March 24, 2012
Dear Fellow Pilots,
Despite being 82 days beyond any supposed inflection point, negotiations for a Joint Collective Bargaining Agreement (JCBA) continue at an unacceptable pace. The Joint Negotiating Committee (JNC) and management have been discussing, problem solving, costing, more discussing, more costing, more discussing, meeting in large groups, meeting in small groups, meeting in even smaller groups, all while trying to encourage a change in the tempo of negotiations.
Here is a summary of the last few weeks of negotiations between management and the JNC:
• Executive management committed to me, and additionally to some members of the United MEC, that they would have the decision makers with the authority and trust to “bind the company” at the negotiations. Those committed decision makers spent a total of three days at JCBA negotiations this year.
• At a recent session, one of the management negotiators stated, “I don’t see what the rush is.”
Management negotiators committed to the JNC, before the mediator, that they would work through at least one of two weekends in March in an effort to close as many scheduling issues as possible so as to move onto other sections of the JCBA. Management negotiators did not stay through any weekend.
While there are reports of some recent incremental movement in scheduling, in context we have been negotiating scheduling and work rules since February 2011. This can be compared to starving to death in a debtor’s prison then being passed a stale slice of bread. To the company, the bankruptcy is a long forgotten issue. To our pilots, the bankruptcy era of United and Continental continues to affect us and our families. The company is enjoying the benefits of the merger and looking toward the future while the pilots continue to live in the past with bankruptcy wages and work rules.
Management has made further commitments toward negotiations in Chicago for the next several weeks. We will be carefully assessing to see if they continue to give us only slices of bread or will instead provide sufficient food to feed our families.
We are United,
Captain Jay Heppner
Chairman, United Master Executive Council
March 12, 2012
Continental Union Head Sees Progress
By SUSAN CAREY
Now that United Continental Holdings Inc. has gotten past its complex reservation-system migration, the merged company's "plate is clear, and there's nothing left to focus on besides" reaching joint labor agreements with unionized employees of the two subsidiaries, said Capt. Jay Pierce, chairman of the pilot leadership council at the Air Line Pilots Association branch at Continental.
In an interview Monday, Mr. Pierce said the prolonged talks between the two pilot groups and the company have picked up pace since a newly elected leader, Capt. James "Jay" Heppner, took office at the ALPA branch at United at the start of 2012. "Negotiations are going very well," Mr. Pierce said. "We've made more progress so far in 2012 than we did in the last six months of 2011."
"We're making progress," Mr. Pierce said. "I'm pleased we have momentum. Our pilots are very frustrated." Both groups are working under concessionary contracts dating back to times of industry duress and, in United's case, bankruptcy.
Mr. Pierce said that negotiations haven't yet focused on the most important issues: wages, retirement and "scope," the contract rules that govern how much outsourcing of pilot jobs United Continental can achieve through contracts with regional airline affiliates and code-sharing with other carriers. But he said he "would love to be working under a new contract by the first quarter of 2013."
Write to Susan Carey at
[email protected]