joel payne

Tables Turn On A Pilots’ Union
Posted by Scott McCartney -- WSJ
August 21, 2008, 3:31 pm

The irony is obvious: Today during their lunch hour, members of the union representing staff workers at the Allied Pilots Association, the union that represents American Airlines pilots, will conduct informational picketing in front of union headquarters in Fort Worth, Texas, to protest the lack of raises for several years.

The Allied Pilots Staff Employee Association, which represents 23 employees of the pilots’ union, or about half the staff, says its members have worked 417 days without a new contract and haven’t had a contractual raise since 2002. Negotiations on a new contract began last year, but the two sides haven’t reached any agreement on financial issues.

Union President Kathy Schroeder says that management employees of the union got a raise last November. “APA management has been reluctant to acknowledge APSEA employees’ vital contributions, and has been generally unwilling to address our legitimate needs,” she said.

APA, the pilots’ union, has been battling management at AMR Corp.’s American Airlines for the past several years, seeking pay increases as the airline’s finances improved. Pilots agreed to huge pay cuts several years ago so American could avoid a bankruptcy filing. Since then, large bonuses and stock grants to management has infuriated the union, and informational picketing has been part of the union’s attention-getting protest tactics.

Now, the union’s union says “APA is treating its employees like American Airlines is treating theirs.”

A pilots’ union spokesman, Gregg Overman (who is a management employee at the union and not a APSEA member), echoes what you often hear from airline management during contract negotiations. “We think we’ll be able to get a new contract soon,” he said. “The process often takes longer than either party would like.”

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