WASHINGTON, June 23--PRNewswire-AsiaNet/InfoQuest
NMB Puts UPS/IPA in Indefinite Recess
IPA Leadership Seeks Final Authorization for Strike, Release
After 32 months in negotiations the Independent Pilots Association calls on UPS to make its last, best and final offer on a new pilot contract.
"We are going to give UPS until the end of the month to pull together its last, best and final contract offer" said Capt. Tom Nicholson, President of the IPA. "If UPS cannot, or will not, give us its last, best and final offer for
our pilots to vote on the IPA will pull together its highlights of UPS's final
offers on the five open articles and send that out to our pilots for a vote."
A year after jointly requesting federal mediation, IPA and UPS have closed none of the five major articles that were open when the request was made. Those contract articles include Scope, Scheduling, Pension, Compensation and Health Benefits.
"These talks are in a logjam, we need for our pilots to weigh-in with a vote to let UPS know that what they're offering won't fly with our
crewmembers," said Capt. Nicholson. "In addition to voting on UPS's final offer
we will also be asking our pilots to give IPA leadership the final authorization to call a strike and request release from federal mediation.
While the IPA cannot go into detail about UPS's final positions on the open articles before they share them with their crewmembers Capt. Nicholson had the following to say about UPS's final position on each of the open major articles.
* Scope: "The last offer that the company put on the table would allow for outsourcing of American jobs to third-world carriers with
questionable safety and customer reliability records."
* Scheduling: "UPS has pulled the rug out from our negotiators who have diligently worked through otherwise productive scheduling discussions. The company has refused to provide industry standard rest facilitie for crewmembers flying some of the most challenging schedules across multiple time zones worldwide at all times of the day and night. "
* Pension: "It's about securing our pension and not allowing what
happened to the employees at United Airlines or Enron to happen here. It's also about achieving parity with the pensions with our counterparts at FedEx."
* Compensation: "UPS's final offer that is minimal at best and a pay cut for a substantial percentage of our members."
* Healthcare: "UPS's final offer would increase our monthly out-of-
pocket payments by more than 1,000%."
The vote on UPS current contract offer and final strike authorization is expected in mid-August.
SOURCE: Independent Pilots Association
CONTACT: Brian Gaudet,
+1-202-494-4332,
[email protected],
for the Independent Pilots Association
--Distributed by AsiaNet (www.asianetnews.net)--