Fighting mood surfaces at United during contract vote
1992Carl Vincolisi 1992-01Read it in the scan (PDF at ETOL), page 4 →
Read from the scan by machine and not corrected: expect misread words, and now and then a caption or a line from a neighbouring story. For anything you quote, read the scan.
Scan page 4
and MALIK MIAH SAN FRANCISCO—Airline workers and passengers alike received a sudden jolt when Pan Am abruptly grounded its aircraft, shut down its ticket booths, and went out of business in early December.
This was closely followed by headlines announcing that General Motors Corporation planned to lay off 74,000 workers and shut down 21 plants over the next four years.
A few days later, and with these jobthreatening events undoubtedly still fresh in their minds, United Airlines employees represented by the International Association of Machinists (IAM) voted to approve a negotiated tentative offer before a Dec. 23 strike showdown.
The contract, which covers 27,500 nation-wide employees through 1994, was approved by 71 percent of the voting membership. Top union negotiators cited all-too-familiar dire economic statistics as their excuse for recommending a "yes!" vote.
Nonetheless, 46 percent of IAM members voted "no!" in the massive San Francisco Bay Area station, which includes 11,400 members—most of whom work at the large United Airlines Maintenance Operations Base (MOC 1) as mechanics. Union members include baggage handlers, Carl Vincolisi and Malik Miah are members of IAM Local Lodge 1781. food service employees, store keepers, cabin cleaners, and janitors.
Despite differences in voting patterns between San Francisco and the other stations, few denied that managment's offer SELFTHAN 9880% contract expired in 1989. Instead, the company gave a 4 percent lump-sum payment based on gross pay during the same period. Since all future wage increase percentages are compounded on previous gains, this sleight of hand costs each worker thousands of dollars.
Actual wage increases were 5 percent, effective Dec. 1991, no raise in 1992, 4 percent in Feb. 1993, and 5 percent in May 1994. The company also received a major concession in working conditions by extending the five-day, Monday through Friday, work week at MOC 1 and at MOC 11 (construction begins in 1994 in Indianapolis) to 7 days with weekly rotating days off.
The IAM had long opposed this and other major concessions granted to the company, such as the considerable expansion of part-time workers and the utilization of workers in lower-paid classifications to assume the job duties of