The Steering Committee met in San Francisco this week. We made significant progress in this latest session. No members proposal was dismissed or accepted without a thorough vetting. There was intense, respectful debate on each line of each Article we addressed prior to committee consensus. The committee decided we need a longer period for our next session so that we can finish this process. To that end we are meeting for five days in the middle of March. I feel based on the progress of the two previous sessions we will be able to finalize our non economic proposal at the next session. After this proposal has been submitted to the company it will be online for everyone to view in the same manner as the Continental unit. Here is a link to the current Continental Negotiations if anyone is interested. The pictures are of the Committee at work in San Francisco and they can be enlarged by clicking on them...
There is still time if you have contract proposals to make. While we are through about half of the CBA if there is a compelling proposal on an Article we have already finished I'm sure the committee would discuss it.
Many members have asked how long I think negotiations will last. Based on the current state of the agreement and the amount of changes needed I would be surprised if we were finished earlier than two years after the start of negotiations. A standard negotiating cycle is about eighteen months. We are far from standard and that is why I feel it will last much longer. While this may seem like a long time, it is a decent amount of time for you to prepare for a possible strike action on this carrier.
There is not much local news for me to report this week, however there have been several items of note. The IBT filed for a representational election with Horizon mechanics this week. Here is a link to their site. The FAA shut down an AAR landing gear shop in Miami. There is a link to that article on the previous blog post. Also as reported earlier on the blog the Moratorium was stripped from the stimulus bill. However I feel this is a temporary setback as the IBT is very devoted to this issue.
There are a couple of new contracts added to the website and new links on the blog.
On another note Mikey Albertin from San Francisco has made 14G buttons to protest the company's ludicrous and arbitrary policy of discipline for sick leave usage. If anyone would like to purchase one let me know and I'll have him send some out here.
That's all for this week,
Bob
