Union dispute could slow integration at United Air
CHICAGO (Reuters) - A disagreement between the unions representing flight attendants at the former Continental Airlines and United Airlines could slow labor integration at the new United Airlines, an airline expert said on Wednesday.
The potential friction stems from a refusal by the Continental flight attendants to enter joint contract talks with the United Flight attendants before the two groups choose union representation.
Continental's flight attendants are represented by the International Association of Machinists (IAM). United's flight attendants are represented by the Association of Flight Attendants (AFA).
The AFA had asked the IAM to enter joint contract talks early. Typically in an airline merger the two unions would vote on representation first.
"It means it's going to take some time to put some things together," airline consultant Michael Boyd said.
"It means (United's) labor relations people are going to get lot fewer day off over the next several months," Boyd said.
UAL Corp and Continental merged last week to form the world's largest carrier, called United Airlines. The airline is a unit of United Continental Holding Inc. The new company expects to see more than $1 billion in annual revenue and cost improvements by 2013.
United will continue to operate as two separate carriers until it receives a single operating certificate, expected within 18 months. But it has already begun the enormous task of integrating the 87,000 employees.
UAL has 12,900 flight attendants, while Continental has 8,300. Continental's flight attendants declined to enter joint talks with the AFA because IAM recently negotiated a new contract, which by some measures has higher pay than United flight attendants.
"We told them that we could not do that because we were far down the road in negotiations already and our members had set certain goals for us and we couldn't change course and forget what our members had asked us to do. We kept going forward and got a deal for our members," said IAM spokesman Joe Tiberi.
He said the IAM received AFA's invitation to bargain jointly a few months ago. He said that, after the representation matter is resolved, talks will take place to bring all the flight attendant groups under the same contract.
AFA spokeswoman Sara Nelson said the union simply wanted to use the clout of two groups to take advantage of the merger now to win a better deal.
"This is about working together to get the best results for flight attendants utilizing the opportunities created by the merger," Nelson said.
"We are putting conventional thinking and institutional concerns aside to coordinate efforts for the best results for flight attendants."
The airlines were not involved in the question of whether the two unions would negotiate jointly or separately, a spokeswoman for the combined airline said.
(Reporting by Kyle Peterson and Karen Jacobs; editing by Andre Grenon)
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