Source: ourunited.org

Ladies and Gentlemen,

The JNC has completed 2 weeks of negotiations with United management in Denver.  This was the first full session where AFA and the Company utilized mediators from the National Mediation Board (NMB) to help the parties conduct negotiations using a “facilitated problem solving” framework.

As we told you in our last update, the process - in its purest form - uses subcommittees made up of AFA and Company representatives to address subjects and issues relevant to the work we do as Flight Attendants.  Within the subcommittee our representatives identify Flight Attendant interests and the Company lists theirs.  The process calls for the entire subcommittee to review the complete list of interests and develop as many options as they can to address them.  Once everyone has put forward as many options as they can think of, AFA and the Company separate to discuss which options they are interested in having more discussions on.  The parties then get back together and talk about creating solutions based on the mutually agreed on options.  The subcommittee representatives take the potential solutions back to their respective negotiating committees for approval.  When the JNC and the Company agree on the solutions, they are turned into contract language.  The last step in the process is for the JNC and Company to review the contract language and if it accurately captures the solution, it is accepted as a Tentative Agreement.

On August 4th we started the subcommittees on Scheduling and General which deconstructed their respective subjects to determine what topics they are going to work on, and in which order they might be handled.  As the week progressed the Scheduling and General groups decided to spin off smaller subcommittees to work on Flight Attendant Parking and Aircraft Staffing.  When we began our second week on August 11th, the Parking group paused to gather research and subcommittees on Non-Discrimination Language, Personnel Files/Mailboxes and JobShare/Partnership began working.

This last Wednesday the NMB conducted another round of training in facilitated problem solving and it was attended by the LEC Presidents and Base Managers from each subsidiary.  We felt it was important for our local leaders to have a good understanding of the process we’re using and the Company agreed.   

The NMB’s presence here in Denver has been helpful and the facilitators are assisting all of us to understand and work with the facilitated problem solving process. This is a different way of negotiating, and we now have a larger group of people involved who have varying levels of experience, so it is to be expected that different subcommittees are working at different speeds, but all in all progress is being made. 

The JNC would like to thank our Flight Attendant colleagues who have joined us here in Denver and are taking active roles in all subcommittees.  We would not be able to complete this work without them.

Our next two week session will begin on September 8th in Denver.

In Solidarity,