Working With Management to Find Solutions, Guarding Workers' Rights

The AMR Labor Coalition, comprised of the five unions representing American Airlines and American Eagle employees, expressed its support on Tuesday for "active engagement" with AMR management regarding the difficulties their airlines are currently experiencing, but also strongly criticized the simultaneous effort by management to rewrite the Railway Labor Act. AMR's CEO, Don Carty, is reportedly looking at another round of cost cuts, which would no doubt include large labor concessions. The company said earlier this month it's borrowing money, to make payroll, as its cash position declines.

The Railway Labor Act has governed collective bargaining in the airline industry since 1934. In a news conference in Fort Worth (TX) on Tuesday, AMR Labor Coalition representatives pointed out that the Railway Labor Act is well established as an effective dispute resolution tool. During the decade of the 1990s, for example, there were only four airline strikes in the U.S. Two of the four strikes involved American Airlines employees -- the flight attendants in 1993 and the pilots in 1997 (President Clinton intervened in the pilots' strike by convening a Presidential Emergency Board).

The Air Transport Association (ATA)--which serves as the principal lobbying organization for airline management--has been lobbying for changes to the Railway Labor Act to institute forced arbitration at the conclusion of negotiations, rather than permitting the parties to engage in self-help. However, since the effort to change the Railway Labor Act does not have the unanimous support of ATA's member carriers, it appears that the primary lobbying responsibility is now assigned to the so-called Communities for Economic Strength Through Aviation, known as CESTA. CESTA was formed for the sole purpose of lobbying for changes to the Act.

New Group

The AMR Labor Coalition is made up of the following:

• Transport Workers Union, AFL-CIO (TWU), which represents the 34,500 mechanics and ground employees of American Airlines and American Eagle.
• Allied Pilots Association (APA), which represents the 13,500 pilots of American Airlines.
• Association of Professional Flight Attendants, AFL-CIO (APFA), which represents the 21,000 flight attendants of American Airlines.
• American Eagle Master Executive Council, Air Line Pilots Association, Int'l, AFL-CIO (ALPA), which represents the 2,300 pilots of American Eagle.
• Association of Flight Attendants (AFA), which represents the 1,400 flight attendants of American Eagle.

"Now more than ever, our pilots are committed to helping ensure the future viability of American Airlines," said Captain John E. Darrah, President of the Allied Pilots Association. "Given the magnitude of the challenges confronting our airline and our industry, it's critical that we work cooperatively with management. Yet that essential cooperation will be very difficult to achieve as long as management persists in trying to take away our basic rights in collective bargaining."

"For the past six years, the Eagle pilots' contract has contained a provision for mandatory arbitration at the conclusion of negotiations," said Captain Herb Mark, Chairman of the American Eagle Master Executive Council, ALPA. "The impact of this provision is that our pilots have fallen steadily behind their industry peers in terms of compensation and benefits. It removes any incentive for management to bargain in good faith."

"After the attacks of September 11, it was the employees of American Airlines and American Eagle that stepped in to save our airlines," said James Little, Vice President of the Transport Workers Union. "In fact, the employees have always done their part in hard times. And this is the thanks we get? In our last round of contract negotiations with American in 2001, we reached agreement on all eight contracts without the involvement of the National Mediation Board."

"It's interesting to note that the executives of the airlines that are doing the best during this difficult period are not supporting any changes to the Railway Labor Act," said John Ward, President of the Association of Professional Flight Attendants. "Evidently those executives are seeing firsthand the value of good employee relations, particularly at a time like this. By contrast, the airline executives who are lobbying for changing the Railway Labor Act are those with a history of poor employee relations, and perhaps not coincidentally, those having the most difficulty in today's environment."

Management's invitation:

AMR's Don Carty (right) wrote to APFA President John Ward on January 16, "Today, we want to invite you to join in charting a new course of active engagement -- one that forges a partnership between management and labor through an intense, collaborative program of information sharing and problem solving."

"If management truly wants our help, they need to cease and desist in their efforts to gut the collective bargaining process and renounce any support--financial or otherwise--for CESTA," said Bill Hennessey, President of the Association of Flight Attendants. "Otherwise, it will be virtually impossible to have the open, constructive dialog--the `active engagement' process management is calling for--that we all agree is needed."

FMI: www.twu.com; www.alliedpilots.org; www.apfa.org; www.alpa.org;