141 Update

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United Airlines negotiations resume

Rich Delaney, June 28, 2010 — Negotiations between United Airlines and District 141 resumed this past week in Chicago. Both sides recognize that we are reaching the point where all issues for discussion are very serious. Talks could either lead to a tentative agreement, or cause our negotiations to break down. We have set our future schedule for five full weeks of talks, including two weeks in which the Federal Mediator will be present. The intent is for the flow of the discussions to keep going, and to continue to reach understandings on key contract articles. We had productive discussions relating to issues such as mandatory overtime, vacation accrual and scheduling, part time percentages and usage, holidays, Service Director classification, work assignment bidding, and the company’s desire for more flexible scheduling. These topics have been discussed in great detail for the past few negotiating sessions and while not fully agreed to, are nearing the time when they are completed, one way or the other, and will allow us to concentrate on the issues of wages and benefits in the coming sessions.

We will be resuming negotiations the week of July 12th.

US Airways, NMB, and arbitration

Representatives of District 141, along with US Airways Labor Relations representatives, will meet with the NMB – National Mediation Board this week to receive training on Grievance Mediation. The company and Union have jointly agreed to participate in this training program and, on an experimental basis, to use the services of the NMB for mediation of outstanding grievances. It is hoped that through the involvement of the NMB, and the willingness of both parties to resolve cases, we can relieve some of the backlog of cases pending arbitration hearings.

The NMB program offers the opportunity to use professional mediators, at no cost to the parties, to find resolution to grievances without the time and expense that arbitration requires. We are hopeful that after the training we can immediately begin to schedule mediation hearings and resolve many outstanding cases. If this program is acceptable to both the Union and the company it will allow those cases that still must be heard by an arbitrator to be scheduled in a more timely manner. | top

UAL’s “Time Tracker”

Recently representatives of District 141 met with United management to discuss several areas of concern. The most crucial issue was the current state of the payroll system known as Time Tracker. This new system is suppose to streamline the recording and paying of wages due employees but has caused several problems involving the non-payment of wages owed for hours worked. These problems have caused members to spend too much of their own time in verifying their records, getting management to correct known mistakes, and making sure that manual corrections are being made and forwarded in a timely way just so they can be paid for the correct amount of hours they worked. While some major problems that surfaced early in the rollout of Time Tracker have been fixed, it seems that there are continuing problems related to exceptions, such as shift trades and DAT usage.

The company has agreed to meet with IAM representatives to review the Time Tracker system as it is currently set up and look for programming fixes to the problems we have identified.

What will be most helpful is for the IAM to have specific examples of problems members have experienced, so those examples can be used to find solutions. Please forward any payroll discrepancies through your Local Committee so they may be given to the District representatives assigned to meet with United. | top

Merger

We have been working with the Transportation Department of our International to prepare for the likely merger of United and Continental. The proposed merger generates many issues involving the combining of the two companies work forces – seniority integration, union representation, contractual transition – that need to be addressed sooner rather than later. While the financial merger of the airlines may be completed by the end of the year, the employee combination issues are expected to take years to complete.

District 141 has put together a Merger Team that includes both District Officers and Local representatives to begin focusing on aspects of the merger that impact our membership. During the week of July 6, the Merger Team will meet at our International’s Placid Harbor training facility to start the process. The week will be a combination of training in specific areas of communication and strengthening our contacts with our current Members and putting together a plan to reach out to Continental employees, both unionized and unorganized to bring them into the IAM and reduce the roadblocks to a successful integration. Representatives from local lodges and other transportation districts will also be meeting during that week to continue the important work of successfully organizing Delta employees.

Organizing

The National Mediation Board’s rule change, allowing for a simple majority vote in representation elections, has cleared the legal challenges of some of the major airlines and will become effective this week. This historical change to how votes are conducted within the airlines and railroads will end the lopsided advantage companies have had in the past and give working people a fair shot at joining, or not joining, unions of their choice. | top