New letter from UAL MEC.
06-10-2012, 01:58 PM
#1
Gets Weekends Off
Thread Starter
Joined APC: Apr 2008
Position: Sleeping in the black swan’s nest.
Posts: 5,725
New letter from UAL MEC.
June 10, 2012
Dear United Pilots:
Late on Friday, while most principals were here in New York in an attempt to conclude Joint Collective Bargaining Agreement (JCBA) negotiations by June 15, Mr. Doug McKeen, United’s Senior Vice President of Labor Relations, wrote individually to Continental MEC Chairman Captain Jay Pierce and me, reminding us of our obligations under the Railway Labor Act (RLA) and management’s intentions if there are any actions by individual pilots or groups of pilots that are considered a disruption to the operation. Click here to read Mr. McKeen’s letter. The United Pilots have and will continue to abide by the provisions of the RLA, Preliminary Injunction and the Standstill Agreement. To be clear, the UAL-MEC has not authorized any pilot job action, and any unauthorized action by individual pilots or groups of pilots would be both unlawful at this time and counterproductive to our ability to complete contract negotiations.
That said, we recognize Mr. McKeen’s letter as further evidence of management distancing itself from completing these contract negotiations in the near term and its lack of commitment to negotiate with any intent of actual completion. This falls in line with comments made recently by United CEO Jeff Smisek on flight decks and attributed to him by a Senior Vice President on a Chief Pilots’ conference call this week that the United Pilots will not have a contract by June 15. These comments clearly demonstrate that management does not intend to conclude an Agreement by June 15 absent action from the National Mediation Board (NMB). Further evidence is illustrated by the June 6 United Daily with the following, “We held further negotiations with the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA) in Chicago last week, with negotiations currently scheduled through June 29.” This announcement is disingenuous as these dates were set aside with the NMB as a backstop for time with the mediators. Nonetheless, ALPA stands ready to negotiate and conclude an Agreement in Principle on the JCBA by June 15.
Make no mistake; management is using the same tactics that have been used during other contract negotiations: toying with emotions, instilling doubt and inciting employees to perform contrary to their best judgment in a mistaken effort to get us back into court and thwart our efforts to secure a release, let alone a JCBA.
Follow the pattern: A payroll changeover to a new system for only one pilot group which adversely affected thousands of United pilots. The company’s actions result in continual over payments, underpayments and, quite often, no payments whatsoever. United pilots experience miscalculations of tax rates, incorrect withholding and garnishments, incorrect W-2 statements, late W-2 correction statements and last week the boarded meal charges that affected more than 2,800 pilots’ June 1 paychecks.
Health benefits and insurance were lost for a short period of time, prescription benefits were denied and legally eligible family members were incorrectly dropped from coverage over the last few months. The company has failed to properly manage your Flex Spending accounts, resulting in no or incorrect payments for the first quarter of the year. Additionally, the company failed to manage a dental plan resulting in incorrect reimbursement. Management attempted to force you to re-verify already eligible family members in a manner contrary to our CBA. Those with partners or spouses with different last names were suddenly deleted, as were those with hyphens or apostrophes in their names.
Pass Travel, Vacations Passes, Deadhead seat assignments, Jumpseating and a multitude of other issues as a result of PSS changeover continue with no date of a fix offered up by the company. The Association was notified by the company that L-CAL was to be considered an “Online” carrier as of SOC, and then the company abruptly changed its position months after SOC and now says L-CAL is “Offline.”
The company has refused to comply with System Board awards that resulted from decisions made well over a year ago, has ignored good faith agreements made with the Association and has attempted to make changes to long standing, mutually understood practices.
Despite these blatant attempts to incite our pilots into action detrimental to our goals, you have not allowed yourselves to be baited and you should be proud. We know you will continue to remain professional and responsible in all our dealings at work. As we have stated before and will continue to state, now is not the time for us to act out our frustrations or take actions to impact the operation. We do not want any pilot to jeopardize himself, the Association or the MECs' Strategic Plan. Even if the company chooses not to, we must maintain the Status Quo until we are released by the mediator and the 30-day Cooling Off period has expired.
It’s time for management to resume its focus on the negotiations and stop with these distractions.
We are United,
Captain Jay Heppner
Chairman, United Master Executive Council
Dear United Pilots:
Late on Friday, while most principals were here in New York in an attempt to conclude Joint Collective Bargaining Agreement (JCBA) negotiations by June 15, Mr. Doug McKeen, United’s Senior Vice President of Labor Relations, wrote individually to Continental MEC Chairman Captain Jay Pierce and me, reminding us of our obligations under the Railway Labor Act (RLA) and management’s intentions if there are any actions by individual pilots or groups of pilots that are considered a disruption to the operation. Click here to read Mr. McKeen’s letter. The United Pilots have and will continue to abide by the provisions of the RLA, Preliminary Injunction and the Standstill Agreement. To be clear, the UAL-MEC has not authorized any pilot job action, and any unauthorized action by individual pilots or groups of pilots would be both unlawful at this time and counterproductive to our ability to complete contract negotiations.
That said, we recognize Mr. McKeen’s letter as further evidence of management distancing itself from completing these contract negotiations in the near term and its lack of commitment to negotiate with any intent of actual completion. This falls in line with comments made recently by United CEO Jeff Smisek on flight decks and attributed to him by a Senior Vice President on a Chief Pilots’ conference call this week that the United Pilots will not have a contract by June 15. These comments clearly demonstrate that management does not intend to conclude an Agreement by June 15 absent action from the National Mediation Board (NMB). Further evidence is illustrated by the June 6 United Daily with the following, “We held further negotiations with the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA) in Chicago last week, with negotiations currently scheduled through June 29.” This announcement is disingenuous as these dates were set aside with the NMB as a backstop for time with the mediators. Nonetheless, ALPA stands ready to negotiate and conclude an Agreement in Principle on the JCBA by June 15.
Make no mistake; management is using the same tactics that have been used during other contract negotiations: toying with emotions, instilling doubt and inciting employees to perform contrary to their best judgment in a mistaken effort to get us back into court and thwart our efforts to secure a release, let alone a JCBA.
Follow the pattern: A payroll changeover to a new system for only one pilot group which adversely affected thousands of United pilots. The company’s actions result in continual over payments, underpayments and, quite often, no payments whatsoever. United pilots experience miscalculations of tax rates, incorrect withholding and garnishments, incorrect W-2 statements, late W-2 correction statements and last week the boarded meal charges that affected more than 2,800 pilots’ June 1 paychecks.
Health benefits and insurance were lost for a short period of time, prescription benefits were denied and legally eligible family members were incorrectly dropped from coverage over the last few months. The company has failed to properly manage your Flex Spending accounts, resulting in no or incorrect payments for the first quarter of the year. Additionally, the company failed to manage a dental plan resulting in incorrect reimbursement. Management attempted to force you to re-verify already eligible family members in a manner contrary to our CBA. Those with partners or spouses with different last names were suddenly deleted, as were those with hyphens or apostrophes in their names.
Pass Travel, Vacations Passes, Deadhead seat assignments, Jumpseating and a multitude of other issues as a result of PSS changeover continue with no date of a fix offered up by the company. The Association was notified by the company that L-CAL was to be considered an “Online” carrier as of SOC, and then the company abruptly changed its position months after SOC and now says L-CAL is “Offline.”
The company has refused to comply with System Board awards that resulted from decisions made well over a year ago, has ignored good faith agreements made with the Association and has attempted to make changes to long standing, mutually understood practices.
Despite these blatant attempts to incite our pilots into action detrimental to our goals, you have not allowed yourselves to be baited and you should be proud. We know you will continue to remain professional and responsible in all our dealings at work. As we have stated before and will continue to state, now is not the time for us to act out our frustrations or take actions to impact the operation. We do not want any pilot to jeopardize himself, the Association or the MECs' Strategic Plan. Even if the company chooses not to, we must maintain the Status Quo until we are released by the mediator and the 30-day Cooling Off period has expired.
It’s time for management to resume its focus on the negotiations and stop with these distractions.
We are United,
Captain Jay Heppner
Chairman, United Master Executive Council
Last edited by UAL T38 Phlyer; 06-10-2012 at 03:03 PM. Reason: Typo in Title
06-10-2012, 06:23 PM
#2
Line Holder
Joined APC: Aug 2011
Position: b737 fo
Posts: 32
What a **** Moron... If they would stop stepping over dollars to pick up dimes they would realize its not the pilots causing delays, its the agents and ramp that cause delays. Because there aren't enough of them. They have no motivation, and the bad timing of the pss cutover isn't helping.
Waiting till the end of the summer rush to do the cutover, making sure the company is properly staffed ,and building this house from the foundation up( instead of having 4 guys hold up the roof while they figure out where the furniture goes) He (mckeenan) wouldnt be talking about sickouts and "job actions".. Luckly for us we keep great records of the springtime vol jr.man events their argument will be moot... I say again Morons.
Waiting till the end of the summer rush to do the cutover, making sure the company is properly staffed ,and building this house from the foundation up( instead of having 4 guys hold up the roof while they figure out where the furniture goes) He (mckeenan) wouldnt be talking about sickouts and "job actions".. Luckly for us we keep great records of the springtime vol jr.man events their argument will be moot... I say again Morons.
Last edited by UAL T38 Phlyer; 06-10-2012 at 06:26 PM. Reason: TOS
06-10-2012, 08:04 PM
#3
Banned
Joined APC: Oct 2010
Position: IAH 737 CA
Posts: 690
What a **** Moron... If they would stop stepping over dollars to pick up dimes they would realize its not the pilots causing delays, its the agents and ramp that cause delays. Because there aren't enough of them. They have no motivation, and the bad timing of the pss cutover isn't helping.
Waiting till the end of the summer rush to do the cutover, making sure the company is properly staffed ,and building this house from the foundation up( instead of having 4 guys hold up the roof while they figure out where the furniture goes) He (mckeenan) wouldnt be talking about sickouts and "job actions".. Luckly for us we keep great records of the springtime vol jr.man events their argument will be moot... I say again Morons.
Waiting till the end of the summer rush to do the cutover, making sure the company is properly staffed ,and building this house from the foundation up( instead of having 4 guys hold up the roof while they figure out where the furniture goes) He (mckeenan) wouldnt be talking about sickouts and "job actions".. Luckly for us we keep great records of the springtime vol jr.man events their argument will be moot... I say again Morons.
mckeen is having his crank yanked by the same people that have been yanking us for almost four years. these are the same people that see labor as a cash cow and something to be gutted, kinda like a fish. do you job, sure. do more than your job................verdict is still out on that one and we wait patiently for june 15th.
06-10-2012, 08:35 PM
#4
Banned
Joined APC: Jun 2008
Position: A320 Cap
Posts: 2,282
What a **** Moron... If they would stop stepping over dollars to pick up dimes they would realize its not the pilots causing delays, its the agents and ramp that cause delays. Because there aren't enough of them. They have no motivation, and the bad timing of the pss cutover isn't helping.
Waiting till the end of the summer rush to do the cutover, making sure the company is properly staffed ,and building this house from the foundation up( instead of having 4 guys hold up the roof while they figure out where the furniture goes) He (mckeenan) wouldnt be talking about sickouts and "job actions".. Luckly for us we keep great records of the springtime vol jr.man events their argument will be moot... I say again Morons.
Waiting till the end of the summer rush to do the cutover, making sure the company is properly staffed ,and building this house from the foundation up( instead of having 4 guys hold up the roof while they figure out where the furniture goes) He (mckeenan) wouldnt be talking about sickouts and "job actions".. Luckly for us we keep great records of the springtime vol jr.man events their argument will be moot... I say again Morons.
;and they don't know how to handle it except with the standard threats.
06-10-2012, 09:14 PM
#6
APC co-founder
Joined APC: Feb 2005
Position: B777
Posts: 5,853
I hope everyone on the right coast makes it to this event, Wall Street is watching:
UAL, CAL pilots to picket United Continental Holdings shareholders meeting June 12... -- NEW YORK, June 8, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ --
UAL, CAL pilots to picket United Continental Holdings shareholders meeting June 12... -- NEW YORK, June 8, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ --
06-11-2012, 11:16 AM
#7
Keep Calm Chive ON
Joined APC: Feb 2008
Position: Boeing's Plastic Jet Button Pusher - 787
Posts: 2,086
Thread
Thread Starter
Forum
Replies
Last Post
