Mar 22, 2018 | Airlines, American, Home, The Association
In this period between scheduled negotiating sessions, the Association leadership met with American Airlines management principals in the hope of better understanding each other’s position on the outstanding issues that need to be resolved in order to conclude negotiations. Significant issues, including wages, job scope protection, pensions and medical benefits remain open.
The Association entered these meetings expecting to set the stage to conclude negotiations in our next full negotiating session. If American management had that same goal, a tentative agreement to present to you for your consideration and vote would have been close. Unfortunately, American management had a different plan.
American Airlines Executive Vice President Steven Johnsen, who had never participated in a single negotiating session since opening proposals were shared more than two years ago, led the discussions for the company. Johnsen’s presence not only failed to bring us closer to an agreement, but he single-handedly derailed the significant and steady progress that both sides had been making in these negotiations. As a result of Johnsen injecting himself in the process, we are now further away from a tentative agreement than we were a month ago.
Johnsen, who American Airlines paid more than $30 million over the last four years, delivered the message that American could not afford to provide proper healthcare, job security and retirement income for Association members.
In discussing profit sharing, he said no improvements were possible. This completely contradicts CEO Doug Parker who acknowledged American’s sub-par profit sharing scheme in a discussion with employees on January 18, 2018 and said it had to be improved in negotiations.
American Airlines is demanding that legacy US Airways members lose the healthcare that they earned through a strike and which has survived two bankruptcies. The Association’s position is that the better healthcare should be extended to cover all Association members, the cost of which would be less than the annual compensation of the carrier’s top three officers.
Johnsen also refused to discuss defined benefit pensions for Association members. Instead, he wants to mandate major employee concessions when the airline is making more than $3 billion a year in pre-tax profits.
Negotiating is a process where both parties engage in discussions to reach a common agreement. There must be give and take from both sides. Steven Johnsen is not interested in negotiating. He is not interested in agreement. He is only interested in the Association acquiescing to his will. The Association, however, responded to his demands appropriately, which resulted in Johnsen having a tantrum, leaving his other company negotiators in the lurch and storming out of the room.
Steven Johnsen’s presence has marked a dramatic shift from the productive discussions we had been having with American’s experienced negotiators. In these meetings Johnsen displayed a unique combination of arrogance and ignorance that will prevent us from reaching an agreement.
The entire Association negotiating committee will meet next week in Washington, D.C. to discuss the sudden and insulting shift American has taken. We will also discuss the coordinated mobilization of the Association’s more than 30,000 members in response to Steven Johnsen’s deliberate sabotaging of your career, your future and your contract negotiations.
The Association is committed to quickly concluding negotiations. But we must have a willing partner across the table to do so.
Fraternally,
Alex Garcia
TWU International Executive Vice President
TWU/IAM Association Director |
Sito Pantoja
IAM General Vice President
TWU/IAM Association Vice Director |
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Feb 23, 2018 | Airlines, American, Home, The Association
Brothers and Sisters,
The Executive Negotiating Committee this week met face to face with American Airlines in Washington D.C.
Complete Tentative Agreements were reached on:
Classifications-MTS
Discussions continued on the MLS Classifications Article that contains some Scope provisions. The parties continued to narrow their positions in this article. Scope discussions were completed for MTS, except for those covenants that are global in nature and will apply to the Scope article for all JCBA’s.
Progress was made on the outstanding issues in the following Articles:
M&R Grievance Procedure
Fleet Service Vacation accrual change “double jeopardy”
Weekly Pay checks for all groups
The Negotiating Committees continued the task of building JCBA drafts with all the previously tentatively agreed to Articles, an arduous and painstaking process to ensure accuracy of the agreed upon language.
With the progress made on these tasks, the Fleet Service Committee will meet with the company the week of February 26th and the M&R Committee will meet with the company the week of March 5th to reconcile any errors that either party has identified while compiling the JCBA drafts with the previously agreed to tentative agreements.
During the next 2 weeks that this reconciliation process takes place, the Executive Negotiating Committee will continue dialog with American Airlines on the outstanding Scope and economic topics, healthcare, retirement and all forms of compensation in an effort to move closer to a successful conclusion of JCBA negotiations.
Your continued solidarity and support continues to inspire and motivate your committees to bring these negotiations to completion.
Fraternally,
Fleet Negotiating Committee:
Mark Baskett, William Fa, Mike Fairbanks, Tim Hughes, Steve Miller, Tim Murphy, Pat Rezler, Andre Sutton, Rodney Walker, Bill Wilson
Mechanic and Related/Stores Committee:
Jason Best, Mike Bush, Ken Coley, John Coveny, Dale Danker, Mark Huffman, Bennie Martino, Gary Peterson, Rollie Reaves, Sean Ryan, Jay Sleeman, Mark Strength
Feb 16, 2018 | Airlines, American, Home, The Association
Brothers and Sisters,
The Executive Negotiating Committee met face to face with American Airlines this week in Washington D.C.
Complete Tentative Agreements were reached on:
Filling of Vacancies-MLS
Discussions continued on the MLS Classifications Article that contains some Scope provisions. The parties have narrowed their positions in this article.
The majority of the Letters of Agreement that were previously identified to be discussed and incorporated into the JCBA or revised to reflect current applications were discussed and agreed to this week.
The Negotiating Committees this week began the task of building a JCBA draft with all the previously tentatively agreed to Articles, an arduous and painstaking process to ensure accuracy of the agreed upon language.
This week’s work was positive and productive; however, your solidarity and patience are of tremendous importance as we move the JCBA negotiating process much closer to the end than the beginning. By the end of next week’s negotiation session, we will have a clear idea of how serious the company is in resolving Scope, Healthcare, Retirement and all forms of Compensation.
The future negotiating calendar is as follows:
February 20- DCA
Fraternally,
Fleet Negotiating Committee:
Mark Baskett, William Fa, Mike Fairbanks, Tim Hughes, Steve Miller, Tim Murphy, Pat Rezler, Andre Sutton, Rodney Walker, Bill Wilson
Mechanic and Related/Stores Committee:
Jason Best, Mike Bush, Ken Coley, John Coveny, Dale Danker, Mark Huffman, Bennie Martino, Gary Peterson, Rollie Reaves, Sean Ryan, Jay Sleeman, Mark Strength
Jan 26, 2018 | Airlines, American, Home, The Association
Brothers and Sisters,
The Executive Negotiating Committee met face to face with American Airlines this week in Washington D.C.
Complete Tentative Agreements were reached on:
Seniority M&R – MLS
Hours of Service M&R
Reduction in Force M&R – MLS
Overtime Distribution Procedures M&R – MLS
As previously reported in our last session, Association negotiators presented the company with a comprehensive proposal on Scope for all groups.
The Scope proposals set the foundation for the Association this week to present to American Airlines, the largest and most profitable airline in the world (who yesterday reported year-end profits of $3.8 Billion), proposals on all outstanding economic topics. Those topics include Healthcare, Retirement and all forms of Compensation.
Your negotiating committees are pleased to have all of these topics on the bargaining table, a necessary next step in the completion of JCBA negotiations and returning to our members what we have sacrificed to put the company in the position it is in today.
Your continued solidarity and support are critical to our success at this juncture of the negotiation process.
The future negotiating calendar is as follows:
February 12 – DCA
February 20 – DCA
Fraternally,
Fleet Negotiating Committee:
Mark Baskett, William Fa, Mike Fairbanks, Tim Hughes, Steve Miller, Tim Murphy, Pat Rezler, Andre Sutton, Rodney Walker, Bill Wilson
Mechanic and Related/Stores Committee:
Jason Best, Mike Bush, Ken Coley, John Coveny, Dale Danker, Mark Huffman, Bennie Martino, Gary Peterson, Rollie Reaves, Sean Ryan, Jay Sleeman, Mark Strength
Jan 12, 2018 | Airlines, American, Home, The Association
Brothers and Sisters,
The full negotiating committees met with Association attorneys in December to prepare our Scope proposals followed by a sub-committee meeting in Washington D.C. the week of January 2nd to the 5th, along with the Association legal team to finalize these Scope proposals.
The Executive Negotiating Committee met face to face with American Airlines this week in Washington D.C. The Executive Committee presented our proposals and positions on Scope articles for all Association Classifications to the company. This is another important step that will ultimately bring the parties closer to resolutions on the remaining critical economic topics.
Additionally, the parties had dialogue and narrowed the gaps on MLS/M&R overtime opportunity distribution procedures and the unpaid LOA matrix charts for all groups.
Complete Tentative Agreements were reached on:
Reduction in Force- MCT
Reduction in Force – MTS
ASAP (Aviation Safety Action Program) Letter of Agreement- M&R -MLS
The future negotiating calendar is as follows:
January 22- DCA
February 12- DCA
February 19- DCA
Fraternally,
Fleet Negotiating Committee:
Mark Baskett, William Fa, Mike Fairbanks, Tim Hughes, Steve Miller, Tim Murphy, Pat Rezler, Art Risley, Andre Sutton, Rodney Walker, Bill Wilson
Mechanic and Related/Stores Committee:
Jason Best, Mike Bush, Ken Coley, John Coveny, Dale Danker, Mark Huffman, Bennie Martino, Gary Peterson, Rollie Reaves, Sean Ryan, Jay Sleeman, Mark Strength
Dec 22, 2017 | Airlines, American, Featured, Home, Video
