US Airways, CWA deal offers options
ALEXANDRIA, Va. -- US Airways' 800 reservations agents at Parkway Center will have the option of transferring to North Carolina or receiving cash buyouts plus one year's medical coverage if their jobs are eliminated, according to a new tentative agreement between the airline and the Communications Workers of America in which the union agreed to $136 million in concessions.
The agreement, which extends through 2011, was reached Thursday night following the first day of testimony in U.S. Bankruptcy Court on US Airways' request to reject its union contracts and impose almost $700 million in wage and benefits cuts on about 20,000 workers.
The union released details of the agreement yesterday. It includes:
Union negotiators had been seeking buyouts for months, but the company -- until now -- had resisted offering medical coverage for displaced workers.
The CWA represents about 1,100 US Airways workers in Western Pennsylvania, including those at the Parkway Center reservations center in Green Tree and about 250 customer service agents at Pittsburgh International Airport.
Buyout cash to employees will be based on seniority, with a cap of $15,000, according to Chris Fox, president of CWA Local 13302. All reservations center employees are eligible for an additional $5,000.
A reservations center worker at the top of the pay scale could receive as much as $20,000.
Under terms of the concessions deal, the top scale would be reduced to $17 from $20.05. After two years, the top scale would rise to $18.60.
Fox, a member of the union's negotiating team, emphasized that US Airways executives have not officially said they will close the reservations center in Green Tree.
In court documents, however, they have indicated that they would close the center and consolidate reservations operations next year at the Winston-Salem, N.C., center, where about 900 are employed.
US Airways will permit the Green Tree reservations workers to transfer to North Carolina, said Fox, who added that she might be among those moving.
The company announced a deal with the CWA a short time after executives had threatened to seek court injunctions preventing unions from striking if their contracts were rejected. The CWA was the only union whose rank and file had approved a strike. The Association of Flight Attendants is taking a strike vote now.
With weariness in her voice, Fox said that the tentative agreement fell short of what the union wanted. Still, it's better than the alternative -- having bankruptcy court impose wage cuts of 34 percent and outsource thousands of members' jobs, she added.
"We protected as many jobs as we could," Fox said. "Now, it's up to the members to decide their fate."
An electronic ratification vote will be completed within two weeks, said Fox, who declined to predict the outcome.
"I'm not sure where the members stand on this," she said. "I don't know how it's going to go."
Of about 10 reservationists interviewed at the Green Tree center yesterday, only one said she would consider moving. Most said they would take the buyout and get on with their lives if the local reservation center is phased out.
"I wouldn't relocate. Who's to say that six months later you would have a job down there," said Jodi Walsh, of Brookline, a 20-year employee who has been working 50-hour weeks to maintain her income since having her pay cut 21 percent in October.
Anita Wilson, a 22-year employee who moved to Pittsburgh from Syracuse, N.Y., after the airline shut down the reservation center there in 2001, said she will stay put in Pittsburgh, despite the warmer climate in North Carolina.
"I grew up in Buffalo, so this (cold weather) is nothing to me," she said. "I'm pretty much settled. I would take the buyout and move on."
Antoinette Boston, of Homestead, said she would accept a buyout and might start her own cleaning service or get new job training if the local center is closed.
"It was a good job," she said. "But it wouldn't be the end of the world (if the local center closed). Life doesn't stay the same. You always have to have alternatives in mind."
Liz Pompa, 47, of Oakdale, a 28-year employee, said it would be hard for her husband to leave behind his small business. She said she could possibly make the commute between her home and North Carolina if a buyout offer isn't sufficient.
US Airways, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy Sept. 12, is still seeking $500 million a year in wage and benefits savings from about 14,000 workers represented by two unions, the AFA and the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers.
Hearings are scheduled to resume Thursday and Friday and Dec. 16-17. Judge Stephen S. Mitchell might not rule on the airline's request until early next year.
Also yesterday, United Airlines said it is laying off about 825 customer service employees, ramp workers and other airport staff at facilities throughout the country. An airline spokesman said United's small Pittsburgh work force will not be affected.
