Since our last update, your AFA negotiating team held roadshow meetings in HNL and LAX.  We would like to thank all those flight attendants who took time out of their busy holiday schedule to attend these meetings.  Your support and feedback are invaluable to your negotiating team.  For those who could not attend we would like to briefly summarize for you what was shared in the meetings.

Your AFA negotiating team constantly monitors all the factors that impact our negotiations and we adjust our negotiations strategy as necessary.  Over the past several months we have been monitoring the economic environment, meeting with AFA International staff and officers, our economic advisors and our Board representative on the Hawaiian Airlines Board to determine in what direction we should be moving.  With this advice, your team determined that we should, if possible, try to conclude our negotiations as soon as possible.

In October, Hawaiian CEO Mark Dunkerley asked to meet with your AFA officers and negotiating team.  In this meeting he asked if there was a way that our negotiations might be concluded sooner rather than later.  While this fit nicely with the direction in which your team had decided to go, we would not, of course, expedite our negotiations on just any terms.  So we provided the company with a framework of terms which we believed would allow the negotiations process to be handled expeditiously.  The framework must include, at a minimum, certain incentives and protections for the Hawaiian Airlines flight attendants.

The parties felt there was sufficient common ground within the framework to proceed down the course of trying to expedite the negotiations.  As such, the company made a proposal to your team in November.  Your team responded with a counter-proposal.  Bargaining is scheduled to continue January 12-23, 2009.

There is a potential benefit to both sides to conclude negotiations as quickly as possible.  But in order for it to happen, both sides must show great discipline in limiting the number of issues to which they seek resolution.  In short, we must decide to continue to live with some of those things that irritate us, just as the company must decide to continue to live with some of the things it finds irritating.  This does not mean that we, nor the company, will make an agreement “at any cost.”  However, we felt it was worthwhile to at least make the attempt.

It is important to remember that you will ultimately decide whether or not any agreement we may reach is acceptable to you.  Any agreement reached will be presented to you for ratification.  If the majority of you find it acceptable, then we will have succeeded.  If the majority of you do not find it acceptable, then we will return to the bargaining table and try again.

We will keep you updated as negotiations continue.  In the meantime, if you have any questions or concerns, please don’t hesitate to contact one of your AFA officers or a member of the AFA Negotiating Committee.

Best wishes in 2009 from all of us.

In Solidarity,