CLTFlyer
Mar 1, 00, 6:57 am
From today's Charlotte Observer. Gangwal is pushing the being the most reasonable person in the room strategy. And it sounds like US is hoping for Presidential intervention bigtime. And given that US is the major carrier out of National, I wouldn't be surprised is there was intervention.
Published Wednesday, March 1, 2000
Airline willing to fly if ordered
US Airways would welcome Clinton edict against stoppage
By TED REED
US Airways President Rakesh Gangwal says the airline would welcome a presidential order to resume operations if it shut down March 25.
"We would embrace (that) because it would be a fair process," Gangwal said Tuesday in an interview. "But it implies that we could not come to a resolution, and we would much rather do that."
After three years of talking, US Airways and its 10,000 flight attendants face a strike deadline of 12:01 a.m. March 25. The airline says it would shut down rather than face "CHAOS," a union tactic involving unannounced walkouts and flight disruptions.
Intervention by President Clinton, however, would enable the airline to keep flying without facing the threat of CHAOS for at least 60 days while a presidential emergency board seeks a contract resolution.
If there is still no contract, Congress could intervene.
Association of Flight Attendants President Lynn Lenosky said Tuesday that presidential intervention would deny flight attendants a voice. She said there would be no need for it because a US Airways shutdown would not meet the standard of severely affecting interstate commerce.
The only presidential intervention in an airline strike in recent decades took place in 1997, when American Airlines pilots were ordered back to work after a strike of a few minutes.
A US Airways shutdown would cripple air traffic to Charlotte, where the airline carries 90 percent of all passengers.
Gangwal, US Airways' No.2 executive, said the airline is committed to resolving the conflict in the next 24 days and is awaiting a negotiating schedule from the National Mediation Board, which will oversee talks.
US Airways has offered its flight attendants a contract guaranteeing "parity plus 1 percent" of the wages and benefits at four larger airlines: American, Delta, United and Northwest. It said 11 other union groups have accepted similar terms.
But the union won't accept the airline's effort to define parity in terms of wages and benefits per "block hours," or working hours aboard flights, Gangwal said.
He said the union has been offered a chance to select the terms for getting the contract in line with other airlines' terms. For instance, flight attendants could get pay raises if they gave up some of the restrictive work rules accumulated as US Airways was created in a series of airline mergers.
"The contracts that prevailed were the best of the best," Gangwal said. "My eyes glaze over when I see the work rules at US Airways."
Among the rules considered inefficient at the airline are a "Me Too clause" that binds flight attendant crews to individual pilots, meaning that if an airplane is changed at the last minute and a pilot can't fly, the flight attendants can't fly either. In addition, sick benefits are considered more liberal.
Jeff Zack, spokesman for the Association of Flight Attendants, said the union objects to a "block hour" standard because US Airways flies shorter routes than competitors do, meaning its flight attendants handle 36 percent more passengers per block hour.
The airline's work rules "are the product of 40 years of collective bargaining," he said. "Flight attendants earned them and the company agreed to them."
As for parity plus 1 percent, Zack said the airline won't offer specific salary and benefit amounts that it defines as "parity" with the other airlines.
"If they would define it, maybe we would discuss it, but we're not doing their work for them," he said. "If they would define it, maybe we would discuss it, but we're not doing their work for them."
Published Wednesday, March 1, 2000
Airline willing to fly if ordered
US Airways would welcome Clinton edict against stoppage
By TED REED
US Airways President Rakesh Gangwal says the airline would welcome a presidential order to resume operations if it shut down March 25.
"We would embrace (that) because it would be a fair process," Gangwal said Tuesday in an interview. "But it implies that we could not come to a resolution, and we would much rather do that."
After three years of talking, US Airways and its 10,000 flight attendants face a strike deadline of 12:01 a.m. March 25. The airline says it would shut down rather than face "CHAOS," a union tactic involving unannounced walkouts and flight disruptions.
Intervention by President Clinton, however, would enable the airline to keep flying without facing the threat of CHAOS for at least 60 days while a presidential emergency board seeks a contract resolution.
If there is still no contract, Congress could intervene.
Association of Flight Attendants President Lynn Lenosky said Tuesday that presidential intervention would deny flight attendants a voice. She said there would be no need for it because a US Airways shutdown would not meet the standard of severely affecting interstate commerce.
The only presidential intervention in an airline strike in recent decades took place in 1997, when American Airlines pilots were ordered back to work after a strike of a few minutes.
A US Airways shutdown would cripple air traffic to Charlotte, where the airline carries 90 percent of all passengers.
Gangwal, US Airways' No.2 executive, said the airline is committed to resolving the conflict in the next 24 days and is awaiting a negotiating schedule from the National Mediation Board, which will oversee talks.
US Airways has offered its flight attendants a contract guaranteeing "parity plus 1 percent" of the wages and benefits at four larger airlines: American, Delta, United and Northwest. It said 11 other union groups have accepted similar terms.
But the union won't accept the airline's effort to define parity in terms of wages and benefits per "block hours," or working hours aboard flights, Gangwal said.
He said the union has been offered a chance to select the terms for getting the contract in line with other airlines' terms. For instance, flight attendants could get pay raises if they gave up some of the restrictive work rules accumulated as US Airways was created in a series of airline mergers.
"The contracts that prevailed were the best of the best," Gangwal said. "My eyes glaze over when I see the work rules at US Airways."
Among the rules considered inefficient at the airline are a "Me Too clause" that binds flight attendant crews to individual pilots, meaning that if an airplane is changed at the last minute and a pilot can't fly, the flight attendants can't fly either. In addition, sick benefits are considered more liberal.
Jeff Zack, spokesman for the Association of Flight Attendants, said the union objects to a "block hour" standard because US Airways flies shorter routes than competitors do, meaning its flight attendants handle 36 percent more passengers per block hour.
The airline's work rules "are the product of 40 years of collective bargaining," he said. "Flight attendants earned them and the company agreed to them."
As for parity plus 1 percent, Zack said the airline won't offer specific salary and benefit amounts that it defines as "parity" with the other airlines.
"If they would define it, maybe we would discuss it, but we're not doing their work for them," he said. "If they would define it, maybe we would discuss it, but we're not doing their work for them."