Question To USAirways F/A''s From UAL F/A

JAMAKE1

Veteran
Feb 15, 2003
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SFO to DAB
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UAL Management is seeking to gut our AFA Agreement, so I would like to know what specific changes were made to your contract.
Since UAL and US had similar agreements I am wondering what you had to surrender in terms of work rules, duty rigs, base pay, pay factors, per diem, holiday pay, etc. Could someone provide me with this info in as much detail as possible? Thanks much.
Signed,
A not-so-hopeful UAL F/A
 
No worry. The unions at United praised Wolf, Greenwald, Goodwin and now Tilton. Tilton and the AFA will take care of you.

love
 
Hi Skygirl:

I was hoping you could be more specific; for example, what percentage of a pay cut did the F/A's take, do you still have holiday pay, was there a per diem cut, if so, how much, what were your min days off reduced to, do you still have any duty rigs at all. Also, did your duty days and legalities change, if so, by how much?

I just would like to get an idea of how much I can expect to lose in the bankruptcy process.
Thanks for your respone(s).
 
Hey there,

To get a detailed look at the contract changes, you should browse through the afausairways.org website. The June and July 2002 E-Lines archive and the Nov 2002 - Jan 2003 E-lines should give you a pretty detailed picture of what the company demanded and what we gave up. For some dissenting views, check out the newsletters for LEC 40 (PIT) and the PHL LEC...

Good luck!
-Airlineorphan

Here are a few of the changes:

Payscale cuts for everyone who would be making over 30K on an 85 hour mo.

Delays in payscale step increases for those below that 30K cutoff.

Elimination of passing rights for reserves.

Elimination of seniority considerations in most reserve scheduling questions: Switch to a weighted system by which those who have less hours get scheduled over those with more hours, regardless of seniority. (Seniority comes into play if two people have equal hours).

The result of this is, of course, that timing out before the end of the month is now history.

Reductions in per diem.

Increases in medical insurance payouts by f/a's (and everyone else)

5% WAGE DEFERRAL IF THERE IS A WAR IN IRAQ OR ANOTHER TERRORIST ATTACK: This would go for 18 months, could be invoked repeatedly, and only ends if the wizards in accounting cannot prevent a pre-tax profit from showing up on the books for a certain number of consecutive months. At the end of the 18 months, f/a's (and everyone else) are contractually supposed to get this pay back in monthly installments.... No interest loan, essentially, with a promise to pay it back (ask the UAL AMT's about mgt. promises to pay back retro-pay....)

There are numerous other minor and major changes. We will likely discover in time that some of the "minor changes" have major impacts upon our lives, as many of them will result in "reduced headcount" as the beancounters so politely put it.

The good news is that most of the cash changes include snapbacks before the end of the contract.
 
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On 2/15/2003 12:52:29 PM JAMAKE1 wrote:


UAL Management is seeking to gut our AFA Agreement, so I would like to know what specific changes were made to your contract.

Since UAL and US had similar agreements I am wondering what you had to surrender in terms of work rules, duty rigs, base pay, pay factors, per diem, holiday pay, etc. Could someone provide me with this info in as much detail as possible? Thanks much.

Signed,

A not-so-hopeful UAL F/A
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[blockquote]
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On 2/15/2003 12:52:29 PM JAMAKE1 wrote:


UAL Management is seeking to gut our AFA Agreement, so I would like to know what specific changes were made to your contract.

Since UAL and US had similar agreements I am wondering what you had to surrender in terms of work rules, duty rigs, base pay, pay factors, per diem, holiday pay, etc. Could someone provide me with this info in as much detail as possible? Thanks much.

Signed,

A not-so-hopeful UAL F/A
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Along with what was said above...

The % wage cut currently is at 10.4% which includes the 2% forfieted this past Nov. 1. Holiday pay was preserved, per diem was reduced by .10cents. Vacation days were hit big, as well as what the day is worth was reduced by .30 minutes. OJI, LTD benefit reductions, Sick bank usuage is the worst. If you call in sick there is a $200 pay cut that month and rises for reserves.
Medical contributions, co pays, scripts, deductables have huge hits rising costs every year...these contributions are at nearly 20% per year increase going forward and up every damn year.
For many f/as who have lost their jobs, their wages do not snap back, their fate is Mid-Atlantic, our new LCC that is the American Eagle contract (worst in the industry). Uniform allowance gone, longevity pay gone, reserve override pay gone. STAFFING LEVELS HAVE BEEN DRASTICALLY REDUCED AT FAA MINIMUMS CREATED MUCH MORE FURLOUGHS RECENTLY. We are getting an additional wage hit when we go to war by 5% for 18 months, then the co. will start to pay it back on a monthly basis for next 18 months. Medical goes up again March. Total wage cut including medical contributions (option 3, and 5% for war event(all W2 hits) approx. $800- $1300 per month depending where you are in years of service. This does not include Sick bank hit, uniform cleaning allowance gone, longevity pay- reserve override gone, any vacation hits, oji, ltd, duty rigs (min. day, and 1 for 2 changed)Reserve GUARANTEE NEVER WAS INCREASED TO GO ALONG WITH THE NO PASSING. UA has a higher guarantee for reserve than U. We rank bottom for the major 6.
Difficult to calculate all that. Also, Preferrential bidding system will be implemented for lineholders, No minimum trips for AIL sheet...language deleted. Crew meals gone.Supplemental Life Insurance for already retired folks G-O-N-E. This is the "short version"; want the long?
If I missed something, someone jump in. Oh, and all of this was retroactive so we could qualify for the ATSB, that we never did,. At that time we jumped right into bankruptcy for our "fresh new start". So, ATSB qualifying was put on a back burner, until last week.

Many of our furloughed f/as 85% are Voluntary and are activly looking for better employment while collecting unemployment. First round of concessions is worth $76 Million per year for 6. and second round of concessions this winter was over $26 million. Co. will not cost out.
I think they know we would all die of heart attacks if we saw the figure. 5% additional paycut was not calculated, by the Co. nor was the over 800 f/a job reduction for taking the staffing down to minimums. So, if we here at AFA calculated this, the total package is well over 150 million per year for 6 years...and there is only 5,700 of us left.Co. would not give any group a $ amount saving for the job losses. I bet with all the money U labor groups gave, we could have bought both U and UA. F/As alone since 9/11 lost approx. 4,800 jobs system wide for U. Difference between U and UA is that U management had us abrogate our own agreements with our stamp of approval through ratification.

This gives you some indication of the sacrifice we're talking about over here.

PS. Heard a rumor that Siegel was quoted as saying that the labor groups would take 5% wage hit for every war/terrorist occurence for next 6 years. This is truly in his dreams...no such written language in our ratified proposal. It's a one shot deal..period. And that one shot deal war occurence has to have an adverse effect on the industry...worse than presently to qualify. Who will determine that may have to be left up to an arbitrator or in the court system.

PSS. And here is a nice kicker, AFA gets a 2.2% stake in the co. for AFAs approx. $900million throughout the life of the agreement, and the government gets 10% stake for placing FDIC on the guarantee for lenders, and the gov. may never give one brown, shiny, Lincoln cent.

 
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PS. Heard a rumor that Siegel was quoted as saying that the labor groups would take 5% wage hit for every war/terrorist occurence for next 6 years. This is truly in his dreams...no such written language in our ratified proposal. It's a one shot deal..period. And that one shot deal war occurence has to have an adverse effect on the industry...worse than presently to qualify. Who will determine that may have to be left up to an arbitrator or in the court system.

PSS. And here is a nice kicker, AFA gets a 2.2% stake in the co. for AFAs approx. $900million throughout the life of the agreement, and the government gets 10% stake for placing FDIC on the guarantee for lenders, and the gov. may never give one brown, shiny, Lincoln cent.


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********************************
"Big Trouble in Crystal City"
Act III, Scene IV:

(fade in to a dimly lit cathedral room where a giant wheezing organ is played by Jerry Glass.... singing is heard.....)

(Leading voice...)
Siegel: "You may say that I'm a dreamer"

(Chorus backs him up....)
Tilton, Carty, Mullin, Bethune, Anderson, etc: "But he's not the only one...."

(Wolf starts to snicker and they all lose it. Soon, their maniacal laughter fills and reverberates through the great organ room of the Crystal Palace and cascades out into workplaces across the country....)

**************************
Hey PITbull and others,

The rumor of Siegel bragging that "I can take 5% over and over and over" comes from reports posted here on his speech to Goldman Sachs.

It sounded fishy to me too, but I'm sure this management will take whatever they can get away with taking, so it will be up to someone to draw the line. And the line will only hold if employees back each other up across the different work groups.

I think that will be the big challenge for UAL and other airline employees as they face attempts by management to clone the US Airways "Labor-Friendly" mugging. Can you back each other up, or will management capitalize on divide and conquer?

One of the problems with concessions is that as soon as it is generally accepted that unions will agree to some sort of cuts, all solidarity is out the door: Everyone is jockeying to make sure someone else is footing more of the bill than they are. (And management makes a sad face and says "Can't we all just get aloooooooooooooong..." followed by sly chuckling and a bit of kneeslapping[img src='http://www.usaviation.com/idealbb/images/smilies/11.gif'] )....

Good luck to the employees over at UAL!

-Airlineorphan
 
Orphan,

I did the visual on your "comical scene" above, and I was howling laughing...thanx for making my morning.


When the 5% deferral comes in, many of our f/as won't make it financially. Hope the bankruptcy courts are all ready for our groups in this Industry. No wonder the credit card companies are charging for every single, little tiny bit of service they give. They have to make up for all the bankruptcies.This all just can't be good for the American economy all these corporate bankruptcies and their "ripple" effect.

Regarding pensions:

In order for this management to terminate our pensions, it would have to fall underfunded, and at present, they are not. Despite the information ALPA is giving out, our pensions are not underfunded; and it has nothing to do with their concessions. ACCORDING to ALPA's figures their pension liability has declined for some odd reason and the rest of our pension liability has meraculously increased...funny though the market at present has remained pretty constant. Go figure....

This management would love any excuse to terminate ALL pension funds. They believe no one deserves a defined plan but senior management. Typical me, me, I am the "center" of the world egomanic thinkers.