Sat, Dec 06, 2003
ALPA Offers to Settle Mesaba Case
Three days of mediated talks between
the Air Line Pilots Association, International (ALPA) and Mesaba
Airlines yielded little progress this week, prompting mediators to
offer binding arbitration to settle the protracted contract
dispute.
The parties received a letter from the National Mediation Board
early Friday morning citing an impasse in the bargaining process.
The letter urges an agreement as soon as possible and offers
binding arbitration to resolve the outstanding issues. If both
parties accept the offer, a neutral arbitrator will decide the
outcome of roughly two dozen issues that remain open. These
remaining issues include job security, compensation, retirement and
work rules.
Should either side decline the offer, a 30-day cooling off
period would occur prior to a strike deadline. If there is no
agreement reached at the end of that cooling off period, ALPA is
entitled to call a strike. Mesaba pilots voted 98 percent in favor
of using this action if an acceptable agreement cannot be
reached.
A pilot strike at Mesaba Airlines,
which operates as a Northwest Airlink provider, would affect over
600 daily flights the carrier operates for Northwest Airlines.
ALPA's Master Executive Council (MEC) at Mesaba will meet Monday
to consider the arbitration offer. The MEC is the union's governing
body at Mesaba and is comprised of 12 elected pilot
representatives.
Negotiations to amend the seven-year-old agreement commenced in
June 2001. The contract includes concessions that facilitated the
introduction of the AVRO RJ-85 regional jet fleet. Those
concessions have saved Mesaba more than $12 million to date.
Mesaba serves 114 cities in 30 states and Canada from
Northwest's three major hubs: Detroit, Minneapolis/St. Paul and
Memphis. Mesaba employs 844 professional airline pilots who operate
an advanced fleet of 103 regional jet and jet-prop aircraft.
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