Pension issues snag United Airlines talks
CHICAGO — Unable yet to negotiate an agreement on a new long-term contract, United Airlines and its machinists union returned to a bankruptcy courtroom Thursday to resume arguing whether the union’s contract should be broken in the absence of a deal.
The failure to wrap up a contract agreement left hanging the issue of a possible strike by United workers, who have threatened to walk off their jobs if lower pay and benefits are imposed without a consensual deal.
Negotiators for both sides were racing to beat a new unofficial deadline of late this morning, when closing arguments in the case are scheduled and a ruling to break the contract could soon follow.
United, a unit of Elk Grove Village, Ill.-based UAL Corp., is seeking annual concessions totaling $176 million over five years from machinists to complete a targeted $700 million in labor cost reductions.
The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers presented testimony from two witnesses at the court session late Thursday afternoon to bolster its argument that United is asking for excessive concessions from its workers.
Tom Roth, the president of Alexandria, Va.-based Labor Bureau Inc. and a consultant for the IAM, said IAM workers are being asked to shoulder an unfair share — 25 percent — of the cutbacks in part because United is undervaluing the concessions made by the group in previous contract changes.
“We are looking at a group here that is the least paid, the lowest average paid, has the lowest total compensation, and yet they’re asked to take the largest cut,” Roth said.
Tom Brickner, a top IAM negotiator in current talks as the union’s airline coordinator, said United has not bargained in good faith over the allocation of cuts.
“They took a firm position from the first day of negotiations and they never altered that position at all,” he said.
Following a late-night bargaining session that lasted until 3 a.m., negotiations were unable to resume later Thursday until after the court session ended.
Unlike the tense and sometimes emotional hearing last week over United’s termination of employee pensions, the weeklong labor trial has been largely absent of sharp exchanges and accusations — suggesting both sides were always hopeful of a resolution through negotiations.
“I’m glad that the courtroom activity has been businesslike and there aren’t … sparks,” United’s chief operating officer, Pete McDonald, said in an interview earlier this week. “The focus has been at the table to produce a tentative agreement that our employees, their members, can vote on and hopefully ratify.”
Attorneys for the two sides indicated that the inability to reach an agreement during the two-day recess granted by the judge to focus on negotiations did not signify talks were blocked.