United Airlines Negotiations
Saturday, January 30, 2010, Rich Delaney — Federal Mediator Terri Brown rejoined the direct talks in United Airlines negotiations this past week. Ms. Brown has not been part of United Airlines negotiations since before Thanksgiving, so the early part of the week was spent reviewing the advancements that have been made. Both the company and Union gave overviews of where we each believe we are, and the agreement or understandings we have on specific contract provisions.
Mediator, Health Benefits
While we did not discuss in detail, with the Mediator, the company’s proposal for health insurance changes, we did make sure she was aware the proposal has been made and discussions has been held on it. We are waiting for additional data from United related to questions we asked at our last Insurance discussion before returning to that topic in United Airlines negotiations.
Seniority Settled
United negotiations then resumed with items that are ongoing for the past few weeks, regarding Seniority, both within classifications and within larger work groups. Most of the issues related to Seniority are settled in some manner, at this point, but we have left open a couple of proposals before finalizing this Article.
Overtime
United Airlines negotiations then moved to the subject of Overtime. We received hundreds of proposals from Members, prior to the start of United negotiations, regarding overtime — especially Mandatory or Emergency Overtime.
The complaints and concerns of Members about the proper use and payment of involuntary overtime have been a problem for our Members for many years.
Both sides understand that in the industry in which we work, the occasional need for involuntary overtime exists. District 141, however, wants to insure that it is used only when necessary, to the extent necessary, and to compensate those forced to work against their will properly. Our discussions in United Airlines negotiations were a mix of both general and specific examples of what we believe is an abuse of the Mandatory Overtime provisions.
Our goal is to strengthen our contract language, so when there is an emergency situation the right procedure is followed, every time, to fill the need and then release people as soon as possible once the emergency is over.
Report your actual mando experiences
As you can expect, our idea of what constitutes and “emergency” is different than the company’s definition. While these discussions are ongoing it would be very helpful to the Negotiating Team to get information of actual Mando experiences you may have had. Please forward the details to your Committee so they may get them to us. We are interested to find out the length of time you were required to stay, the purpose of the overtime, and what work was truly performed.
No United Airlines negotiations
We will not be meeting with the Company for the next few weeks. We want to use this time to research proposals, such as Overtime, and give the Company an opportunity to collect and provide the information we have requested on several issues.
Survey to prioritize
We are also going to make plans to conduct another member survey to make sure we are on track with members’ concerns. The survey would not be for the purpose of generating new or additional proposals but would give us a chance to prioritize current issues.
During the next few weeks we will work internally and with the Strategic Resources Dept. of our International to develop and produce the survey
Please check the District 141 website for further details as they become available.