MarkMyWords said:
I think that is where you are mistaken. If, while we are operating seperatly, the US side is laying off, nothing is happening on the AWA side. They are staying status quo. So lets take a station like ATL. Lets say that US runs 12 mainline and 8 express and AWA runs 7 mainline flights. Between now and "full integration" US reduces it's flying to 20 express flights and every US person in the station is Mainline Expressed. Now come merger day, what happens? They go from Mainline Express to Mainline again. Do you think US will not express the city? Maybe, maybe not.....but there will be associated layoffs on the US side. Come full integration day, no one will be recalled because you will not allow people on furlough to bump AWA people. Wa-la. Instant cost reduction. You've reduced the head count on the US side either via attrition, mainline express, or furlough.Â
Not saying it will happen like this, but when you take 60 airplanes out of one side of the equation, something is going to give way.
[post="301920"][/post]
MarkMyWords .... how will you vote???
Your CWA Local Presidents Recommend A Strong Alliance to Maintain Our Passenger Service Careers
An alliance between CWA at US Airways, and Teamsters at America West, is best for the job security, standard of living and working conditions of passenger service employees at both airlines.
The lack of an alliance would be dangerous for agents at both airlines...
With the airline industry in chaos, and employees suffering cuts at every airline, agents at US Airways and America West cannot afford an antagonistic conflict against each other that would risk our salaries, our protections and our benefits.
We have worked out an alliance which will preserve the US Airways agents' CWA contract, their CWA locals and their access to information and participation in their union.
The alliance (called Association of Airline Passenger Service Employees IBT + CWA) will allow us to remain CWA members while the America West employees remain Teamster members. US Airways agents will remain protected by the terms and conditions of their CWA contract.
In the future, the goal is to bring the AWA salaries and conditions up to the CWA contract level, and to improve aspects of the CWA contract (for example: activate our "snap backs" sooner for holidays, vacation, sickdays, premiums, etc.). We eventually want a single, improved contract protecting the entire passenger service group.
When that future, single, contract is achieved, the Teamster agents in eastern stations would be CWA-represented. The CWA agents in western stations would be Teamster-represented. The Alliance will allow us to work in a concerted effort to resolve major contract issues that would affect all members, regardless of location. But that is in the future. For now US Airways agents, East and West, remain protected by their CWA contract.
Those are big goals and we can accomplish them by working together for a united passenger service group.
For the good of our careers, for the good of our new airline, it makes sense to form an alliance between the two work groups that maintains their current representation and contract (US Airways/CWA) and status quo conditions (AWA/Teamsters).
For that reason we recommend and request that you approve this Alliance when you receive your ballot and Alliance proposal in the mail. 
