Last week, your Negotiating Committee continued meetings with the Company. Progress continues as we work on the remaining roughly 20% of our total original item count. As we described before, these last remaining items are the most costly and challenging, and progress is slow. Early in the week, we focused on Section 5 (Hours of Service), Section 20 (Allocation, Assignment and Scheduling of Flying) and Section 13 (Sick Leave) while waiting on a Company proposal. On Thursday, the Company passed a broad proposal addressing several open areas including training, vacation, policy items and scheduling sections. The Company proposal offers to close several areas where they had previously been unwilling to move - namely, the elimination of involuntary field standby and meaningful short call caps. We still differ on some important items in those sections that the Company tied to their proposal, which MECs surveys and in person interactions with our Pilots indicate are necessary in a new agreement. Those items include: vacation improvements, minimum pay for a reserve day, and training program improvements. The positive news is the total number of items has been meaningfully reduced. Also, this week, there were some productive discussions regarding sick leave. However, we are still waiting for the Company to offer a formal counter proposal.

Some of our fellow United Pilots voiced concern regarding the wording of retroactive pay in last week's Negotiating Committee update in which we used "ratification bonus" in lieu of "retroactive pay." This term appeared in a proposal from the Company. Delta called their "retro" a "One Time Payment" and Allied Pilots Association (APA) calls their retro "Back Pay." Regardless of the term, "ratification bonus" or "retro pay," please know that we have made no changes and there is no difference regarding who is eligible to receive the payment, whether the payment is pensionable, or the tax implications of the payment.

This week your Negotiating Committee will brief the interim Council 150 (Orlando) and 153 (Las Vegas) representatives on our negotiating positions. We will also brief the MEC during their Special MEC Meeting May 31 to June 1. We expect to continue meeting with the Company weekly until we reach an agreement. The Negotiating Committee would like to again thank United Pilots for their show of unity wearing the Contract First, United Next lanyards, as well as attending picketing events and local family awareness events.