Negotiations in public

[ivauir]

Red,

You still have a hard time understanding some of these concepts. Yes, DL has a lot of codeshare partners. Just like SWA has one (Volaris),

So funny. You accuse others of not understanding the concepts, and yet your opening statement illustrates the undeniable truth: DAL has farmed out massive amounts of your flying and there is no end in sight.

Southwest probably has many ticketing agreements with other airlines.

Perhaps you should be familiar with the topic before attempting to debate the issue.

Now let's talk about scope and RJs.

There is no doubt there is a large abundance of RJs at Delta. But, that number is coming down, almost as fast as a Corndog 737 with a roof coming undone. 50 seaters are going away quick, and the limit on 70/76 seaters is almost at it's contractual peak. It won't go higher. The overall numbers are decreasing.

I suppose we'll see what the future of RJ's are for DAL codesahre partners. The 50 seaters may go away, but will that mean more mainline flying, or just larger RJs for your partners?

So come on Red, try to debate me. You can't.

It is extremely difficult to debate someone who refuses to educate herself on the topic at hand. My offer to email our section one stands.

 

[WAZUP]

Get control of scope and please, get those pay rates up. No less than 100 per hour fo second yr pay, any equipment.

 

[Continental]

This is the front of the CP's office door in IAH With what we think of MGT's negotiations!

 

[scoreboardII]

excellent job guys!

 

[redflyer65]

This is the front of the CP's office door in IAH With what we think of MGT's negotiations!

Excellent!!

Keep up the good work.

 

[luckytohaveajob]

Good job.

 

[densoo]

Well, it's not a secret anymore

Houston Chronicle (July 3, 2011)​

Wednesday morning, I was sitting aboard a Continental Airlines 737 at New York's LaGuardia airport waiting and waiting for things to move forward. Finally, the plane began to accelerate down the runway, only to stop abruptly, turn around and wait some more before trying again.​

It's a fitting analogy for the state of labor negotiations as the new United Airlines tries to hammer out agreements with its varied unions.​

Talks aimed at combining the unions under new contracts have progressed like New York departures in summertime — behind schedule and with few signs of moving forward. Labor issues have undermined many an airline merger, and the stalled status of talks at United raises questions about how smoothly its merger with Continental is progressing.​

While flight attendants recently voted to combine under the Association of Flight Attendants, there's still no new contract for the combined group.​

Slow progress with pilots ​

Even more surprising, management remains far apart in discussions with its pilots, one of the few employee groups represented by the same union.

"We're not making the progress that I'd like to see," said Capt. Jay Pierce, head of the Continental chapter of the Air Line Pilots Association. "We're in the doldrums on some scheduling issues."​

Clearly, management hoped to have a collective agreement in place by now. Yet after almost a year of negotiations, the two sides remain vastly far apart on economic issues. The last proposals submitted by each side differed by about $1.3 billion a year, according to a United website devoted to the negotiations.​

United doesn't need a single collective bargaining agreement to operate as a single airline, but its skies aren't likely to be very friendly if it doesn't. Part of the merger's challenge was to spread Continental's relatively good labor relations throughout the combined airline, rather than allowing United's long-standing labor acrimony to prevail.​

Grievances filed​

Last month, the Continental pilots filed two grievances over United's plans to sell Continental aircraft and move flying assignments before the new contract is in place.

In a recent letter to members, Pierce said he also is concerned about staffing.​

"The sad truth is that we are a woefully understaffed airline," he wrote. He said pilots are being pushed into more flying time with less rest.​

Continental has always gotten high productivity from its pilots, and summer is the busiest flying time of the year, but Pierce told me pilots are now flying an average approaching 90 hours a month, compared with closer to 80 hours before the merger.​

"We're starting to see a situation this summer that's concerning to us," he said. "We're starting to push our guys a little too hard."​

Pierce blames the increase on United's efforts to better align aircraft and routes, even as it operates United and Continental as separate subsidiaries.​

Such "fleet rational-ization" was a key cost-saving goal of the merger. But not all pilots are certified to fly all planes, and the unions can't combine workforces and seniority lists until they have a single contract.​

"They're trying to take advantage of the future before they have taken all the proper steps," Pierce said.​

Airline labor negotiations tend to be ugly things, conducted through a messy and very public back-and-forth. It's a model of dispute resolution that falls somewhere between The Sandlot and Lord of the Flies.​

United, for its part, argues it wants to get a collective bargaining agreement done quickly, but it's not willing to sacrifice profitability to please pilots, nor will it accept a deal that's not competitive with other carriers.​

"We can't, and won't, write a check that can't be cashed," it said on the website.​

This could be dismissed as typical labor-management posturing if an agreement weren't so vital to the merger's success. Already, there's enough friction to dismiss any notion that this deal will resemble the smooth labor negotiations that accompanied the Delta Air Lines-Northwest Airlines merger.​

Instead, United's stalled labor talks raise the question of whether the entire merger is stuck on the tarmac.​

Loren Steffy is the Chronicle's business columnist. His commentary appears Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Contact him at [email protected]. His blog is at http://blogs.chron.com/lorensteffy.​

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/business/steffy/7636654.html#ixzz1RAWeNkpN

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/business/steffy/7636654.html

 

[Yuppyguppy]

The answer is not no but HELL NO! FUPM now J-LO or we take you and your robber barrons to down with the ship. End of story. No RJ's, No outsourcing, No paycuts, No concessions. Get it?

UAL and CAL pilots unite to stop these tyrants!

 

[densoo]

The answer is not no but HELL NO! FUPM now J-LO or we take you and your robber barrons to down with the ship. End of story. No RJ's, No outsourcing, No paycuts, No concessions. Get it?

UAL and CAL pilots unite to stop these tyrants!

Bottom line is all they care about. Negative media affects the bottom line. They are going to start caring Tuesday morning.

 

[sleeves]

The answer is not no but HELL NO! FUPM now J-LO or we take you and your robber barrons to down with the ship. End of story. No RJ's, No outsourcing, No paycuts, No concessions. Get it?

UAL and CAL pilots unite to stop these tyrants!

I am with ya!!