Brothers and Sisters,
Negotiations continued in Atlanta this week. The Executive and the full negotiating committees continued working together at each step of the process and all were fully updated.
The company’s hard-line attack on the work Association members do, our Scope, continued throughout the week. The Association’s basic Scope proposals remain to secure the work we do today in all classifications. Our Scope proposals are a near zero cost to the company, since it is work we are performing today, yet company negotiators continue to insist we concede and give away that work.
It is unconscionable that the largest airline in the world, making billions annually in profits, is fighting to take away our security and rights to better shifts or days off by demanding more outsourcing. Their CEO has publicly boasted “We will never lose money again,” but, yet, American is proposing we accept a contract that would outsource 2,200 Heavy Maintenance jobs, allows them to almost double the amount of Line Maintenance work now done in foreign countries, grants them the power to transfer Stores and GSE work to vendors, decimates our facilities maintenance membership and outsources Fleet Service work as they see fit.
Company negotiators continue to demand we accept inferior health care plans without having a say in their cost or plan design. Finally, even if all other elements of the JCBA had come together in this week’s negotiating session, American still demands we accept less in retirement than exists today or what other employees receive.
Your Association Negotiators will not bring a JCBA to the membership that is concessionary in benefits, work rules, and annual compensation nor further diminish our Scope to pay for it.
With the company’s ongoing onerous demands, this may be shaping up to be a very long, hot summer and not just because of the weather. We hope cooler heads can prevail, but with just six more negotiating days scheduled by the NMB, it seems American negotiators have painted themselves into a corner.
For over three years, American leadership has made us promises of industry-leading contracts. The time is now to deliver on those promises.
We must continue to prepare for the fight of our careers. By standing together as one, in solidarity to preserve our jobs and our livelihood, we will prevail.
Future mediation dates scheduled:
- The week of March 18 DFW
- The week of April 22 FLL
Fraternally,
Your Association Executive Negotiating Committee
