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United and AFA Resume Pay Talks

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Source: Archived Content

Date: Feb 20, 2001

Starting Wednesday, the MEC will meet with United's negotiators to discuss the following two issues dearest to each of their hearts:

United Wants: "No issues remaining" with respect to the possible U.S. Airways purchase/merge.
AFA Wants: An additional pay increase, above and beyond what may result from our contractual wage arbitration Conference set to begin on March 1, 2000.  

If you recall, the two negotiating parties previously met on February 7.  At that time, United agreed to a 3 percent raise if and only if the flight attendants agreed to waivers facilitating the US Airways mainline merger.  Not surprisingly, AFA negotiators considered the offer an "insult" and ended the meeting.  You can read more about this at either Talks Between UAL and AFA Stalled or Back to the Bargaining Table.

"A 3 percent raise does not put United flight attendants above the top of the industry,'' our MEC President Linda Farrow told the media at the time.

Meanwhile, our MEC has instructed outside legal counsel to begin preparing a lawsuit aimed to protect flight attendant rights under the terms of our Contract dated December 3, 1997.  As mentioned before, without agreement from a flight attendant vote (and that means you Mary Sue Mainliner), United’s plans for the operational US Airways merger could be stopped or held up in court.

This 'new' upcoming meeting on February 21 was announced today on United's own NewsReal---with an interesting perspective.  Here's the news story in its entirety:

----------------------------------------------------           
         Company and AFA Continue Pay Talks                    
----------------------------------------------------           
                                                               
The company and Association of Flight Attendants               
(AFA) negotiators are set to resume talks on                   
Wednesday, Feb. 21, aimed at a mid-contract pay                
increase and preparations for the pending US Airways           
acquisition.  Although flight attendants already are           
bound by the pay schedules of their contract                   
extending to 2006, United previously has said it               
could grant an additional raise in light of                    
industry-leading standards being applied to other              
United groups.  Negotiators also seek to confirm               
that no issues remain for the US Airways closing and           
that the separate seniority list and contract for US           
Airways flight attendants will be honored until a              
combined agreement is negotiated.                              
                                                               
According to the industry-leading standard the                 
company has applied to its other work groups, United           
flight attendant 2001 compensation already is higher           
than all U.S. carriers except Delta.  The scheduled            
March 1, 2001, lump sum payment of five percent will           
bring United's flight attendant total compensation             
virtually even with Delta's under current rates.               
                                                               
"The company and the AFA will discuss what                     
additional pay increase would be in order to ensure            
that United flight attendants receive industry-                
leading total compensation," says Frank Colosi,                
director-People Services, "even if other carriers              
grant additional raises this year."                            

Now re-read this story again.  Notice something?  The last two paragraphs heavily tout the fact that United pays, or will discuss to pay, its flight attendants higher wages than the rest the industry.  In other words, 2/3 of this news story going out to all United Airlines employees is basically an announcement that the UAL flight attendants are among the best paid employees in their group.  Does Joe Q. Mechanic or Sally F. Sales really care about our specific scheduled March 1, 2001 lump sum payments being 5%?  It makes me wonder who this story was really written for and with what purpose.

I was under the impression that the AFA MEC made clear their anger and disappointment at UAL management in a press release late last week.  They publicly announced their frustration with the the mixed messages United had been sending to the wage Negotiating Committee.  The DEAR-AFA tape had even reported that "United's negotiators only wanted to talk about a complete waiver of our scope clause."

If you also examine the first paragraph of that news story, you'll see that it says, 'Negotiators also seek to confirm that no issues remain for the US Airways closing...'  I find that statement odd because 'confirm' means to provide support for the truth or correctness of something.  

The fact is, there are issues (quite a few of them I'd imagine) that remain before any preliminary deal with United Airlines will be agreed upon by AFA with regard to the 'US Airways Closing'.  Once the two negotiating parties meet, bargain and settle for their respective desires, construct a workable plan in agreement by each of them, then we all can "seek to confirm" this good piece of news with happy smiles on our faces.   In the meantime, we ought to be thinking of this upcoming meeting in terms of "seek to solve the issues that remain" instead of "seek to confirm that no issues remain."  Because the issues already did and still do remain.  That's the reason for the failure of the previous meeting on February 7th.

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