napolitano To Halt Weakening Of Aviation Security As The Country Battles Terrorist Activity

You can make a difference by calling Congress every day for the next six days and planning to attend a rally at DCA on Wednesday,  April 24^th from 12 Noon – 2pm.

Find your Representative:

http://www.house.gov/htbin/findrep?ZIP=

Find your Senators: http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

When you call state:

“My name is _______ and I’m a Flight Attendant and constituent. I oppose the TSA plan to allow knives in the aircraft cabin. Please support bipartisan legislation to keep knives out of the aircraft cabin. Transportation security does not stop at the cockpit door.  Flight Attendants and passengers are not acceptable casualties in aviation security. Our country owes it to those we lost on 9/11 and all of us on the frontlines of aviation today – no knives, ever again.  Thank you.”

Rebecca Marchand, who lost her husband, United Flight Attendant Alfred Marchand who was murdered on flight 175, came to Washington DC for the first time in her life to spend the week talking with members of Congress.  She is flying home to Phoenix now on US Airways.  The least we can do is back her up, honor her husband’s memory and take a few minutes to call our representatives in Congress.

Read more about Rebecca’s plea to Congress: bit.ly/11nt84a

Day of Action – April 24:

Calling ALL Flight Attendants to show the world that we will not back down – on this critical issue for our safety, or anything that’s important to us!

When: April 24, 2013 from 12 Noon – 2 pm (briefing at 11:30 am)

Where: DCA, upstairs near US Airways doors

Attire: Full Flight Attendant Uniform, AFA pin prominent

Who: Flight Attendants from every U.S. Airline and specifically those represented by unions in the Coalition of Flight Attendant Unions: AFA, APFA, IAM, TWU and IBT.

MOU Update:

Yesterday, AFA-CWA and APFA met in Dallas to discuss the parameters of the Memorandum of Understanding/Transition Agreement that APFA and AFA-CWA will be negotiating with American Airlines and US Airways. The unions will meet again next month, to be followed by a joint meeting with American and US Airways management. We will continue to provide updates.

DALLAS — US Airways began studying a potential merger with American Airlines several months before American filed for bankruptcy protection in late 2011, according to papers filed Monday by the two companies.
The documents give a blow-by-blow account of how the merger was negotiated, including the thorny issues of how to share ownership of the merged company and who would run it.

The companies also revived a proposed $20 million severance deal for Tom Horton, the CEO of American parent AMR Corp. A federal judge had declined to approve the payout, finding that it violated a 2005 bankruptcy law, but he had left open the possibility that a payment could be reconsidered later.

US Airways Group Inc., whose CEO, Doug Parker, will run the combined company, played up the importance of Monday’s filings with the bankruptcy court in New York and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

“With these materials filed, we are one step closer to completing the merger, which we expect to occur in the third quarter of this year,” US Airways officials said a memo to employees.

The bankruptcy court has already signaled approval for the merger, which would create the world’s largest airline. The deal faces only a few more hurdles, including approval from the U.S. Justice Department and US Airways shareholders.

AMR will have 60 days to win support among creditors for its reorganization plan. Major creditors were closely involved in negotiations leading to the merger announcement in February, so it seems unlikely that they would derail the plan that will be considered by U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Sean Lane.

It’s less clear whether antitrust regulators in the Justice Department will impose major conditions on the deal. Regulators approved other big airline mergers — Delta and Northwest, United and Continental, Southwest and AirTran — so industry analysts expect them to let this deal pass.

The Justice Department, however, could require the American-US Airways combination to give up takeoff and landing slots at Washington’s busy Reagan National Airport, where it would be the dominant carrier, and possibly slots in New York too.

The company will be called American Airlines Group Inc. It is expected to operate more than 6,700 flights a day to 336 destinations in 56 countries and have about 100,000 employees. Based on current figures, American will emerge slightly bigger than United Airlines and Delta Air Lines in the number of miles flown by passengers, the usual standard for ranking carriers.

Parker will be chairman and CEO after Horton steps down as chairman in 2014. Parker would get $19.5 million if he is terminated by the new company for a reason other than misconduct, according to a separate filing Monday.

The merger is a coup for Parker, who just a decade ago was running a much smaller carrier called America West Airlines. He merged that airline with US Airways, and then relentlessly pursued a deal with AMR.

According to Monday’s filings, US Airways executives briefed their board about a potential merger in April 2011 — seven months before American and AMR filed for bankruptcy protection. As has been previously reported, Parker and Horton even spoke about a deal during an industry event that year, but Horton initially dismissed the idea, saying American preferred to focus first on fixing its own business.

Parker persuaded American’s unions and many AMR creditors that a merger would fare better than an independent American, however, and forced AMR into negotiations. Leaders of the two companies then haggled over ownership split and management titles. AMR creditors and unions will own 72 percent of the new company, and US Airways shareholders will get the other 28 percent.

Flight Attendants are particularly concerned about TSA Administrator John Pistole’s recent announcement of a forthcoming policy change to allow knives through airport security for the first time since the terrorist attacks of 9/11. The policy is set to take effect on April 25.

In the years since those horrific attacks, the Flight Attendant role as aviation’s first responders has come to include the final layer of security on board the aircraft. Despite this crucial role, Administrator Pistole did not consult Flight Attendants prior to announcing his sweeping policy change. In a hearing last month, Administrator Pistole admitted that he “could have done a better job bringing [stakeholders] in earlier” to TSA’s decision-making process.

In a letter to subcommittee Chairman Richard Hudson dated April 3, 2013, the Coalition of Flight Attendant Unions requested the opportunity to testify on the hearing’s witness panel regarding the critical functions Flight Attendants perform in the day-to-day effort to secure America’s aviation system and the role their organization should play in the formation of transportation security policy. The “Stakeholder Perspectives” hearing would have been an optimum opportunity for Flight Attendants to contribute to the policy discussion.

The Coalition of Flight Attendant Unions will continue to push for legislation to reverse this dangerous decision. Reps. Ed Markey (D-MA) and Michael Grimm (R-NY) have introduced the “No Knives Act” in the House and Flight Attendants are working on legislation in the Senate. A budget amendment offered by Senators Schumer (D-NY) and Murkowski (R-AK) signaled bipartisan support in the Senate for legislation that would maintain the ban on knives in the aircraft cabin.

Contacts: Corey Caldwell, AFA-CWA, ccaldwell@afanet.org; Jamie Horwitz, TWU, media@twu.org; Leslie Mayo, APFA,communications@apfa.org; James Carlson, IAM, jcarlson@iamaw.org; Galen Munroe, IBT, gmunroe@teamster.org.

The Coalition of Flight Attendant Unions coordinates on issues of mutual interest to Flight Attendants. Members of the Coalition are the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, Association of Professional Flight Attendants, Transport Workers Union, International Brotherhood of Teamsters, International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers. Together, the Coalition represents 90,000 Flight Attendants.

A judge on Wednesday approved AMR Corp’s plan to merge with US Airways Group , a step toward creating the world’s largest airline.

AMR, parent of American Airlines and in bankruptcy since November 2011, must still construct a formal restructuring plan incorporating the merger that meets court and creditor approval before the airline can emerge from bankruptcy.

American Airlines announced the plan to combine with US Airways last month, a deal that also requires regulatory approval.

In a crowded Manhattan courtroom on Wednesday, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Sean Lane declined to approve, for now, a planned $19.9 million severance package for Tom Horton, AMR’s outgoing chief executive.

Lane said he was uncertain as to whether the severance package requires his approval at all, or whether the matter is more appropriate for inclusion in AMR’s formal restructuring plan.

That plan, which all debtors in bankruptcy must propose, will lay out how creditors will get paid back, and will require creditor approval.

The fate of the severance payment is unclear. The version of the merger agreement that earned the judge’s approval may have to be amended to remove it.

Jack Butler, a lawyer for AMR’s creditors’ committee, said it was too early to tell how the parties will deal with the severance issue.

“The companies said they were prepared to amend the merger agreement in any respect, and I expect that there will be an amendment,” Butler said after the hearing.

AMR filed for bankruptcy citing untenable labor costs after years of futile attempts to negotiate cost savings from its unionized workforce. It had been the last major U.S. carrier to go through bankruptcy, after its competitors underwent the same process in the last decade.

Wednesday’s approval was a key moment in AMR’s 16-month odyssey through reorganization under Chapter 11 of the bankruptcy code. Stephen Karotkin, a lawyer for AMR, called Wednesday’s hearing a “watershed event” that moves AMR a step closer to exiting bankruptcy.

The airline began its bankruptcy process flatly opposed to merging while still in bankruptcy, but eventually relented to pressure from its creditors’ committee, represented by Butler and Jay Goffman, both lawyers at Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom.

US Airways Chief Executive Doug Parker wooed AMR aggressively, taking advantage of AMR’s labor relations problems to appeal to its unions.

US Airways hammered out a tentative deal with the unions last April, before formal merger talks between the two companies’ management teams had gone into full swing.

The creditors’ committee eventually convinced AMR to adopt a protocol to evaluate a merger, and played a large role in analyzing the net savings and benefits from a merger.

AMR’s current shareholders are expected to receive a 3.5 percent equity stake in the new firm, which would make it one of the few major bankruptcies in which equity holders earn some recovery.

The Skadden legal team advising the creditors’ committee also played a central part in negotiating the new management structure, including the details of Horton’s severance package.

Parker will serve as CEO of the combined carrier, while Horton, who became AMR’s CEO when it filed for bankruptcy, will serve as chairman of the airline through the first annual meeting of shareholders. After that Parker will take on the chairman role.

The merger is expected to close in the third quarter.

The case is In re AMR Corp et al, U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Southern District of New York, No. 11-15463.

 Flight attendants gather overwhelming congressional support in no-knife fight

 Bi-Partisan Letter to TSA with 133 Signatures Calls for Recognition of Flight Attendant Concerns

 Washington, DC – The Coalition of Flight Attendant Unions, representing 90,000 Flight Attendants, applauds Congressmen Eric Swalwell (D-CA), Michael Grimm (R-NY) and Bennie Thompson (D-MS) for taking the lead by authoring a letter to TSA Administrator John Pistole about the abrupt policy change allowing dangerous items in the aircraft cabin. The letter expresses serious concerns about the process used to determine a policy change “without any formal engagement with stakeholders impacted by this policy, including our frontline workers aboard flights, the crewmembers.”

One of the lead co-sponsors, former FBI Special Agent and US Marine, Congressman Michael Grimm stated, “This level of congressional opposition should serve as a wake-up call to TSA. The decision to lift the ban on knives was done without any rhyme or reason and without consulting stakeholders, like members of Congress, flight attendants and air marshals and the general public. I don’t know which is more idiotic — the policy or the process.”

The bi-partisan letter states in part, “A failure to engage all relevant stakeholders is unfortunate, in light of existing processes and mechanisms in place to garner input from frontline workers, such as the Aviation Security Advisory Committee (ASAC), which has played a critical role in the development of security policies and protocols, such as the Final Rule on Air Cargo Security.” Finally, it calls on the TSA Administrator to, “maintain knives and sporting equipment on the list of prohibited items until a process of formal consultation is conducted with all stakeholders through the ASAC.”

Flight Attendants are tremendously grateful for the swift, commanding support of Congress. The Coalition of Flight Attendant Unions now turns its focus to building the co-sponsor list for the bi-partisan No Knives Act of 2013, H.R. 1093, introduced by Congressmen Ed Markey (D-MA) and Michael Grimm (R-NY) and continues to press for signatures on the White House petition at www.NoKnivesOnPlanes.com. The Coalition also began airport leafleting yesterday to raise passenger awareness and encourage public opposition to the abrupt policy change.

Air Marshals, Pilots, Transportation Security Officers and airline CEOs agree with Flight Attendants. The people on the front lines of aviation security know this is a bad idea. Flight Attendants will continue to escalate our opposition until common sense prevails and the ban on knives is maintained.