Cwa Members Approve New, Joint Association

[singh4us]

Press Release Source: Communications Workers of America

http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/051013/dcth069.html?.v=14



CWA Members Approve New, Joint Association for Agents at Merged US Airways/America West


Thursday October 13, 5:17 pm ET


WASHINGTON, Oct. 13 /PRNewswire/ -- Members of the Communications Workers of America today approved the establishment of a new Airline Customer Service Employee Association -- a joint alliance with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters -- that will represent passenger service agents at the merged US Airways (NYSE: LCC - News) and America West.


CWA members approved the alliance by an 84 percent "yes" vote in a mail ballot. CWA ballots were counted today at CWA headquarters by a committee of local union presidents representing US Airways' agents. IBT members also are voting on the agreement.


CWA represents 6,000 passenger agents at US Airways and IBT represents 3,500 agents at America West. The employees work as reservations, ticket and gate agents, and also staff hospitality clubs at airports and assist handicapped passengers.


CWA's contract now in place at US Airways is amendable beginning January 2012. This agreement's conditions remain in effect by law at the newly merged airline. The IBT now is in bargaining for a first contract at America West, where employees unionized last year.


The goal of the new association -- the Airline Customer Service Employee Association -- IBT/CWA -- is to improve salaries and conditions for America West and US Airways employees, and the association will bargain in the future for such improvements.


In the current day-to-day representation, CWA will continue to represent the US Airways workers systemwide and the Teamsters will represent the America West workers systemwide. In the future, when a combined contract is bargained and ratified, CWA will represent workers in the eastern part of the United States and the IBT will represent workers in the western states.


The presidents of the two unions will alternate in heading up the association, with CWA President Larry Cohen initially serving as director for the first year and IBT President James Hoffa as vice director. CWA and IBT will each designate an equal number of representatives from their local unions to form a US Airways Representation Committee to meet at least four times a year on workplace issues and policies of the association. All policy questions must be jointly approved.

 

[LGA Fleet Service]

WASHINGTON, Oct. 13 /PRNewswire/ -- Members of the Communications Workers of America today approved the establishment of a new Airline Customer Service Employee Association -- a joint alliance with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters -- that will represent passenger service agents at the merged US Airways (NYSE: LCC - News) and America West.

[post="312017"][/post]​

Translation: Both the CWA and the IBT will maintain their respective revenue streams from the membership.

I don't want to hear any whimpering from the HP folks about "Ten year Res agents out west making less than ten dollars an hour for doing the same job the east agents are doing."

And it's going to happen...

 

[Schatzee]

The latest rumors from the CWA unionistas is that:

The Dividend Miles Service Center in Fort Lauderdale is closing and the jobs will be moving back to Winston-Salem. Yeah, right.

And also according to these same gurus, there is a clause in the CWA and CWA/AFA contract that states if the company merges with another airline, the pay rate snaps back to prior levels. OMG, what are these people thinking?

But there you have it, the latest slop they are dishing out to the members to keep the dues coming in.

 

[PITbull]

Translation: Both the CWA and the IBT will maintain their respective revenue streams from the membership.

I don't want to hear any whimpering from the HP folks about "Ten year Res agents out west making less than ten dollars an hour for doing the same job the east agents are doing."

And it's going to happen...

[post="312025"][/post]​

I can't see how you can have two bargaining reps for the agents who do the same job system wide.

This is going to be confusing for the agents. How did this come about?

 

[Res]

From what I understood....if on the first vote the combined union didn't pass....then we would have to vote between the Teamsters and CWA if we could not hold a 50% vote for either union...we would've been without representation. Neither union group had the confidence to hold 50%...so this was the alternative...with 84% voting for a union we'll never know what might've happened. Just glad it went thru...most of us are feeling a bit less stressed ...guess we were afraid of the alternative if it didn't go thru....the overseas offices and the $13.00 an hour issue.

 

[PITbull]

Understood.

 

[tadjr]

I can't see how you can have two bargaining reps for the agents who do the same job system wide.

This is going to be confusing for the agents. How did this come about?

The current CWA contract will remain in effect for the CWA covered reps and the IBT is still negotiating for the HP agents. When they get an agreement, the CWA and IBT will see about getting a combined agreement for the entire group. IBT will represent the agents in the West and CWA in the East. There will be one governing board with reps from both groups and the National level will alternate CWA/IBT as President of the group. They had more information as to how the group would work, but I cant find it online and I took my copy to work so I cant scan it.

 

[drifterreno]

Okay so now will someone please have someone from CWA please get in touch with me. I'm really upset that my years==and the retirement contract they negotiated with CWA is not being honored. Please someone contact me.

 

[barbeetantrums]

Translation: Both the CWA and the IBT will maintain their respective revenue streams from the membership.

I don't want to hear any whimpering from the HP folks about "Ten year Res agents out west making less than ten dollars an hour for doing the same job the east agents are doing."

And it's going to happen...

It's their bed. Let them sleep in it. <_<

 

[crazy4newus]

Um, I believe the way this is suggested to work...CWA will cover East States while IBT will cover West. There is NOT a differentiation between legacy US employees and HP employees...SO, the legacy US employees in the Western United States will be covered with whatever contract is negotiated by IBT. I'm not positive how this will work, but it seems that the two contracts will have to be identical. Otherwise, US Airways Western agents will take yet another paycut. Anyone know how this is supposed to work?

 

[tadjr]

Anyone know how this is supposed to work?

In the current day-to-day representation, CWA will continue to represent the US Airways workers systemwide and the Teamsters will represent the America West workers systemwide. In the future, when a combined contract is bargained and ratified, CWA will represent workers in the eastern part of the United States and the IBT will represent workers in the western states.

 

[kao]

In the current day-to-day representation, CWA will continue to represent the US Airways workers systemwide and the Teamsters will represent the America West workers systemwide. In the future, when a combined contract is bargained and ratified, CWA will represent workers in the eastern part of the United States and the IBT will represent workers in the western states.

It is my understanding that one contract will eventually be negotiated for all...west of the mississippi, employee's will take their concerns to the Teamsters....east of the river, they will take them to CWA. I have an email on this that I will try to post. It is all very confusing...until this new contract/agreement is ratified/amended it is business as usual.

 

[kao]

So what does this mean? Are the AWA employees on the east coast going to
make more money then the ones on the west coast?
No change will take place until a new agreement is negotiated. Your
Teamsters representation will continue until further notice and the entire
process of transfer of representation/shared representation will involve
getting the Company to recognize the new bargaining entity; getting the
National Mediation Board to certify the new bargaining entity; putting
together a new negotiating team, putting together new bargaining committee
and new proposals and getting dates for bargaining with the new Company.
What's been going on with the CWA and US Airways is that the CSAs at Us
Airways voted for a Union much earlier than the CSRs at HP. They have a
negotiated contract that is still binding and will be in place until we
negotiate a replacement contract that will cover the combined class and
craft of operationally merged US CSAs and HP CSRs. Their contract has
language regarding seniority integration agreements in the event of merger.
While we are in the process of negotiating our first contract we,
unfortunately do not have a collective bargaining agreement yet. The CWA
therefore has been meeting with the employer (US) with whom it has a
contractual relationship.

Now that we have a new representational relationship (or are about to once
the Company and the National Mediation Board recognize the new bargaining
representative) we and the CWA will begin to work together on matters such
as the document you pointed out. These are the aspects of our new relation
that we will have to work out. The document you mention up to this point
has been drafted from the perspective of the parties who were working on it.

The complication, as we go forward, is that while we begin to form our new
negotiating committee and negotiate an integrated contract to represent both
the former HP and US CSA/CSRs the US Airways CSAs will continue under their
current collective bargaining agreement until we reach a new combined
agreement. This would be the same for the HP CSRs if we had a
contract...but we do not.

 

[UWCactus]

Sounds like pretty good plan from what i've read on here. It was interesting that this was created as opposed to forcing a new union on one group or the other. The pressure will be on the HP folks to continue bargaining a fair contract with benefits that outweigh the current US contract so that both parties can benefit from a merged contract with improvements on both sides of the fence. Good luck to all of you and keep up the great work! You all do a great job.

 

[PBI2FLL]

IBT President James HOFFA?? Are you kidding me? Any relation?