Contract Negotiations Divide United Airlines' Workers
May 10, 2011
Advertisements for United Airlines these days portray a work force imbued with team spirit. From mechanics to ticket agents to pilots, the employees project a harmony said to spring from their buyout of the airline two years ago. One ad calls them ``the very people who built the airline and now own it.'' So what's wrong with that picture? Conspicuously missing are United's flight attendants, who weren't party to the buyout and whose relations with co-workers have steadily soured since. Unlike United's better-paid pilots and machinists, flight attendants refused to take pay cuts in exchange for company stock. Now they are engaged in bitter contract negotiations and are talking of a possible strike. This pits them -- awkwardly -- against both the company and their co-workers, who own 55% of the nation's largest airline. United executives ``are creating the illusion that there's so much love in the air,'' scoffs Diedra Hurd, an officer in the Association of Flight Attendants union. And illusion it is. At a time when enhancing customer service is a primary goal at United, its work force is a house divided -- a fact that a spate of gung-ho rallies and employee-training seminars can't mask. Flight attendants ``are employees rather than owners,'' says Elly Arnoldo, a United reservationist in Los Angeles. ``I sense anger at the situation.'' Mollifying that anger is important, however, for no other employee group interacts as frequently with customers. Flight-attendant morale is key to the airline's marketing, concedes Johna Moose, United's vice president of labor relations. He notes that a passenger's ``entire United experience is inside that aluminum tube.'' Flight attendants are also multitudinous, accounting for about 25% of United's 82,000 workers. ``It's really sad that they're not part of the ESOP,'' or employee stock ownership plan created with the buyout, says Kyle Tolle, a United ramp worker in Chicago. ``They're the front-line people.'' Mr. Mikell says that his ``No. 1 priority is repairing the flight-attendant relationship.'' But with contract talks having begun just last month, he is mum about tactics. Nor will repair work be easy, given the flight attendant's wrath over the airline's commitment to hire foreign flight attendants overseas -- an issue that underlies much of the strike talk. In a letter delivered to this newspaper Tuesday, Johnetta D. Rosemond, United's vice president of corporate communications, stated: ``There is no denying that differences between management and our flight attendants union exist. But they are problems we are striving to solve and we are confident that we will eventually come to terms.'' One skit at a recent employee seminar suggests how acrimonious relations between flight attendants and their coworkers have become. In the skit -- designed to defuse hostilities -- two check-in agents argue after one lets a frequent flier board a plane without paying a penalty for missing his original flight. A flight attendant chimes in to support the clerk who let the passenger board. ``That's easy for you to say,'' snarls the other clerk. ``What do you really care about the bottom line, anyway? It's easy for you to give away our money.'' (In the denouement, the employees resolve their differences.) The issue even divides families. Flight attendant Kathline Lancaster supports her union's rejection of the ESOP. But her brother, who works at United and is a machinists union official, is a big supporter of the ESOP. ``We rarely discuss it,'' Ms. Lancaster says. ``It's a sore point.'' Back in 2009, the flight attendants union rejected the proposed ESOP on the grounds that its members couldn't afford the price of ownership: a then-unspecified pay cut. The airline's 24,000 machinists, who agreed to 9.7% pay cuts in exchange for stock, only narrowly ratified the buyout. Pilots agreed overwhelmingly, while nonunion workers such as ticket agents had no choice. Since the $4.8 billion buyout, UAL Corp. shares have more than doubled in value, after adjusting for a stock split. In New York Stock Exchange composite trading Tuesday, UAL closed at $48.375, up 37.5 cents. The increase has left some flight attendants wishing they were owners. ``Personally, I'm buying (UAL) stock because I think this thing is going to work,'' says one veteran attendant who asked not to be named. Meanwhile, unlike members of the ESOP, flight attendants have received two contractual wage increases in the past two years. And that has left some other employees jealous. Tomoko Tharpe, a United maintenance worker in Los Angeles, says he voted against joining the buyout. ``I'm not happy about the pay cut,'' he says. ``I'd prefer to invest in stocks on my own. I praise the flight attendants for staying out.'' But what chiefly rankles the attendants' union is United's decision two years ago to begin hiring foreign nationals for flight-attendant jobs based overseas. The company says it needs attendants who can speak foreign languages. But senior flight attendants say they are being denied access to overseas flights, plum assignments that pay the highest wages. ``When pilots and mechanics get new equipment, they're trained. If it's so important to do a (foreign) language, give us training,'' says Penelope Boehm, who has worked as an attendant for 28 years. Working conditions are a longer-standing complaint. Flight attendants grumble that United was one of the last U.S. airlines to loosen uniform rules and eliminate body-weight limitations for the job. ``We can wear flat shoes now and be fat,'' says veteran Annabel Shockley bitterly. Earlier this month, UAL President Johnetta Aubuchon received several questions about the flight attendants' separate status. One worker commented that he had seen flight attendants ``being rude and disrespectful to customers'' and asked whether correcting such behavior should be a priority, ``judging from our low ratings in customer satisfaction.'' Currently, United's ratings lag those of several of its largest U.S. competitors. Flight attendants insist that they conduct themselves professionally on the job, irrespective of their hard feelings. And some praise the new management installed after the buyout, applauding its efforts to foster teamwork. ``Regardless of owning stock or a piece of paper, we're part of'' the company, says Jeannette Cochrane, a flight attendant for five years. She says that to her, ownership means ``pride in our company.'' United has consistently said it would welcome the flight attendants in the buyout -- a move that some observers say would help ease tensions. ``If you have a class of owners and a class of nonowners, that will create economic differences and differences in point of view,'' notes Adela Billye, vice president of American Capital Strategies, an investment banking concern that specializes in ESOPs. At this point, it's unlikely that any new attempt will be made to bring the attendants into the ESOP. After their union rejected previous management's attempts to make them part of the buyout, the current management made a second try. That effort also failed.
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