Mediated negotiations resumed this week for the Customer Services group in NYC under the auspices of the NMB and Mediator Gerry McGuckin. The Union received another proposal from the Company on Tuesday that was not even close to being realistic for where these talks will eventually end up. Their proposal consisted of a cherry-picked version of a section from the Union’s proposal which added an RRA provision to their proposal that was still “contingent upon a full outsourcing agreement”. Needless to say, that proposal was again completely rebuked by your negotiating committee and responded to accordingly.
Doug Caines asked if we were going to share their proposal with the membership and we responded that it would never leave that room in our hands. I did encourage him to release it on his own accord only if he was up to the task of accepting any/all feedback from the group of IAM members at large. He deserves nothing more than to hear your feelings about the Company’s tact concerning your welfare thus far. Whether he will or not is unknown. If he does, I would encourage everyone to share your feelings with him.
What is known is that what I have consistently communicated to you, and committed to you in our face-to-face meetings, is that we will not accept any type of proposal such as they have proffered thus far. The profitability of British Airways (in the Billions of dollars or Euros) is such that they should be totally ashamed to have proposed it in the first place.
I appreciate the time and kindness everyone has shown to me on my visits to the stations thus far. I will continue trying to schedule visits to the remaining stations as time permits to give everyone a chance to visit and have all of their questions answered about these negotiations and the mediation process. At this point in time, if the Company continues acting as they have this week, I have not received any indication that the Mediator will schedule any future dates for meetings concerning the Customer Services group and no future dates exist at this time. On Monday and Tuesday of next week, meetings will be again held for Engineering only.
Please take the time to sign up to receive communications such as this BA negotiations bulletin, and others, by going to www.iamdl142.org and clicking on the red “Join Our Email List” button in the top left-hand corner. If you have any questions, please give me a call at (859) 653-4037 or email me at or contact one of your negotiating committee members.
With best wishes, I remain
Sincerely and fraternally,
James M. Samuel
GENERAL CHAIR
Reggie Gauthier John Reisert
Committee Member Committee Member
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