CWA MEETINGS AND PIEDMONT MEETING

CWA LEADERSHIP TRAINING

On November 13th thru 17th Local 3645 leadership team attended the CWA leadership Training in Georgia.  The Local officers attended with Area Reps and Stewards who have demonstrated leadership and commitment to be of service the workers in their perspective work groups. The leadership training consisted of workshops, classes and lectures that centered around the Labor Movement, Workers Rights, Legislation that favors workers and Work Place Issues.  The goal of the leadership training is to equip the Union Leaders and future Union leaders with the tools they need to service the members in the 24 Airports that Local 3645 represents and be a major Labor Movement Leader.

CWA DISTRICE 3 MEETING 

On October 16th thru 19th Local 3645 leadership attended the Annual CWA District meeting in Mississippi. This is a yearly meeting for all Union leaders in District 3 which consist of the states of NC. SC Al, MS, TENN, LOU, KEN,FLO  and Puerto Rico. The District 3 meeting consisted of workshops, classes and lectures that centered around the Labor Movement, Workers Rights, Legislation that favors workers and Work Place Issues.  The goal of the leadership training is to equip the Union Leaders and future Union leaders with the tools they need to service the members in the 24 Airports that Local 3645 represents and  to be a major Labor Movement Leaders.

CWA STATE MEETING 

On September 11th, the District had its annual state meeting. This meeting is genuinely designed by the Presidents of all the Locals in the district and each President invites their members of management to attend. The goal is to build working relationships with management. Piedmont leadership has never attended.

Piedmont leaders who attended was:

Jeff Garver

Tom Dobroski - Senior Station Director (CLT & PHL)

Lamar Graves- Ramp department head (CLT)

Kevin Weaver - Customer Service department head (CLT)

Kevin Romero - TMS (Team Member Services)/Training department head (CLT)

Aylin Albayrak - Regional Director (she directs 12 stations in Local 3645)

All the managers stood up and gave a state of affairs for each prospective company and all promised to continue the working relationship that they’ve built over the years.

Managers who were also in attendance came from AT&T mobility & core, Century Link and American Airlines (a representative from their labor department and the AA reservations team in Winston-Salem and Raleigh).

The primary issues that were discussed from mainline was AA contract bargaining, lack of staffing (each Company leader claimed to be having difficulty hiring new talent), the difficulty with working together with the Company’s second level of leadership, management not knowing (and/or following) the collective bargaining agreements, safety and mandatory overtime (the Company not following the contract procedures in each work location). Mainline is entering their bargaining in October and Piedmont will be entering their bargaining May of 2023.

In these meetings we pull up our sleeves and work through some collective issues.

After the meetings, the Piedmont leaders decided to play the Union leaders in a friendly competitive game of putt putt and lunch. Unfortunately the Union loss 😂😂 but we will have a rematch another time and hopefully make our union brothers and sisters proud. The most amazing part of this team building exercise was the chance to get to know each other on a different level. Usually we are head butting in a meeting.

We all discussed issues going on at the multiple airports and how we have to be willing to meet at the table with our shop stewards and local leaders to get things handled better. We don’t expect to always agree but the respect is imperative. We believe not everything should have to arbitrated. The Local leaders shared the disparity of pay across all of the stations and how it’s causing hardship to our members. Fair and respectful wages should be fairly distributed to ALL stations and not just some. The Company said they were looking forward to bargaining to handle some of these disparities.

“I think the Piedmont leadership coming to our State meeting was a start to building a stronger working relationship” said Donielle Prophete, President. “I’ve come to these meetings since 2015 and have never had my management show up. So the fact that they took the invite serious and showed up with a nice group was a sign of the olive branch being accepted”.

“I think this was the best state meeting that we’ve ever add” said Tammy Scott, President of Local 3642. “It was a pleasure to meet your leadership team and I look forward to the meeting growing better in time.”.