Jcba
 

Any scuttlebutt on how things are going at the JCBA?

Negotiating started last week (August 10th).

By Friday, the JNC and companies have reached agreements in principle on five sections. Language is being finalized.

According to our MEC update on Friday, the JNC put the first meaty sections on the table for management to mull over: Scheduling, Hours of Service, Filling of Vacancies and Vacation.

Don't see these sections being TA'd all that quickly.

I think we will have a TA by October. Just not this October.

Thanks EWRflyr...

There is very little progress info coming out from our side of the house. I understand these things are supposed to be behind closed doors, but it seems like your MEC is willing to share some minor details from time to time. A few scraps of info is better than nothing and to have us all wondering where atleast the general direction is headed.

I think what has people nervous is the confrontation over the recent agreement which stalled on rather benign issues. I guess if that happens with the JCBA we will know quickly.

It seems, no news is good news. This is my first JCBA experience, so perhaps I am naive.

I was wondering if you could continue to post what you might be hearing.

Thanks. DV

Sorry to hear that you didn't get that information. I think it was mentioned on one of our town hall conference calls or at an LEC meeting that UAL's MEC update is put out on Thursdays while ours is put out on Fridays. Correct me if I am wrong though. That may have something to do with it if the JNC and the company side agreed to these sections in principle only on Friday. So possibly this information in your update this week?

I'll go pull up the MEC weekly update from last week and post the pertinent section.

Here is the section from Friday, August 13th MEC News:

NEGOTIATING
This week we began negotiations with management on the JCBA, after spending months intensively developing our opening proposals and negotiating the Transition and Process Agreement that was unanimously approved by the CAL and UAL MECs two weeks ago.

On Aug. 10, we met with the combined management teams to go over our agendas and explain ALPA’s vision for the JCBA. We spent the remainder of the week passing and explaining our proposals on numerous sections, beginning with the “easy” sections. These sections have little or no economic impact for either side, but are important to our agreement nonetheless. We made very good progress and finished the week with “agreements in principle” for five sections: Grievances, System Board, Physical Exams, Reductions in Force, and Missing Benefits. Agreements in principle are agreements on term sheets which have not yet been drafted or agreed to as contract language. In the latter part of the week, we put sections on the table that had a little more meat on the bones, such as Scheduling, Hours of Service, Filling of Vacancies and Vacation. These sections will take management a little more time to fully analyze, so we don’t expect resolution as quickly as for the five sections agreed to in principle.

In the coming weeks, we will be presenting opening proposals for additional sections that have significant economic impact. At the same time, we will be receiving and discussing management’s counter proposals on sections we have already presented.

Our initial impressions of the negotiations are positive. We made significantly more progress with management than we did in our prior Section 6 negotiations for Contract ‘08. On the other hand, progress for the JCBA was on sections with minimal to no economic impact. We are cautiously optimistic that the combined management team is interested in reaching a JCBA that satisfies the demands of our pilots, but much work remains to be done. We will continue to report our progress to the MEC and the pilot group.

Thanks so much for that info EWRFlyer. This is very helpful information. I just sent our MEC a post to ask them to do the same.

EWRflyer and company...

We just got our MEC update. Not exactly wildly informative and I know this issupposed to be radio silence negotiating stuff, but I was hoping the CAL update might be a little more juicy.

This is only the biggest contract of my career so far and I trust that the cryptic transmissions are for a reason, but can't help to be curious.

I agree. Hopefully EWRFlyer will post CO's MEC update that comes out tomorrow. Let's hope it is still moving forward.

Will do my best as soon as I am able.

I don't expect overly informative updates, esp. when actual final language has yet to be written. I'll see the TA'd sections or entire TA before voting anyway. So the above negotiating update is about what I expect to see each week on the progress of negotiations. I am ok with that as long as there is a weekly recap on how progress is going, even if it is slow. I don't need the exact reasons things are moving fast or going slow because sometimes it is poker playing at the negotiating table. No need for every little detail to come out of what occurs at the table, IMHO. Just keep me updated on the progress.

I'm surprised your UA MEC update doesn't include even this basic brief on progress at the table.