|
| |
United Negotiations–Week 12
Rich Delaney, June 22, 2009 —
Job security has been the focus of United negotiations over the past 2
weekly sessions. This has taken on several aspects, mainly the
definitions of our jobs. The District 141 United Negotiation team is
reviewing current job descriptions in our contracts and making sure that
the work our Members are performing is reflected in that language. We
want to make sure that as United looks at operational and technological
changes, the work we are entitled to perform remains securely within the
contract. In some parts of United negotiations, we are seeing that a
full discussion between the company and the Union is enough to get an
understanding of how our contract will apply and in other instances we
are looking to add specific duties to Article IV.
UNITED NEGOTIATIONS TURNING TO FINANCIAL ISSUES
We expect that United negotiations will start to take on a more
financial based focus beginning this week. With the help of our Grand
Lodge Strategic Resources Dept. we will meet with United’s Financial
Dept. to review and agree on how future calculations of the value of
each proposal will be made. This is a necessary step to insure that both
sides are looking at the cost of each proposal using the same formula
and can make decisions based on the same information. We will return to
contract discussions after the financial meeting has been completed.
OUTSIDE OF UNITED NEGOTIATIONS...
Job security has also been the issue outside direct United negotiations.
Meetings between District 141 and United Airlines have been going on for
the past few weeks concerning the company’s recent decisions to request
bids from vendors to take over the UAX operation at ORD and their
decision to remove mainline trips from STL. We have been working on both
stations separately but with the same intent – retain the ground
handling of UAX trips for IAM represented classifications. We have been
included in all the same meetings the company has held with potential
bidders and are, in fact, considered as one of the vendors. No decisions
have yet been made in either case but we expect that final
determinations will be made within the next 2 weeks. The potential of
losing another line station, along with the possibility of losing
hundreds of jobs in a hub, is a very serious concern of the Union. We
realize United is not done making adjustments to their domestic schedule
and mix of mainline/UAX operations.
SAFETY: AGREEMENT IN UNITED NEGOTIATIONS, REASON DIFFER
One aspect of United negotiations that have not been contentious is
safety. We may have different reasons for being concerned with safety
but ultimately both sides in United negotiations agree on the importance
of doing everything we can to reduce the number and severity of personal
injuries. To that end, we are working with United, through the
established Safety Committees, to train IAM members in areas of working
smarter and safer. In conjunction with the SOSAP reporting program these
training programs will focus on understanding how and why injuries and
accidents happen and how they can be reduced in the future, rather than
simply looking at discipline as the response. As these programs are
introduced in stations we are hopeful that our Members will see the
value in them and participate fully.
|
|
