Special MEC Update, Tuesday, July 20, 2010
As reported in the July 15 MEC Update and the UAL Negotiating Committee Update last week, dialogue resumed between the managements of United and Continental and the Joint Negotiating Committee in an effort to complete the stalled Transition and Process Agreement negotiations. This dialogue resulted in both Continental and United managements re-engaging their respective counterparts on the Joint Negotiating Committee (JNC) and work began on resolving each party’s unresolved items and developing proposed resolutions. These exchanges continued throughout the day on Friday, July 16.
By late on Friday evening, both the managements of Continental and United were close to an “Agreement in Principle” concerning the Transition and Process Agreement with both the Continental ALPA and United ALPA portions of the JNC. While this is a significant milestone in moving the merger process forward, the “Agreement in Principle” must translate into a final agreement and this process is not complete until all parties have a signed agreement. An Agreement in Principle outlines the overall concepts that resolves the outstanding issues but does not yet contain the final language of the agreement. The UAL Joint Negotiating Committee members spent the remainder of the weekend reviewing the Company’s proposal and preparing responses.
All members of the ALPA JNC assembled on Monday and continued the process and passed proposals to the Company throughout the day on Monday. Both the JNC and Company will continue to finalize the Transition and Process Agreement. We are hopeful that these meetings will produce a final agreement this week.
Once the Transition and Process Agreement is finalized, per the UAL-MEC policy manual, the agreement will be presented to the MEC for consideration following a minimum seven day period. At the completion of this period, the UAL-MEC will vote on whether to ratify the agreement. If the agreement is ratified by the MEC, the agreement will be made available to all pilots and the JNC will begin negotiations on the Joint Collective Bargaining Agreement (JCBA). We know that there is significant interest in the details and proceedings concerning this process and all details will be presented as soon as the process is complete.