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.

Hello EWRFlyer.

This is the MEC update that was posted yesterday. I agree with you. I just want to know how we are doing. This is way too big and important for all of us to keep us in the dark until the end.

If you do not mind; can I paste and copy your MEC's update and post it on the UAL Forum. I know that there are others like me that want some information (Even if it is very limited and small). Please let me know.

Thanks.
[FONT='Verdana','sans-serif']The Joint Negotiating Committee continued this week meeting with the Company working on a Joint Collective Bargaining Agreement. Proposals on sections of the contract continue to be passed to United and CAL managements who make up the "Airline Parties[/FONT]

From the CAL MEC

Chairman’s Message
Work continues on the two separate processes involved with the merger: negotiating the JCBA and the work of the Merger Committees on seniority list integration. This week I was briefed on the progress of both the JNC and the Merger Committees as they work through their assigned tasks. I also made sure that they have all available resources needed to complete their work. As noted in last week’s MEC News, the JNC has reached agreement in principle for five JCBA sections. Progress continued this week as they presented several more of the remaining sections and I anticipate that by the end of the month we will have almost the entire contract on the table.

He beat me to it. That was the relevant section I was going to post as well coming from the Chairman's portion of the update. There was no specific "Negotiations" section in this week's update, only some other stuff related to hotels, reserves, etc. that are CAL specific.

Pretty informative right there!

I don't see why you can't post the stuff from our MEC Updates on your forum. I'll only post the relevant negotiating stuff since it applies to both groups. I won't get myself in murky waters by posting entire MEC Updates since much of that is pilot group specific for current operations.

Thanks EWRFlyer. I will post your updates on our site and our updates on this site.

Let's hope we do not have to do it pass October. Time will tell.

Here is hoping for the best for all of us.

It may take five years, but they will eventually have to bargain in good faith.

(MarketWatch) -- American Airlines parent AMR Corp and its pilots may be close to a labor deal this weekend, settling a five-year dispute over compensation that has been a significant overhang to improving the company's cost structure and its stock price. The Allied Pilots Association said its board would gather for a special meeting on Saturday in preparation for a tentative deal. "AMR management has conveyed to APA their desire to make a concerted effort to conclude pilot negotiations this week," the union said in a Tuesday letter. "Recent events such as the spike in pilot retirements, volatility in the trading volume and price of AMR shares, and the additional capacity reduction for the fourth quarter announced on Monday have created a sense of urgency." Shares of AMR rose 3% premarket to $3.05. In the past week the stock has climbed 18%.

I'll believe I when it happens though.

Wolfe Trahan's airline analyst Hunter Keay provided the following commentary on APA/AMR negotiations in a recent note to investors:

"APA's bargaining leverage with management increases literally every day. The union's leverage increased significantly when AMR bought 460 airplanes without pay rates in place, and mass retirements means AMR is basically relying on a good faith effort from APA to essentially allow the company to schedule fewer pilots to work more hours.

We believe that APA has decided (shrewdly, in our opinion) that AMR is in a position of bargaining weakness, and as such APA has notified management that modifications to work rules should be included as part of a broader collective bargaining agreement, not as a one-time event.

In addition, as pre-delivery payments increase for B777-300ER aircraft, AMR's bargaining position will likely only weaken (barring cancellation of the orders, which, by the way, would make us incrementally positive on the stock) - we have little doubt APA is acutely aware of this."

.....nor the year after that.

(In bold)