Union Chief Wants United to Start Talks

The head of United Airlines' unionized pilots, who is also a board member at United parent UAL Corp., said Chief Executive Glenn Tilton should open negotiations for new labor contracts in August, with the goal of putting agreements in place for every union by Feb. 1, 2008, the second anniversary of the carrier's emergence from bankruptcy protection.

The request came in a scathing letter dated Tuesday by pilot Mark Bathurst, who is head of the United Master Executive Council of the Air Line Pilots Association and is the group's representative on UAL's board. The letter expressed "deep concern" about the company's future and "the deteriorating relationship between the management and employees." A copy of the letter was obtained by the Chicago Tribune.

United, Bathurst told Tilton bluntly, is "not in a good place." But despite its troubles, he said, company officials appear content to let UAL remain stuck in a "fog of mediocrity."

United's contracts with pilots and other union workers don't expire until late 2009, and reopening talks now would mark a major concession on the part of management. But UAL signaled it is not inclined to open contract talks anytime soon.

A spokeswoman, asked Wednesday to respond to Bathurst, said, "We worked cooperatively with our unions to reach our current agreements, and we look forward to doing so again at the amendable dates."

The Chicago-based carrier's profitability lags that of most major rivals, Bathurst contends, and United consistently ranks at or near the bottom of airline-quality surveys conducted by outside parties.

"We are the only network carrier without a new aircraft order and, seemingly, without a vision for the future," Bathurst said in the letter. What's more, he said, labor relations "are at their lowest point in years and getting worse."

The letter, with its confrontational tone, isn't a complete surprise: This month about 400 United pilots, flight attendants and mechanics marched outside the site of the company's annual meeting, protesting what they say is a management team that is overpaid and out of touch with workers.

At the meeting, one pilot pressed Tilton about what she said are morale problems and worker stress caused by his lean staffing strategy. She told Tilton that "employees are no longer behind you."

The workers' position is they made big sacrifices, accepting pay cuts and workforce reductions during the troubled period when United was struggling to remain a viable company.

A big drop-off in air travel following the 9/11 attacks, combined with continued inroads by low-cost rivals such as Southwest Airlines, caused a number of major carriers, including United, to seek bankruptcy protection. Industry conditions have improved over the past couple of years, and UAL emerged from Chapter 11 15 months ago.

United workers were outraged to learn in the spring that Tilton last year had been granted 545,000 shares of UAL stock, valued at about $20 million, as a reward for his stewardship of the company during its tough years. The shares vest over four years.

A number of major carriers, including Delta Air Lines and Northwest Airlines, are similarly finding that the accommodating we're-all-in-this-together atmosphere that prevailed between labor and management earlier is dissipating now that the immediate dangers are past.

In September 2002, Bathurst said to Tilton in his letter, "you arrived to save this company from a jumble of failed programs and failed managers. 'Shared sacrifice' became your mantra. We sacrificed -- we provided you with the tools you asked for -- so you could change our company."

But now, Bathurst said, United continues to struggle.

"Why do American and Continental do a better job than United at managing revenue? Why do American's non-labor costs remain lower than ours? Why is Delta expanding its international reach every month, while we can't make our international operations work as well as others?

"It seems to many employees that management has given up, that they are content to muddle along in the middle of the pack, collecting their stock and limping through the next several years in a fog of mediocrity."

United, Bathurst told Tilton, has "reached a crossroads. You can either take bold, dramatic steps now to reverse the decline or stand by and watch things continue to deteriorate."

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