MEC Officer Reports - January 2025
MEC OFFICER REPORTS
MEC MEETING
Jan 13 & 14, 2025
Endeavor Air MEC President
Report
January 14, 2025
As we continue in this term of office, I am committed to continuing our collective efforts to enhance the experience and well-being of our Flight Attendants. My vision is to strengthen the foundation of communication and trust among us, allowing our focus to remain steadfast on the priorities that truly matter. By leaving the past behind and moving forward with unity, we can effectively address the challenges we face, both as Flight Attendants and as Leaders. This must be a joint effort of all involved, the constant attacks in social media only help the company to divide instead of the union to unite us as a whole.
A key focus moving forward is fostering stronger collaboration with our MEC Chairs. It is essential that we ensure they are aligned with their duties and responsibilities while also providing them with the tools and resources they need to succeed. To enhance this collaboration, I propose transitioning from bi-annual MEC Chair meetings to quarterly sessions. These more frequent touchpoints will help ensure everyone remains aligned, supported, and informed. Additionally, I recommend assigning the MEC Vice President the responsibility of overseeing the MEC Chairs as their primary focus. This role would require someone with a comprehensive understanding of all committees and their respective responsibilities and duties but also following the allotted budgets for each committee which is set for Quarterly Meetings with the Company, Trainings, Conferences, and Special requests. I will continue to oversee any Committees assigned to the MEC President as outlined in the Constitution and Bylaws.
As we look ahead, it is vital to follow through on our ongoing projects, including:
Refining the contract language: Streamlining and clarifying the contract language to lay the groundwork for upcoming negotiations, focusing on meaningful improvements in pay and quality of life. We have been asked by the Company to provide dates so that we can begin work on this and already have an MOU in progress to help refine language from a Grievance.
Updating the MEC Policy and Procedure Manual:
Ensuring the manual is revised and aligned with our evolving needs and goals and is inline with the Constitution and Bylaws of the Union. We will begin this project from scratch with a clean template and work with International to make sure it aligns with our set goals.
Effective communication with our members is another priority. Our members deserve consistent updates on our progress and future direction, helping to build transparency, trust, and engagement across the board. We need our Communication Chair to start writing the weekly updates per the Policy and Procedures Manual, the MEC Calendar to be updated on the Website and Electronic Bulletin Boards, and continue the Quarterly Reports from the MECP of which the last one was done in Quarter 4 in Nov, and another will go out in Quarter 1 in Feb or March.
Together, we can continue to make meaningful strides toward a stronger and more unified future for our team.
Elizabeth Mullins
Endeavor Air
MEC President
Endeavor Air Acting MECVP
Secretary-Treasurer
Report
January 14, 2025
After taking office in late November 2024, I am working quickly to learn all duties and responsibilities per the Constitution and By-Laws. As of to date, all reporting is current in nature.
Continue to foster good communication and record keeping with all locals and chairs to operate efficiently. Work with MEC Membership Chair and Locals to make sure our members are notified of dues owed and make arrangements to make them whole.
Am committed to upholding a high standard of operating in a timely, efficient manner. Willingness to be open to adapting to an ever changing environment.
Assisting the MEC President as acting MEC Vice President until one has been appointed. Which includes overseeing MEC Chairs as needed.
Respectfully -
Endeavor Air Acting MEC VP
MEC Secretary Treasurer
Beth Wendroth
LOCAL 45 REPORT
New York Flight Attendants face a unique set of challenges associated with the high cost of living (most expensive city in the network), high inflation and our low wages. Upper and local management have been made aware of the dire situation many New York Flight Attendants are currently facing such as; losing their apartment, living in storage units, cars or even at the airport in the case of commuters due to the high price of a crash pad, hotels and Airbnb. Many Flight Attendants have no choice to either transfer base out of New York as soon as possible or face financial ruin or even homelessness. To summarize management's response to these concerns and in their opinion, "Flight Attendants get to vote on contracts and LOAs". Although that's true, management will do their best to short change and gaslight Flight Attendants when a vote takes place.
New York's local management still operates under the belief that AFA should be controlled by
management instead of actually working with us. Management loves to say Local 45 should "collaborate"or have a "working relationship" with local management which in their mind translates into not making their abuses and violations public. In my short time as LEC President I have no doubt that our most powerful tools are Pickets and E-lines. Picketing and E-lines are two things that escape management's control and both have triggered conversations and meetings with upper management. Although they are more interested in not being embarrassed publicly than fixing issues, it continues to challenge them and most importantly gives Flight Attendants an opportunity to rally together and get information...in the end knowledge is power.
TOP ISSUES IN NEW YORK
- Wages & High Cost of Living
- Irops & Crew Services violations
- Contract Improvements
- Commuters (Hotel LOA & Geo Stipend)
- Unprofessional New York managers
Since the vast majority of New Hires go to New York, we launched a New Hire Committee in conjunction with ATL. Every New Hire since October 2024 has been contacted personally to ensure they get the necessary tools and information to help them avoid getting themselves in unnecessary meetings with management. Starting February 2025 we will also have a monthly Zoom meeting for New Hires to get to know Officers and reach out to us when they need answers. Our efforts in 2025 will focus on educating both junior and senior Flight Attendants and most importantly preserving their right to speak up and denounce violations even when management gets in the way. We will continue to not tolerate any harassment or intimidation by management and this MEC will work together to ensure every Flight Attendant is treated with respect. New York management knows by now that Local 45 will not hesitate to escalate any abuses by any means available to us.
Local 46 Report
DTW
Communication is very important to us. The LEC officers talk on the phone and email often. It is important that we work together and collaborate on ideas. In addition, We meet with DTW local management to bring up FA issues. Also, The MEC has monthly zoom call scheduled and commonly have unscheduled zoom calls when important issues happen. It is important to let the LEC officers know the issues so we can have them addressed by the appropriate avenue. MEC has labor management meeting once a month with senior management.
Our goal for 2025 is to grow our LEC committees. We want more grievance reps. We will schedule a training to train anyone interested.
In order to push more interest in union volunteers, we plan to have another Info Rep training event in DTW in the near future. The Info Rep program started in DTW over 6 years ago. It helps foster interest in the union and can answer questions to Flight Attendants.
We will continue to work tirelessly on behalf of each member every day.
We have provided the members of our council transparency with regards to the budget, regular communication by way of elines, prompt responses to emails and phone calls and zoom meetings.Transparency is the cornerstone from which our LEC has always operated. Our budget is an open book and members who have attended base meetings have taken the opportunity to see how our dues money is spent.
There is a laundry list of things we do each day
·Representing Flight Attendants for meetings with management
·Grievances
·Contract violations
·Scheduling issues
·Payroll issues
·General questions and/or concerns from the members
·Base Meetings with management
·Phone calls between officers and committee members
In addition to the items mentioned above, the following events also take place throughout the year:
- MEC/ LECP - Monthly zoom call
- Local 46 Base Meeting
- Grievance Hearing
- Grievance Mediation
- Board of Directors and MEC Meeting
- LEC Base Conference calls
Oscar Ochomogo
LECP 46 DTW
LECP 48 REPORT
It continues to be rewarding to serve the members of Council 48 MSP/CVG. I am constantly learning in my role as LECP. Our LECVP/Secretary Cathy Crane and I have worked to divide the responsibilities of 3 officers into our 2 positions and will continue to work together and with LEC 48 chairs to make sure we are improving as Council 48 representatives. As we kick off 2025 I hope we can develop better communication with our members and better meet their needs
We are consistently under budget and want to continue to use our resources to drive member interest and engagement and for our chairs to have more involvement and training opportunities.
We have seen an uptick in Section 3 meetings with management at both MSP and a decrease in CVG in the past few months. Despite the fac that we have been able to meet with MSP management more frequently they are still dismissive of our concerns in how they are working with and treating flight attendant issues. We are still working on Section 3 notices and other important documents being sent out correctly and managers keeping their conversations private. We will continue to document these and other issues in both bases seeking improvements and address our concerns in labor management.
We have seen most Section 3 meetings for NAF’s, customer concerns and policy violations. With more commuter flight attendants in CVG have seen an uptick in the number of FA’s calling out sick during probation and not fully understanding the attendance policies. This is also happening with more senior flight attendants and being at or near their max sick calls for a 12 month period. We continue to ask if management is working with FA’s to become familiar with FMLA and ways to avoid potential or accumulation up to discipline for sick calls. We continue to bring this up on the Section 3 calls so flight attendants can reach out to us if they want more information.
We attended the BOD meeting in Atlanta in May. I was able to be part of an agenda committee and the processes of the passage of several agenda items in our AFA Constitution and Bylaws.
We will have our first LEC 48 MSP/CVG meeting for 2025 on January 27th. The Meeting will be via zoon as was our August meeting. Being in 2 different cities and states as a council has unique challenges for us to bring our members together and we hope having more zoom meetings will help to bring more opportunities for member engagement.
We do need to fill vacancies on our committees and again hope that having more member meetings can bring engagement and interest in volunteering to serve on these committees. I am excited about the improvements on the EDV/AFA website and hope members will continue to use this resource and our local E-lines to learn more about our committees and bring interest in the committee positions.
We had a great turn out at our MSP DDD picket this summer. Our flight attendants and other labor siblings came out in support of our campaign. Though the DDD campaign has had some changes I am still excited that Endeavor has raised our voice and been part of the movement to bring attention to the struggles of regional flight attendants.
I am optimistic that the changes we have begun to work on as an MEC will benefit the members of Council 48. Changes are often not easy and come with unexpected challenges and I hope the members of Council 48 will see this as a positive direction and feel more confident to become involved. We all want to see changes and make improvements to the livelihood of every Endeavor flight attendant. When we work together we can build something better.
In Solidarity
Trina Johsnon
LECP 48, MSP/CVG
Endeavor Air, AFA-CWA
LECP 49 REPORT
LEC President Report - Council 49 - Atlanta
Billy Hennessey
Atlanta has not had any new hires or transfers into base in 2024. This has resulted in reserve lasting upwards of nearly 4 years.
Thru attrition, our base is now approximately 450 Flight Attendants, down from over 700 the year previous .
We have 14 Representatives in total.
2024 Accomplishments:
Published no less than 4 Elines Monthly
Held Monthly Zooms (with the exception of of December)
Filled the Benefits Committee Chair Position
Coordinated an “All Rep” Training for Representation Meetings with Local Inflight Management
Successfully transitioned to a new Base Manager
Weekly Calls with Base Management to discuss and resolve local issues
Reduced NAF Meetings by over 80% from 2023
Added numerous resources pages to Atlantacouncil49.com
While I am proud of the entire Atlanta Team’s accomplishments, there is one particular achievement that stands out more than anything.
I am seeing more involvement and engagement with Flight Attendants posting and commenting on Social Media. Whether it’s positive or negative, the fact that Flight Attendants are actively engaging at an incredible frequency proves that we are doing exactly what we promised to do.
We are transparent, we respond to questions, we are supportive to our colleagues. Most importantly, we are available and visible.
Areas that we will be working on improving in 2025
Reducing the number of Members in Bad Standing
Increasing member participation in Meetings
Streamlining communication methods
Filling open vacancies of Hotel and Uniform Chairs
Implementation of our Info Rep / Education Committee
