Responding to Mandatory Overtime

As we all know, under-staffing is a major issue throughout our industry right now. Mandatory overtime is extremely high at airports and reservation centers. At reservations centers, the call abandon rate is over 50% at times.

In order to better manage the amount of mandatory overtime required of agents as the number of travelers increases, the CWA/IBT Association and CWA Airline Council developed a trial in Reservations based on suggestions from members. Last week, we modified the trial agreement with your feedback. The modified trial will run for a three-week period starting July 5 and ending July 25.

The number of hours is reduced to 6 hours per week for part-time and full-time agents, for a total of 18 hours over the three-week period. Rules on managing the agreement remain in place with these additional considerations:

The Company shall consider all long calls of 30 minutes or longer as part of the mando requirement.

Part-time agents will be given an opportunity to volunteer to temporarily upgrade to full-time hours, which would allow them to accrue sick and vacation time as full-time agents. These additional hours would count toward the mando requirement.

Adherence standards will be relaxed for the term of the trial.

Rest assured, we are working hard to find ways to improve your flexibility and work experience while we get through this difficult time. View the most recent agreement here and an overview here.

A Survey to Gather More Information

 Overtime notices are issued at the local level, and local union leaders are not always included in the notice to members. This makes it impossible to understand the scope of the excessive mando problem nationally. For that reason, we need your help to find out how often and why members are being asked to work overtime.

Please take a few minutes to complete this survey to help us. If you have received a mando notification since June 23, and going forward, please send a copy to CWA at info@cwaagents.org or to your IBT local.

In the meantime, American has been hiring and training new agents on a consistent basis, and VEOP agents have come back as temporary employees. The first class of new agents is just coming out. Airport agents at several locations are taking calls at the airports. All calls taken by temporary employees and airport agents are offered as overtime to reservations agents to comply with our contract.