On February 16, 2016, Teamster United Airlines mechanics, voted down United’s offer and voted overwhelmingly to authorize a strike. Since then, your Negotiating Committee has been hard at work to determine the best path for productive negotiations with the company that address the concerns of the membership.
A survey of the membership was completed on Friday, April 1st. This will give the Negotiating Committee an accurately prioritized picture of the current issues and concerns that the workers want brought up in bargaining.
On March 8, 2016, two large United investors, Altimeter Capital and PAR Capital, announced that they would be running a slate of six nominees for the company’s Board of Directors, including the former Chairman and CEO of Continental Airlines, Gordon Bethune, who is credited with turning Continental’s performance around.
The dissidents alleged long-standing poor governance by the Board and five years of underperformance relative to their peers in the passenger aviation industry as their motivation for running this slate. United reacted by adding three Directors to their Board with the addition of another director forthcoming.
The Teamsters are remaining neutral right now in their support of the competing slates. The interests of the workers come first for the union and careful observation of the issues surrounding this battle are necessary to determine who would be best for the membership.
The Negotiating Committee, including business agents, rank-and-file members, legal advisors and the union economist, is scheduled to meet April 13-14 at Local 856 in San Bruno, California to review the surveys and decide on bargaining issues and strategy moving forward. Please stay tuned for updates.
In Solidarity,
Your Negotiating Committee
