In accordance with Article 29 (d) of the following AA/TWU Agreements dated September 12, 2012 between American Airlines and the Transport Workers Union covering the following contract groups: Fleet Service Employees, Aviation Maintenance Technicians and Plant Maintenance Employees, Material Logistics Specialist and Crew Chiefs, Ground School and Pilot Simulator Instructors, Flight Simulator Technicians Associate Technicians and Technical Coordinators, Maintenance Control Technician Employees, and the Flight Dispatchers and Dispatchers Assistants, please accept this communication as our official notice of violation as listed below.
The TWU hereby files a 29d grievance regarding the carrier’s continued violation of Article 40 beginning from the inception of the 1113 Bankruptcy contract dated September 12, 2012. The nature of the violation involves the company’s failure to meet its obligation to provide a 5.5% match for our members’ eligible compensation. Eligible Compensation, for the purposes of determining any matching contribution or company contribution, is wages, overtime, and CSW. The loss of the 5.5% 401k company match occurs on monies paid to TWU members by virtue of a grievance settlement. When the settlement was paid, the 5.5% company match was not deposited into the member’s account. Contained in Article 40 of all of the above captioned bargaining agreements, there is a list of exceptions where the 5.5% company match would not apply and grievance settlement payments are not part of the exclusion list.
The company has agreed to pay going forward on a prospective basis, however we believe this is insufficient. The TWU has had dialogue with Labor Relations concerning a retroactive application to no avail. Therefore, the remedy we seek is a full accounting and retroactive payments to our members from September 12, 2012 to February 25, 2015 for all grievance settlements and for the company’s 5.5% 401k matching contributions. The TWU’s requested remedy should be inclusive of all active grievances on the M&R and Fleet Service Docket that are settled prior to arbitration, whether the grievance articulated the 5.5% company match as remedy in the body of the grievance or not.
Regards,
David J. Virella
International Representative
AA System Coordinator
Transport Workers Union of America AFL-CIO
Letter on 401(k) contributions – 2015 March 6 29d re: Article 40(i) in PDF