US Airways Passenger Service: August 2012 Labor Committee Meeting

Doug Parker stated that the 2nd quarter was fantastic, the best ever and he asked the Union representatives to thank all of the employees we represent for the great job.

It was three times better then last quarter. The cost of fuel helped. We should all see a nice profit sharing check in 2013.

D0, Completion factor and the mishandled bag numbers the lowest we have ever seen.

The Unions recently formed the ULC-Union Labor coalition and sent Doug Parker a letter about our concerns with a potential merger with AA.

Doug responded to our letter and we had the TWU Representative, Danny Pursuit speak for the ULC in the meeting.

He told them that the ULC met and found common ground in our concerns about scope, compensations, benefits and seniority and are worried about where we stand in this possible consolidation with AA. We continue to perform a safe and efficient airline and are making money for the stockholders. We have seen a lot of pandering to the union groups at AA, we are behind this merger but we have not been spoken to about what is in it for us, we have heard Doug say if we merge and are profitable we well reap the benefits.

The response from Doug was:

“We know it seems odd but we had to go talk to the AA unions first, we learned from our mistakes in the unsuccessful attempt to merge with DL. We need to get the employees on our side of the merger and come to agreements with them.

At any rate, where we are, here at US Airways, with our Unions varies by each group and where they are in their bargaining. That process should not be affected by the potential merger, there is some consternation about this, I know. As long as we are not merged we don’t have the cost factor to bargain contracts except as a stand alone carrier. Let’s work on things that will get us where we need to be at time of merger. In the case of AFA they are talking to APFA at AA and we are also working on getting a tentative CBA with AFA that works merger or no merger.

We have the TWU and IAM issue to deal with also. They are two different unions representing one class and craft but they are beginning to talk to each other and we are trying to help them out.

I agree, this is not about “we don’t care what you guys think” we would love to have everyone stand up in support of this possible merger but the first step was we needed the support of the AA Unions.”

Danny Pursuit stated “If we flip the switch, AA knows what they are going to get but we do not, you are asking us to take a leap of faith.”

Scott Kirby replied; “Today you don’t yet know, there is a possibility to get there with AFA and TWU. It is not going to get done by Jan 1. We are actively involved in that process we are trying to get the deal, our goal is to have deals with everyone.

Doug Parker added; “What you do know, it is public what each of the AA groups are going to have. We don’t contemplate that we offer these AA deals and then we merge and it gets worse, it is either you have your contracts or it is the AA contract in place.

Danny stated; “The Company is bargaining with some groups but not all with using the AA contract agreements, such as with USAPA.”

Doug; “It has been harder to work with IAM and TWU, to get those groups to come together; we have not gotten far enough with the top levels. It is not easy in a representation point of view; I know it is good for all of the members. We feel that the AA election for customer service even though delayed, will be beneficial for the customer service group.

It would be good to talk to your Union counterparts on the other side at AA, if you are trying to figure out what makes the strongest airline, the AA Union groups think a merger with us is it.”

Debra Volpe for AFA-West said “There is a demand to support a merger when there is has been such difficulty reaching a tentative agreement, we need to get our single agreement in place, there is a leapfrog over our group when you tell us to meet with APFA at AA. The point was missed, you are talking with one group that there is a merger in mind and another group is told to bargain with no merger I mind.”

Doug said; “We can of course talk to AMR groups and we have to handle our sec 6 groups as though there is no merger.”

I asked Doug if he would consider card check for the AA customer service group if we merged. He felt the CWA election issues would be resolved before a merger.

I also stated we have been in bargaining for over a year now and we do not plan on giving up any scope language, but we are concerned with the outsourcing of work at AA in customer service. We will not accept the fact they have outsourced work that is protected in our CBA. He did not have a comment other then to say that he is not allowed to speculate or comment on the election or it would appear to be interfering under the NMB rules. I stated that we are also concerned that we may be required by the NMB to have a run-off election if we merge and the AA customer service group is non-union. Again, he stated that he did not think that it would come to that, he felt we would not be in that position in the case of a merger. This was supported by a comment from US Airways legal counsel Paul Jones.

I discussed some of the problems we are having with FMLA approval with Ceridian. It was echoed by AFA, TWU and IAM. Ryan Price, VP of HR stated he would like some examples of the denials and delays our members have been dealing with. We all said we would follow up with him. I stated we feel it should be brought back in house and not outsourced to a vendor.

Kim Barboro, the IBT rep for the West, stated there was a major communication break down dealing with the odor in the PHX call center. The fumes were so bad they had over 150 OJI claims and the management team in the call center was very lax in dealing with the problem. Doug stated they would pay for another air quality test to assure the employees it was safe to work there.