cooper43,
well actually its not two work groups but a combined work group of three. Your In flight Service division and bases. Our US In flight Service division of nine bases (BOS, DTW, HNL, LAX, MEM, MSP, NYC, SEA, SFO and the Pacific In flight Service division of 11 Flight Attendant/Interpreter bases (BKK, HKG, MNL, NGO, OSA, PEK, PVG, SEL, SIN, TPE, TYO) Hub at NRT. The Pacific Flight Attendants are not reflected in the total number of US Flight Attendants roughly 7700.. I do not know their numbers to date as they have opened new bases in China.
after an approval, it will be necessary for the two group to remain separate(regardless of union elections) until both carriers are operating under one certificate and that period is up to at least 18 months. So I would imagine your work rules stay in affect or policy manual and we would still work under our agreement during the interim period being a subsidiary during the process of both certificate being merged into one...and then if there was no union representation, after the single operating certificate has been established we all fall under and work the policy manual. but both airlines have to be separate as long as they are operating under their own certificate regardless of union election in the short term..
it would be necessary to keep some type of structure, pay rates, work rules at the subsidiary during that 18 month period of merging the two operating certificates into one and since a contract is already in place I would imagine that would stay in effect during that time frame tentatively. of course this is just an opinion.
what I do not know is simply when can the Pacific division be utilized on flights(regardless of the certificate process as they are a total separate group from both) however since they fall under our operating certificate I believe they would stay seperate during the 18 month period(from your group) as well, I would imagine..
if union representation passes, same rule applies however fences would be put up until there is a combined agreement of contract language and policy manual for both groups(both groups flying stays protected) had the union vote passed the first time, the fences would have gone up and stayed up during the "single operating certificate process" and beyond until a contract is ratified(that can take a little longer, the last merger was 3 years)