October 12, 2012
Airline Division meets with new Senior
VP Tech Ops
On October
9th, Airline Division Director David Bourne, Attorney Ed Gleason, and
Representatives Clacy Griswold, Paul Alves and Bob Fisher met with Greg Hart,
the new Senior VP of Tech Ops along with Doug McKeen and Mike Bonds. This
meeting was solely for the purpose of meeting the new Vice President. While no
business was discussed, the Airline Division explained that one of its top
priorities is and will be continuing to recapture work lost through previous
outsourcing. The meeting went well. On a related issue; recently a management
change occurred for the sub United GSE and facilities mechanics. Mike Lorenzeni
has moved on and Ray Ames will assume his duties in regards to these two
groups. Ray will report to Joe Ferreria in Tech Ops.
Negotiating Committee Correction
One name was
inadvertently left off the list for the national rank and file negotiating
committee. Allen Cosides was left off the list but will be attending
negotiations as the national coordinator for the GSE members across the system.
Allen’s presence will not affect the makeup of voting members, but he will have
input to all issues concerning the new agreement.
Committee Update
The
negotiating committee met September 20th and 21st in Denver for the purpose of
creating an abbreviated opening proposal for the amalgamated agreement. This is
one of the preliminary parts of the expedited mediation process. The committee
spent the two days looking at each of the articles and proposals suggested by
the members and steering committee and placed them in an order of importance.The
group met again the week of the 24th and spent the time working in small
subcommittees reviewing each line of each article of the three agreements
including the new proposals and created recommendations to the various
differences. There were many distinctions and each of these was placed in
positions of importance.
The work was
concluded this week in Chicago where the team took the results of the previous
two meeting weeks and created a combined plan which will be sent to the
company. This step will begin the back and forth dialog with the company
defined in interest based bargaining. With this step in place, the expedited
negotiation process can begin.
One final
hurdle which remains is the official NMB Expedited Negotiating Training. The
Team is waiting on training dates which can only be issued from the NMB. We
have repeatedly made requests and expect the call for training to happen at any
time and the committee is standing by and ready. This training for the new NMB
procedures is an important requirement of the expedited mediation process.
Benefits Committee Update
Since the
last Benefits update, the committee has met on three occasions to continue
working on finalizing the opening proposals for benefits and pension. With the
continued help of Hemant Berry, Assistant Director, Benefits Department for the
IBT; and Pete Hardcastle, Pension Consultant from Cheiron, a recommendation
will be given to the negotiating committee within the next few weeks, so they
can be prepared and ready when the IBB process starts.
With many sub
company differences to overcome, the committee is confident they will be giving
the negotiating committee a strong starting point for these issues.
Seniority Committee Update
The Seniority
Committee will meet again the week of the 15th to continue discussions on the
combined seniority lists. One of the tasks assigned to the Seniority Committee
has been to review the seniority lists of each work area and push for obvious
corrections from local management. The hope is to limit the number of actual
seniority discrepancies and protests by making sure the list is as accurate as
possible.
