United and Continental Airlines Pilots Protest Current Contract Negotiations, Potential for Strike Looms

After more than 2 years of negotiations, the joint pilot groups from Continental Airlines and United Airlines, soon to be merged into a single pilot group under the new post-merger United Airlines, have become frustrated with the slow pace of progress in reaching a new contract. In a joint display of unity, the pilots gathered in protest at the site of the United Continental Holdings annual shareholder meeting on Tuesday.

The United and Continental pilots, represented by the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA), have been involved in joint negotiations for a labor contract that will cover pilots from both legacy airlines since May 2010. After seven months, the parties jointly requested mediation and have bee in mediated bargaining since February of 2011.

“Negotiations have been ongoing for more than two years since the merger was announced, and we still don’t have a new contract. In the meantime, United Airlines management has managed to steadily degrade the airline and its value to passengers, shareholders, and employees while at the same time lining their own pockets,” said CAL MEC chairman Capt. Jay Pierce. “It is time to resolve the pilot labor contract so we can all move forward. If that means we must navigate through a little turbulence, then so be it.”

Pierce’s counterpart and UAL MEC chairman Capt. Jay Heppner remarked, “The pilots have made sacrifice after sacrifice to help this airline stay in business since 9/11, and all we’ve seen in return is management’s strategy of offshoring and outsourcing our jobs. United has dragged these negotiations out and kept us in a holding pattern so that it can continue with its outsourcing strategy, and we’ve had enough. Pilots have been working under a nine-year-old bankruptcy contract while management has hiked their own pay and bonuses year after year.”

“We constantly hear management speak about the ‘fresh start’ for the company following the bankruptcy and the merger,” Heppner continued. “The pilots, whose sacrifices and professionalism made this merger possible, have been waiting for their fresh start for nearly a decade. The 12,000 United and Continental pilots are determined to hold management to the June 15 deadline that was agreed upon to conclude JCBA negotiations. If that deadline is not met, we fully expect the National Mediation Board to release us from mediation as we have requested and allow us to exercise our right to self-help.”

Last month, the president of ALPA, Capt. Lee Moak, sent a letter to the National Mediation Board (NMB) requesting that the NMB “further assist the parties to bring about an agreement by proffering arbitration, and if not accepted by both parties, issuing a release under Section 5, First of the Act.”

In plain language, the “release” if granted could be followed by a 30-day cooling off period before potentially leading to a strike by the joint pilot groups. With hubs in major cities including Newark, Houston, Chicago, Denver, and Cleveland, and routes all over the globe, such a strike could have a devastating impact on air travel with the U.S. and abroad.

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