gettinbumped

(Reuters) - Continental Airlines Inc (CAL.N), which United Airlines parent UAL Corp (UAUA.O) is buying, said on Thursday that it reached a tentative agreement on a labor contract with the union that represents its flight attendants.

The airline said the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers union was expected to hold a ratification vote in coming weeks on the labor pact, which covers about 9,300 Continental flight attendants.

The United-Continental merger is expected to be completed as early as this week to form the world's largest airline ahead of Delta (DAL.N). The new carrier will carry the United name [ID:nN29240431].

Shares of Continental were up 25 cents, or 1 percent, at $24.78 on Thursday while UAL gained 19 cents to $23.60. (Reporting by Karen Jacobs. Editing by Robert MacMillan)



Hmmmmmm.... Were they not negotiating a joint agreement?

HSLD

No. See the definition of: Divide and Conquer.

UAL FAs are represented by the AFA, CAL FAs by the IAM.

This TA comes one day before the UAL FAs could petition for representation by the AFA in the merged company (Oct. 1).

The CAL FAs now have a TA, and after Oct. 1st the UAL FAs, represented by AFA, will petition to send out certification cards. They outnumber the CAL FAs by about 3:1. If the cards go out, which they will, the AFA will eventually represent all FAs at the new company.

The CAL FA TA (now there's an acronym!) will be short lived and the new company will have the United FAs to blame. As an aside, the current position that UAL has with the AFA negotiations is to eliminate almost every provision of value from their contract.

This has the potential to get really really ugly for the flight attendants. I hope the pilots are paying attention and realize just how important unity and a JCBA are.

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

Monkeyfly

PLUS, there's the added bonus of the FAs being mad at us when we get a good contract. (Which we will) Nevertheless, let's be an example of how unity=$.

jsled

I agree with all you say. Another thought.... If the CAL FA TA is juicy enough, perhaps the new UAL could use it as a carrot to lure the UA FAs to vote IAM and assume the new IAM contract. The problem with this is that the CAL FA workrules would most probably result in huge surpluses when applied to the UAL FA ranks.

SoCalGuy

While boring holes over the Amazon last week, one of the FA's came up to talk about the "us v them" on the contract hot buttons.

I would have guessed the same thing you hit on as far as the 'surplus', but according to the CAL FA, the UAL FA's have a monthly "cap" they can fly. At CAL, there is no 'cap'. There are some (not uncommon actually) FA's pinning up 120+ hrs a month with trading & picking up of OT. With UA's lower 'cap' (82-85 hrs??)/rules on that topic, it supposedly would require a greater staffing to fly the same amount of block hour (and all things being equal). The other hot button is that UA's FAs have a 'rotating reserve' system (similar to AA) where no matter the seniority, every other (or every few months??) month an FA still sits a month of reserve....not so at CAL. Who knows, if the UA system on this topic is adopted, it just may get rid of a few of the CAL 'antiques' in the FA ranks.

Either way.....we have our own task at hand. Get the Pilot Group JCBA that we deserve to make up for the 'severely lacking' CBA's that presently reside under our 'pre-merger' lives.

Captain Bligh

This is frustrating...do they really want to run an airline or play games?

SUPERfluf

To them it is just a game.

HSLD

I was off on my numbers, the AFA does not outnumber the IAM represented FAs at CAL by 3:1. It looks like AFA has about 40% more flight attendants represented than IAM: 15,000 at UAL and 9,300 at CAL. That's still enough to win a majority vote in a certification battle.

I hope that the leadership of both unions are talking with each other to find a complimentary solution that address their needs.

More info here: Continental Reaches Deal With Flight Attendants

EWRflyr

The problem with that thought is that I have heard that quite a few UA FAs are not all that happy with the AFA. The FAs I have been flying with at CAL recently have said they would rather stick with the IAM before going to the AFA. As much as they don't like the IAM, they aren't all that thrilled with the AFA. So I think the vote could be closer than the AFA would like to think. Plus, with the IAM having a seat on the UAL board, it could be an incentive for the FAs to keep the IAM and have a (small) voice in the game.

EWRflyr

I am not sure I understand how it would result in needing more flight attendants unless we grow exponentially. I routinely fly with CAL FAs who do 140-160/mo which they like. My understanding is that CAL FAs also have a higher minimum amount they must fly compared to UA FAs. There are hundreds of senior FAs at UA who hardly ever fly. Knowing how CAL pushes productivity, do you think that Smizek would let a contract be TA'd if it allowed all these senior people to sit around on the books and not actually work? Something tells me that the combined group is overstaffed in theory, but any work-rule changes would probably make quite a few FAs retire if they are forced to work more.

In addition, many UA FAs would like to work more given their dismal pay and would like to get rid of the cap.