PSA Attendants Urge Teamsters to Agree to Contract Changes
A majority of Pacific Southwest Airlines’ 925 flight attendants have signed petitions demanding that the Teamsters Union agree to labor contract modifications requested by PSA and USAir.
The petitions, bearing signatures of unionized flight attendants, call for the Teamsters to approve labor contract amendments that USAir is demanding as part of its $400-million bid for San Diego-based PSA.
USAir wants the Teamsters to modify portions of its four contracts with PSA, including a section that outlines the union’s representation rights after a merger. The petitions that call for approval of those modifications were circulated in December by an employee group known as the “Committee for Fair Representation.”
Representatives of the committee did not return telephone calls placed late last week and on Monday.
However, according to Teamsters members who signed the petitions during December, the petitions drew support from about 80% of PSA’s flight attendants and about half of the airline’s station agents.
A Teamsters official last week acknowledged that the petitions drew support from “a substantial number” of PSA’s Teamsters-represented employees.
However, Teamsters Local 2707 Secretary-Treasurer Marvin L. Griswold last week said the petitions were based on “erroneous” assumptions about USAir’s proposed acquisition of PSA.
Griswold characterized the committee as “ . . . a company-sponsored vehicle that was (set in motion) shortly after the merger was announced . . . and prior to all of the facts being out.”
In a recent Teamsters newsletter, Griswold complained that committee members were “acting on blind faith (in management promises) and nothing more . . . . The whole idea of giving up hard-fought language for nothing in return is appalling.”
Despite the petition drive, the Teamsters are “supportive” of USAir’s bid for PSA, according to Griswold, who added that “ . . . the Teamsters are not opposing this transaction.”
Copies of the petitions were mailed to Griswold and other Teamsters leaders, PSA Chairman Paul Barkley and USAir Group Chairman Edwin Colodny.
The Teamsters represent 3,200 PSA flight attendants, station agents, machinists and ground personnel. USAir’s acquisition of PSA is based upon the airline winning labor contract modifications from the Teamsters and the Air Line Pilots Assn.
PSA’s 600 pilots, represented by the Air Line Pilots Assn., last month approved contract changes demanded by USAir and PSA. In that agreement, PSA and USAir promised pilots that their income and seniority would be protected if the merger is completed.
Colodny last month extended the promise of income protection to all of PSA’s non-officer employees if the labor contracts are changed and the merger is accomplished.
PSA last month turned over 32 pages of contract modifications to Teamsters attorneys in Washington, according to a union newsletter. The modifications deal with corporate and labor law as well as the so-called “labor protective provisions” that Colodny promised to all of PSA’s non-officer employees.
Griswold last week said that the Teamsters review of the company’s requested changes is proceeding “very carefully so employees’ rights are protected.”
