To put it all into the proper context, back on 3 April, the Negotiating Committee provided the first in-depth “Position Report” which detailed our contract proposal and progress made to date. From that point in time until today, only six items have moved to the AGREE category. We currently have 60 open items remaining. This is not an acceptable pace of negotiation. And then on 25 May, the company passed a proposal across the table where they chose to group around 30 open items and craft a take it or leave it proposal. During the Special Meeting, the MEC reviewed the company proposal, did not like it, and chose instead to deal with those items as individual items, not as a group. The MEC provided the Negotiating Committee with updated guidance on these as well as a few other items. As you can imagine, most of these 60 items are not “low hanging fruit,” but instead represent the “meat and potatoes” of the contract value. Despite the fact that zero of the remaining sixty items were closed out, many members of the MEC viewed this “packaging approach” as progress. Our CEO claims these items will bankrupt our airline, are unworkable, yet similar items do no such thing at Delta Airlines. But given these words come from a CEO who promised us an agreement in 2 weeks, you have all the info you need to evaluate the sincerity of our CEO. The true story here is we are only able to move on an agreement as fast as our CEO wants us to move.

​​​​​​​Last evening we just received the company’s long-awaited counterproposal for Sick Leave. The counter has pretty much assured mediation will continue to be the hot topic, as “lackluster” would be an over statement.