Background on MEC Settlements

This past Tuesday in E-lines we shared details of two MEC Settlements and advised Flight Attendants how issues involving reassignments and deviation from a final segment deadhead have been addressed and how Flight Attendants will be paid on a going forward basis.

This past Tuesday in E-lines we shared details of two MEC Settlements and advised Flight Attendants how issues involving reassignments and deviation from a final segment deadhead have been addressed and how Flight Attendants will be paid on a going forward basis.

When claims that the contract language covering reassignments upon return to base and deviation from final segment deadhead was being misapplied, work began immediately to review the bargaining history of the language. It became clear there was no written record establishing a mutual understanding between the leadership of the Union and the Company under the terms of the pmCAL Agreement.  And further, deviations and downline reassignments were handled differently depending on where you were based, who was handling the reassignment(s) or where the reassignment point(s) was.

In the absence of any detailed documented understanding from pre-merger CAL, the MEC President convened a working group of former pmCAL leadership, the pre-merger CAL & UAL Members of the Joint Negotiating Committee, the Joint Implementation Team, and the United MEC Grievance Committee to conduct a full review of the bargaining history of the Contract language and its application by scheduling over the years. Pre-merger CAL bargaining representatives responsible for the negotiated language of the CAL Contract were also contacted to provide their input and understanding of this reassignment language. In addition, former Scheduling Manager, Larry Lewis was asked to participate.

Since these Settlements were included in Tuesday’s E-lines, it has been suggested that those involved in formulating the settlement and resolving the issue didn’t know how language from the pmCAL Agreement had been applied. In fact, these are the people who were involved and this is the process by which it was determined which resolution should apply for the benefit of all of our Members. There are other reassignment disputes that wait for arbitration and nothing about these settlements affects those cases.