Negotiations Update 30102020

The Negotiating Committee just finished another week of negotiations. We met at our union office in Cincinnati while the Southern Negotiating Committee and management met with us remotely.

Since we made our comprehensive economic supposal on August 18^th, 2020, negotiations have taken a really bad turn. This session continued down the same path with management only meeting with us for one hour this week as they presented only one supposal. Their offer consisted of a bullet point summary of the remaining open items to be negotiated. 

The supposal made by management is an attempt to close-out the contract by offering the current contract terms we have today. Some items offered are even concessionary to the contract you suffer under right now.
 
The only major changes offered by management are:

• Pay Rates so low that an Atlas Air 747 Captain at top pay would make $80.16 an hour less than a UPS top Captain at date of signing. These pay rates get more disproportionate as the UPS pilot group enjoys larger raises over the next two years than what management proposed to us. 
• Removal of all CRT pay while you are in your base. Pilots on an R-2 bidline would not receive CRT unless activated to fly. For example, a Miami pilot whose bidline consists of MIA-BOG-MIA would not receive CRT during his MIA layover. 
• Removal of extra pay for open time flying. No more 2/4/6/6 etc., when flying open time.
• They offered a per diem rate of $2.50 an hour for the life of a five-year contract.

It is ironic that management did not use their financial modeling tools to prepare their own supposal given how important they say the financial modeling process is. Our modeling, however, shows that this entire offer is a concessionary supposal where our pilot group ends up with much less than they have today.

Our pilot group has built this company and continues to make it the financial powerhouse it is today. We question whether management is actually capable of negotiating a contract that recognizes our contribution to this company.

Separately, our attorneys continue to engage with the company’s legal team as we are simply trying to schedule the arbitrator needed to conclude this contract. So far, our attempts at selecting an arbitrator and scheduling arbitration have been met with resistance.

We will continue to push in the fastest direction possible to close out this contract. Our next negotiation session is scheduled November 9^th through November 13^th.
 
Your Atlas Air Negotiating Committee