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United Negotiations, Mediation
District 141 and United Airlines also applied for Mediation this past
week, but for different reasons. As we have noted before, our current
contract required that this application be made if no agreement was
reached in United negotiations by August 1, 2009. Although United
negotiations have not produced an agreement, we believe we can get
closer if we keep talking with each other.
In United negotiations, we have jointly sent a request to the National
Mediation Board to make sure the Board understands that both the Union
and the company recognize our responsibility to the current contract but
also share the belief that continued negotiations between us can be
productive by themselves. The addition of a mediator might be helpful
but is not necessary at this point. We plan to continue meeting with the
company in United negotiations to talk about improving our contract and
will follow any directive or suggestion made by the NMB when the Board
responds to our application.
Our application at this time will prevent unnecessary delay to having a
mediator available at the time we need his/her help in United
negotiations.
Our talks over the past 2 weeks have targeted the impact of station
closings and manpower reductions – both the immediate loss of stations
such as STL and the possible loss of the UAX contract work at ORD in the
near future. The demands of the current furlough procedure have again
been reviewed to see if changes are needed. We have spent a great deal
of time talking about the root causes of the company’s decisions
regarding the continuing contracting out work. The destructive
competition within the airline industry is obviously the main problem.
That industry competition may have been accelerated this past week when
Southwest Airlines made a bid to purchase Frontier Airlines. While this
announcement is only days old and no one knows if it will be successful
it requires us to look at the possibility of increased pressure to
United’s operation, especially in DEN. It is important to recognize that
the decision to approve or disallow this sale will be made through a
bankruptcy court. Their concern is the Frontier Airlines debtors, not
the impact on United employees. If the court believes this is a good
deal for Frontier they will approve the sale to Southwest. United will
then respond to this new competition and we will have to respond to
whatever decision United makes that affects our Members.
Talks in United negotiations will resume this coming week. top
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