Joint Message 7/26
Dear Fellow Pilots:
On Tuesday and Wednesday of this week, we met with management and the National Mediation Board (NMB) in Washington, D.C., as intended when we were asked by the NMB to bring suggestions to reach a JCBA. All remaining open items were discussed, including benefits, scope and compensation. Though no actual proposals were exchanged, the discussions were open and frank, and were fashioned toward concluding a JCBA in the near future. Regrettably, there is little to report from those meetings. While ALPA continues to negotiate in good faith, the company clearly lacks the desire needed to reach a deal. Basically, the company’s performance didn’t meet our goal of providing the contract our pilots expect.
We’ve watched the company play its shell game and its attempts to move items around to make the contract look better, without adding any real value. When we travel back to Washington next week for additional meetings on Tuesday and Wednesday at the behest of the NMB, we encourage the company to come prepared to negotiate, and to show up with more than just a different shade of lipstick to apply to the pig.
We have shown the company that we are serious about the JCBA and that our pilots are overwhelmingly unified in support of their negotiators and their union. It is time to conclude these negotiations.
In Unity,