Negotiations Resumed

March 21, 2010, Rich Delaney — Negotiations between District 141 and United Airlines resumed this past week. Due to a combination of personal issues, local station issues, and medical needs, neither side had a full team. While discussions could still be held, the ability to reach a conclusive decision, especially for the IAM, was limited.

Before our team commits to a position on any subject, we have full discussion among ourselves, allowing all points of view to be expressed, and then vote among the team as to our final position.

Vacation, Mandatory Overtime

We were able to have very open and frank conversations with the company about some outstanding items, specifically increased flexibility in vacation scheduling, including DAT vacation and mandatory overtime.

Our goal during the vacation discussions is to follow the proposals of our Members and their desire to have greater use of their seniority at the time of bidding and also increase the amount of allowable DAT and improve its scheduling and use.

The most recent round of vacation bidding for 2010 pointed out the need to address issues that have not been traditional problems but have now become concerns of Members. As more stations adjust their staffing between full time and part time employees the need to address how vacations will be scheduled and bid becomes more of a concern.

We believe the best way to address this issue is by focusing on the need to locally agree to rules that make the most sense for a station, rather than impose a centralized solution that may work in some stations but not all. Both the company and Union agree that increased flexibility for personal scheduling issues such as vacation are needed in today’s environment of working spouses and family obligations.

foreseeable operational issues

Our talks regarding mandatory overtime center on reducing the company’s willingness to use this type of forced overtime as a solution for staffing and foreseeable operational issues. We have proposed a variation of the rate of pay for such overtime. While the company has not yet agreed to such improved compensation, they have recognized some of the abuses of the system we have raised and are looking to address them in a different way. We expect to receive more information regarding their position next week.

Mediator

Mediator Terri Brown will attend next week’s session, in which we intend to complete our discussions of the above mentioned issues, and also talk about the company’s proposal for increased use of relief scheduling.

As we have mentioned before, Ms. Brown is assigned to several other contract negotiations as an assigned mediator from the National Mediation Board.

AA Ramp Contract Ongoing Since 2007

One of her other assignments is the negotiations occurring on American Airlines with the Transportation Workers Union, representing AA’s Fleet Service employees. Those negotiations have been going on since November of 2007 and are reaching a critical stage. In fact, the TWU has officially requested a release from mediation to move the process outlined by the Railway Labor Act closer to a conclusion.

If the parties are released from mediation a strike date and cooling off period will be established. While both sides agree that a majority of the original proposals have been resolved, tentatively, the remaining open issues are critical to reaching an overall agreement. Still unresolved are issues such as wages, pension, job security, and benefits.

This shows that regardless of the airline, economic issues are very difficult to resolve and sometimes need the pressure of a deadline in order to get both parties to reach agreement.

Member Survey Complete

The District 141 Members’ Survey concerning negotiations is complete. The web based survey was conducted by our International’s Strategic Resources Department, which is currently tabulating the responses from the participating Members.

The results will be forwarded for review to our Negotiating Team.

The intent of the survey has been to reassure the negotiators that we are continuing to follow the priorities of the Membership during these negotiations.

We thank you for your participation.