Meetings continued last week in NYC under the auspices of the NMB and Mediator Gerry McGuckin. The
Company committees were again represented by Brian Pinchbeck and your Union committee was present
with the additions of GLR Mike Manzo. While there is nothing in the form of any agreement to announce,
it is important to try to bring everyone up to date on exactly where we are at in this process.
Over 12 months ago, we began visiting stations and conducting informal briefings where we talked in detail
about negotiations, the mediation process with the NMB, the Company’s draconian Customer Service
proposal to eliminate all work and how we would address that proposal. At that time, commitments were
made to the membership. Three most important were: 1) the IAM would not sacrifice jobs to outsourcing,
2) those that wanted to leave the company would be able to do so via a buyout, and 3) those that wanted to
continue to work for BA would be able to continue to do without any further degradation of their current
standard of living. That was a tall order in the face of such ‘nuclear option’ proposals from the company.
I am pleased to say that we have made substantial progress in all of those areas and continue to do so.
However, there still remain some significant hurdles to clear. The negotiating committee continues to wait
on anything resembling a decent proposal representative of the industry for the Engineering group. We will
hopefully get a response worthy of the reality BA is facing around the USA at the August meetings.
Confirmed future dates still include the weeks of August 5 and 19 (NYC) and September 16 (NYC). The
location of any mediated negotiations remains at the Mediators discretion. 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
POST ON ALL IAM BULLETIN BOARDS
