WARN letters issued to MX
 

"The COVID-19 pandemic has devastated domestic air travel and tourism. As a result, Southwest Airlines has lost billions of dollars in revenues since the pandemic began. To help offset that revenue loss, Southwest has reduced annual 2020 cash outlays and spending by approximately $8 billion compared with original plans. Southwest has also raised cash of approximately $18.9 billion since the beginning of 2020, but we cannot disregard our almost 70 percent revenue loss in third quarter 2020.

The Payroll Support Program (PSP) for the airline industry, a part of the federal CARES Act, allowed Southwest to operate without any Employee pay cuts, layoffs, or furloughs through September 30, 2020. Southwest implemented a Voluntary Separation Program and an Extended Emergency Time Off Program, which were helpful to further reduce our staffing costs, with approximately 25 percent of Employees taking voluntary options. However, with PSP’s expiration and no clarity that Congress will extend it in the future, Southwest must take further action to reduce our costs associated with Employee salaries, wages, and benefits—the largest cost category by far. Last month, Southwest announced plans to reduce wages or engage in other cost-saving measures for all Leadership and Non-Union Employees. We expect these actions will permit Southwest to avoid layoffs for our Non-Union Employees through next year.

As you know, we have been working with your Union, the Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association (AMFA), to negotiate cost-saving agreements to preserve jobs, but after nearly six weeks of discussions, we have not made meaningful progress. As a result, Southwest must unfortunately involuntarily furlough Mechanics and Related Employees, Facilities Maintenance Technicians, and Aircraft Appearance Technicians nationwide to further reduce our costs. The involuntary furlough will take place next year unless we reach cost-saving agreements with AMFA, the government enacts a satisfactory PSP extension, or there is some other unforeseen event such as a significant increase in revenue.

At this time, the first date of expected separations from employment due to this reduction in force is January 25, 2021, or within a 14-day period thereafter. Although we cannot predict with any certainty, based on the best information available to Southwest at this time, we expect that this furlough will last more than six months but will be temporary.

Because there are bumping rights associated with this reduction in force for your workgroup, Southwest is unable to determine which Employees ultimately will be affected by the planned action, nor the specific dates on which they will be affected. In an abundance of caution, we therefore are providing this notice to you and all other Employees in your workgroup who may be affected by the planned furlough due to the exercise of other Employees’ bumping rights. This notice does not mean that you will be furloughed by Southwest, only that there is a potential for furlough if you are bumped from your position. If you ultimately are slated for the furlough, you will receive further notice from Southwest with your expected date of furlough and applicable bumping rights.

For further information, please contact Dawn Siemiet, Senior Manager at 214-792-6477 and [email protected]."

Capitalizing on a crisis
 

Apparently, MX is the second group that has no desire to discuss cost-saving efforts. LUV is sitting on a war chest and still wants to capitalize on a crisis.

Anybody knows the percentage of mechanics who received the warn notices today?

It says all in the work group were issued because of unknown final results.

Because there are bumping rights associated with this reduction in force for your workgroup, Southwest is unable to determine which Employees ultimately will be affected by the planned action, nor the specific dates on which they will be affected. In an abundance of caution, we therefore are providing this notice to you and all other Employees in your workgroup who may be affected by the planned furlough due to the exercise of other Employees’ bumping right

WARN letters issued to MX
 

2nd hand info:

Mechanic that's in my flying club says it's around 15%.


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WARN Letters
 

According to RM, "We have an obligation to our Company to continue addressing our costs—and Gary has called on each of us to help address the estimated $1 billion we face in overstaffing costs for 2021. In cases where we have not made meaningful progress toward addressing the costs, WARN and furlough notices have been issued. Though it is not the path we wanted to take, today it continues. We have issued WARN notices to 403 of our AMFA-represented Employees in our Mechanics & Related, Appearance Technician, and Facilities Maintenance Technician workgroups, with an intended furlough date of January 25, 2021. Additional communication was sent to another 1,503 Mechanics & Related Employees who may be impacted by contractual displacements. There are several Employee groups that fall under the AMFA-represented “Mechanics & Related” collective bargaining agreement, including Mechanics, Inspectors, Plant Maintenance Technicians, Ground Service Equipment Mechanics, Maintenance Controllers, and Maintenance Technical Instructors."

So it's 403 WARN notices and 1503 possible displacements, if I understand correctly. How many total in that group? Anyone feeling the LUV in the air as well? Good we're shedding the lowest paid employees before we start tapping into that 18 billion reserve in the bank. I'm sure there was nothing else the LUV airline could have done other than furlough as the last resort.

is there a cost to the company for those displacements? Like with pilots the furlough pay and if you get bumped out of base costs etc.
If they dont furlough for x amount of time it may cost them more. This is solidifying my future no vote on anything the company sends us for the next 30 years for me

It's 14.7% of the mechanics.

While it completely sucks for these guys and their families that they have to deal with this stress right now (might I add, it's a week before Thanksgiving), in the long term, this is an overall positive for labor as a whole at SWA. Why? Because SWA has taken hostage the one thing that has kept so many people here willing to accept less and less. That one thing is the idea of job security.

These WARN notices are going out. They will be black-and-white evidence for years to come of the fact that SWA is, in fact, willing to turn its back on its co-hearts despite all of their talk about "family" and "luv". And never forget, GK turned down an amount of government financing that would've covered a 10% cost reduction for all employees 15 times over because the conditions attached to the government loans were too "onerous": they prohibited stock dividends and buybacks.

And notice that the furloughs, which are unlikely to actually happen, won't occur until Jan 25 (or 14 days thereafter). That's five days after the inauguration. Remember that they initially said they'd furlough as of Jan 1. Clearly, the company expects to get a new payroll support package sometime between now and 19 days after the inauguration. In all likelihood, this is simply a scare tactic on the company's part. They're hoping to get the first domino to fall by using the WARN letters as a hammer. The rest of the employee groups, in their estimation, will then be so terrified of losing their jobs that they all fall in line.

Don't fall for it. Any of it. And, in the long run, the WARN letters are a good thing for labor at SWA.

LUVs AMFA covered mechanics are grossly over paid. I don't know how much job protection is in their contract. I do know that these MX can be replaced with contractors at half the rate. A singular fleet makes transitioning people from street to ramp a mere two week ordeal.