JCBA Negotiations and updates for AA Fleet

[La Li Lu Le Lo]

Being condescending and disparaging the intelligence of those that don't buy into your rhetoric is really not the way to have a conversation or a debate.

My guess is you avoid your own mirror then?

The great thing about how you go about with your contributions is that you actually help to the make points against yourself. Well done.

LoL.
 
Classic. 

 

[ograc]

What's the FT/PT split at AA?

 
+1! An issue that remains on the table. What will be the " agreed to language" regarding this issue? Spot on Kev3188. Let's remain focused on the outstanding Articles! 
 

 

[AANOTOK]

LoL.
 
Classic. 

You're contributing a lot. Unfortunately, not topic friendly!

 

[Tim Nelson]

Absolutely all hypothetical Tim. I'm not arguing that at all. Again I just think had we locked ourselves in (when) the offer was 7%/ $26.54, the final outcome at UAL wouldn't have reached $29.87 for us to even think about whether or not Parker would have matched? You're talking a $3.33 wall to surmount for that leapfrog game the 3 CEO's have been playing.

Just talking wages though and I can do the base math. $30.17 against $26.54 over a probable 5 year deal still puts us WAY ahead even if we've lost a full year.

Yes right now in many areas you have a little more icing on your cake over what I have. But if we compare my full 21 years to 21 of your years, I'm sure I'm still way ahead economically. In the meantime enjoy the benefits you have over me. You've all gone through a lot in your careers and it's well earned and deserved.

I'd say we at LUS are still behind LAA over the last 10 years. Remember, I was only making $15 hr back in 2005.

Moving forward, what do you see as a compelling reason for management to negotiate fairly now that it has cross utilization? BTW, I doubt management ever invokes cross utilization in MIA or ORD or DFW for LUS to do your metal.

 

[Kev3188]

About 68% to 32%

Thanks!
 

Kev have you guys ever been able to determine roughly how many FT heads Delta supports against regular PT and the Ready Reserves? I'd have to guess Delta doesn't provide those numbers to you readily or easily?

We've talked about this before, but DL doesn't break down FT & PT in the way most of us are used to. They split it between "benefitted" employees (that can include FT and PT employees both) and Ready Reserve.

Our lists are done by station, so it takes some time, but you can could get a system level count if you wanted.

My WAG is that the ramp is currently about 65/35 in favor of "benefitted" lines, with a large majority of that being 40 hour lines.

+1! An issue that remains on the table. What will be the " agreed to language" regarding this issue? Spot on Kev3188. Let's remain focused on the outstanding Articles!

A huge issue, and one I'm sure the company is applying a lot of downward pressure to...

 

[WeAAsles]

I'd say we at LUS are still behind LAA over the last 10 years. Remember, I was only making $15 hr back in 2005.Moving forward, what do you see as a compelling reason for management to negotiate fairly now that it has cross utilization? BTW, I doubt management ever invokes cross utilization in MIA or ORD or DFW for LUS to do your metal.

They won't have the complete dynamics of a fully merged airline until they reach a JCBA. Utilizing the cross utilization puts the company in a bind on overages if they wanted to say shrink a particular city and grow another. Let's take LGA as an example just because there are a lot of members on both sides. (Only an example) Say they cross utilize and then wanted to shrink there by 20% and move those flights to PHL. Well now LGA has an overage on headcount of 20% that can't be moved and PHL has to hire 20% more heads to cover the work. That leaves the company with X amount of heads systemwide that they don't need. The "Station Protection" being the trade off for cross utilization that keeps the company coming to the table.

And as I see it now. If say DFW management asks for a "favor" in any station even for one side just to push the other sides metal off the gate, cross utilization should take affect and trigger the station protection? And if the company balks at that notion it should be grieved and arbitrated if necessary.

Another reason I believe the company will continue to come to the table is Executive Compensation. To agree to the merger the secured creditors stated that Parker and the top executives would be compensated 20% less than their industry peers until ALL JCBA's were completed. Parker even stated in one roadshow that he's currently about 30% behind right now. Why would he even mention that if he wasn't just as interested in getting paid as anyone else?

Until we have complete agreements in place the company can't make all the moves it wants that also when they do probably will elevate the share price which we know will make Wall Street extremely pleased. (Also why I continue to be in a hold on the shares I own)

 

[WeAAsles]

BTW right now according to this article American has over 17,000 more Full Time employees compared to UAL and Delta which are not that much smaller than we are. The count didn't even compare Part Time.

http://www.bizjournals.com/dallas/news/2016/08/18/american-southwest-airlines-employee-counts.html?ana=yahoo

 

[Tim Nelson]

They won't have the complete dynamics of a fully merged airline until they reach a JCBA. Utilizing the cross utilization puts the company in a bind on overages if they wanted to say shrink a particular city and grow another. Let's take LGA as an example just because there are a lot of members on both sides. (Only an example) Say they cross utilize and then wanted to shrink there by 20% and move those flights to PHL. Well now LGA has an overage on headcount of 20% that can't be moved and PHL has to hire 20% more heads to cover the work. That leaves the company with X amount of heads systemwide that they don't need. The "Station Protection" being the trade off for cross utilization that keeps the company coming to the table.

And as I see it now. If say DFW management asks for a "favor" in any station even for one side just to push the other sides metal off the gate, cross utilization should take affect and trigger the station protection? And if the company balks at that notion it should be grieved and arbitrated if necessary.

Another reason I believe the company will continue to come to the table is Executive Compensation. To agree to the merger the secured creditors stated that Parker and the top executives would be compensated 20% less than their industry peers until ALL JCBA's were completed. Parker even stated in one roadshow that he's currently about 30% behind right now. Why would he even mention that if he wasn't just as interested in getting paid as anyone else?

Until we have complete agreements in place the company can't make all the moves it wants that also when they do probably will elevate the share price which we know will make Wall Street extremely pleased. (Also why I continue to be in a hold on the shares I own)

True, the company can't truly complete the merger along all work groups if they don't have JCBA with each but I'm sure the company understands and cost out collateral damage or friendly fire as well in managing non JCBA assessments.

The way I see it, the company wanted and needed the cross utilization to go both ways, not to protect LAA and LUS at each station, but to pick and choose which one it wanted or needs to protect at each station, due to metal. So, imo, it will protect whichever group is more cost advantage for them and offers management the least amount of employees protected. Applying that to MIA, it most definitely means that none of you will be protected or be able to have LUS do your metal. Your scenario is going to be accurate in your opinion about some supervisor coming by asking a LUS guy to push a plane out. That's not authorized cross utilization unless there is a letter on file, so you will have to grieve that. I'm sure NYer will be on top of that as well as our Local Chairman on the LUS side there in MIA who is very good.

LGA, who knows. But I'm sure the company will pick and choose which group, based on aircraft movement. So I don't think your LGA argument is a 'lock'. One group will be protected, one will not. It's anyone's guess which group gets the "Lucky Dog" there or BOS.

It will be interesting but I think the company is willing to accept collateral damage of not having a JCBA unless it is extremely cost effective for them. Other mergers delayed JCBA for certain groups as well. That said, my main concern now, from a LUS perspective, is what will compel us to negotiate unless we get a helluva lot of things that makes it cost positive. I mean, why would LUS negotiators rush or even bother unless we got some real big stuff?

 

[Tim Nelson]

BTW right now according to this article American has over 17,000 more Full Time employees compared to UAL and Delta which are not that much smaller than we are. The count didn't even compare Part Time.

http://www.bizjournals.com/dallas/news/2016/08/18/american-southwest-airlines-employee-counts.html?ana=yahoo

Your last statement may not be accurate. Oftentimes, at least with the Department of Transportation [article based off of], the feds mean FTE when they use the term Full time.
Whatever the case, all mergers hire going into the merger. I know we hired like mad at Piedmont [and upgraded a lot] prior to the US AIRWAYS merger. All mergers have strong cutbacks after mergers due to overlapping of people and routes. We got whacked after the US AIRWAYS merger [lost a lot of things and lost a few hubs], and after the America West merger [lost stations and hubs].
We dropped to the 5,000s until the American merger was announced, now we are up just over 7,000. Same with US AIR/Piedmont merger. Went up to 8,500 prior to merger then dropped to around 4,500. My guess is that the 16,800 total Fleet service will drop to 13,000 or 14,000 afterwards. A friendly buyout and/or attrition would help the pain of course.

 

[Kev3188]

Not for nothing, at DL, at PT employee is counted as .75 FTE, and a RR is counted as .5, regardless of how many hours they may be scheduled to work...

 

[WeAAsles]

True, the company can't truly complete the merger along all work groups if they don't have JCBA with each but I'm sure the company understands and cost out collateral damage or friendly fire as well in managing non JCBA assessments.

The way I see it, the company wanted and needed the cross utilization to go both ways, not to protect LAA and LUS at each station, but to pick and choose which one it wanted or needs to protect at each station, due to metal. So, imo, it will protect whichever group is more cost advantage for them and offers management the least amount of employees protected. Applying that to MIA, it most definitely means that none of you will be protected or be able to have LUS do your metal. Your scenario is going to be accurate in your opinion about some supervisor coming by asking a LUS guy to push a plane out. That's not authorized cross utilization unless there is a letter on file, so you will have to grieve that. I'm sure NYer will be on top of that as well as our Local Chairman on the LUS side there in MIA who is very good.

LGA, who knows. But I'm sure the company will pick and choose which group, based on aircraft movement. So I don't think your LGA argument is a 'lock'. One group will be protected, one will not. It's anyone's guess which group gets the "Lucky Dog" there or BOS.

It will be interesting but I think the company is willing to accept collateral damage of not having a JCBA unless it is extremely cost effective for them. Other mergers delayed JCBA for certain groups as well. That said, my main concern now, from a LUS perspective, is what will compel us to negotiate unless we get a helluva lot of things that makes it cost positive. I mean, why would LUS negotiators rush or even bother unless we got some real big stuff?

Like I said. I just used LGA as an off the top of my head example since there's a pretty large mix of employees on both sides. "One side will be protected, one side will not" Ok I'm not getting this? As far as I understand it, if either side touches the others work cross utilization is triggered for BOTH sides in that station. I don't think I read anything that stated otherwise?

Now to the second part and this is totally and completely speculation on my part. I just can't see how the Company would not have protected themselves against that possibility? Meaning is there possibly some type of agreement for an end game to the negotiations? You and I have been talking about Fleet but I think for the Company it would be even more costly not to get the complete synergies in place for Maintenance? The complete disaster too that was UAL had to teach a lesson in how not to do a merger and at least so far it appears Parker and Co. have been trying to do everything the complete opposite of that fiasco. And again also I think there's far more money to be made by the Executives and Wall Street that again there could be some type of agreement in place that this needs to be done by some predetermined date? 

We'll see soon enough IMO.

 

[WeAAsles]

Your last statement may not be accurate. Oftentimes, at least with the Department of Transportation [article based off of], the feds mean FTE when they use the term Full time.
Whatever the case, all mergers hire going into the merger. I know we hired like mad at Piedmont [and upgraded a lot] prior to the US AIRWAYS merger. All mergers have strong cutbacks after mergers due to overlapping of people and routes. We got whacked after the US AIRWAYS merger [lost a lot of things and lost a few hubs], and after the America West merger [lost stations and hubs].
We dropped to the 5,000s until the American merger was announced, now we are up just over 7,000. Same with US AIR/Piedmont merger. Went up to 8,500 prior to merger then dropped to around 4,500. My guess is that the 16,800 total Fleet service will drop to 13,000 or 14,000 afterwards. A friendly buyout and/or attrition would help the pain of course.

I can see it. But I also absolutely believe it will be done through attrition. Our pay and benefits are very costly to the company for those of us at TOS and over 50. No eventual buyout to thin those ranks and bring down costs is just not something that makes sense to me. 

(Can we please get a nice buyout offer in 2026 as well?)

 

[Tim Nelson]

Like I said. I just used LGA as an off the top of my head example since there's a pretty large mix of employees on both sides. "One side will be protected, one side will not" Ok I'm not getting this? As far as I understand it, if either side touches the others work cross utilization is triggered for BOTH sides in that station. I don't think I read anything that stated otherwise?

Now to the second part and this is totally and completely speculation on my part. I just can't see how the Company would not have protected themselves against that possibility? Meaning is there possibly some type of agreement for an end game to the negotiations? You and I have been talking about Fleet but I think for the Company it would be even more costly not to get the complete synergies in place for Maintenance? The complete disaster too that was UAL had to teach a lesson in how not to do a merger and at least so far it appears Parker and Co. have been trying to do everything the complete opposite of that fiasco. And again also I think there's far more money to be made by the Executives and Wall Street that again there could be some type of agreement in place that this needs to be done by some predetermined date? 

We'll see soon enough IMO.

I agree. As far as the cross utilization, my reading the language highly suggest that it doesn't necessarily have to go both ways and is a protector for whichever group is losing the work. For instance, MIA, all of the lUS, at date of signing, now enjoy protections since LAA does the LUS bagroom. The same can not be said regarding LUS doing LAA work. MIA isn't the exception so I think the company will be able to pick and choose which group at each station. IMo it will lean towards protecting the 'lesser' group but who knows.

 

[WeAAsles]

Not for nothing, at DL, at PT employee is counted as .75 FTE, and a RR is counted as .5, regardless of how many hours they may be scheduled to work...

Kev I know you gave an answer to the question but I was wondering if you could be clearer?

By rough estimate of percentages.

Full Time benefited employee =
Part Time benefited employee =
Ready Reserve non benefited employee =

I think you have benefited part timers right?
 

 

[WeAAsles]

I agree. As far as the cross utilization, my reading the language highly suggest that it doesn't necessarily have to go both ways and is a protector for whichever group is losing the work. For instance, MIA, all of the lUS, at date of signing, now enjoy protections since LAA does the LUS bagroom. The same can not be said regarding LUS doing LAA work. MIA isn't the exception so I think the company will be able to pick and choose which group at each station. IMo it will lean towards protecting the 'lesser' group but who knows.

I read in Jetnet yesterday that there is still more information to come on how cross utilization will play out. The Q and A was asked from a management perspective can they start cross utilization right away and the answer was no.