But I think it will take the company more time to negotiate concession deals with each union separately than it would in dealing with them as a coalition. And if they were so interested in fixing this company, they'd have decided how to split up the cuts amongst each group, instead of laying that on the company's lap to negotiate.
I agree that this came as no surprise to Tilton. He's been in constant communication with the labor leaders all throughout his short tenure. But here we are on October 10th, 5 weeks away from that first large debt payment. Time is running out. When you consider that it would most likely take a couple of weeks to conduct a vote on any T/A, there is almost no margin for error. What happens if T/A's are announced, let's say, in another week. Then it goes out for a vote two weeks later. What if it doesn't pass? That doesn't allow for much time to negotiate another deal, unless they somehow manage to push off that debt payment, which I doubt is possible or they'd have already done it. The unions would then be risking the company filing for Ch.11 and them not having concession deals already in place. If that were to happen, I'm quite confident that the company would petition to throw out those labor contracts. I'm sure the unions know that also. So it behooves them to conclude agreements quickly. At this point, I'm not very optimistic that it will happen. As usual, United continues to waste away precious time.