The System Contract Re-write Steering Committee is scheduled to complete the re-write during the third week of October. A Section Six letter has been sent to Continental Airlines informing them of the Unions desire to open full contract negotiations. Dates to meet with the Company following the re-write are being discussed.
There will be a membership meeting in the Holiday Inn North (on Frontage Road) on Wednesday, November 5, 2008.There will be three (3) separate meetings. The meetings will commence at the following times, 0830, 1100 and 1500. There will be a presentation as to what the local memberships requests were and what actual language re-write was agreed to by the full committee. Please do everything in your power to make sure you attend this meeting.
There have been some rumors floating around concerning “One Way Trade Day(s) Off” and the ability to back fill such trade day(s) off with vacation time. The rumors say some members and the Union are looking to eliminate the one way trades as well as the ability to back fill with vacation time. This could not be further from the truth. It was our local re-write that put this language in the Agreement in 2002. We are not looking to eliminate any of it, in fact we are looking to increase the number of one way trades.
The problem and subsequent grievance filed by the members was related to the Company changing the status of an employee without his knowledge. In other words a member had a week’s vacation and when he returned to work it had been changed to five (5) one way trades off. The Company then back filled that employee’s one ways with vacation time. He was then charged with five (5) ones ways against the contractual limits and the Company was able to fill the outages without having to pay any overtime.
Based on local membership input the Union is looking to change certain articles to eliminate cross utilization (transferring of employees from one work area to another). We are also looking to incorporate language that would give the members and the Union more input as to shift and/or day off patterns as well as staffing level minimums in the various work areas.
We have been making the rounds answering questions on this issue and we will continue to do so. It will obviously be a topic at the November 5th membership meeting as well. Please do not jump to conclusions and do not help fuel the rumors. If you have a question or a concern call the Union office and get the facts straight. Thank you for your time and we hope to see you all at the meeting.