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US Airways Agents Fighting Steep Rollbacks
CWA passenger service agents at US Airways want management to meet them halfway as both sides bargain over the airline’s cost-cutting demands.
A survey of agents, conducted for CWA, found that nearly three-quarters of agents are unwilling to accept the steep concession demands US Airways management is making.
The company is seeking to roll back top rate hourly wages from $22.05 to $17.88, which would return agents to the wage rates of the late 1980s. Management is demanding excessive cuts of more than $96,000 per agent through 2008.
CWA has proposed salary and benefits cuts of more than $17,000 per agent at the top rate for the same period, an offer management dismissed as "not enough."
Agents want US Airways to survive. "We want to play our part in keeping our airline operating," said Cathy Bumgarner, president of CWA Local 3640 and a member of the negotiating team. "But we cannot participate at the same level as the more highly paid employee groups who have more generous benefit packages and who have not made the level of sacrifice our members already have made."
Before passenger service agents gained CWA representation in 1999, they suffered the loss of their pension plan, elimination of post-Medicare health care and drug coverage and a 10-year wage freeze.
"Many of management’s demands would result in agents subsidizing the health care and pension benefits of other higher-paid employees," said Chris Fox, president of CWA Local 13302 and a bargaining team member.
The average US Airways agent’s annual salary is $38,000, while the average pilot earns $233,000. Yet management is demanding that all employees pay the same health care premiums and charges, while refusing to give agents the same coverage as the other employee groups.
CWA agents lead the industry in productivity, a fact management acknowledges but refuses to take into account in negotiations.
US Airways has reached agreements with the pilots and flight attendants, while CWA and the Machinists are continuing negotiations. The airline recently received conditional approval that it will receive the $900 million loan guarantee it sought from the government’s Air Transportation Stabilization Board.
CWA represents about 10,000 agents at US Airways with 2,700 now furloughed.
A survey of agents, conducted for CWA, found that nearly three-quarters of agents are unwilling to accept the steep concession demands US Airways management is making.
The company is seeking to roll back top rate hourly wages from $22.05 to $17.88, which would return agents to the wage rates of the late 1980s. Management is demanding excessive cuts of more than $96,000 per agent through 2008.
CWA has proposed salary and benefits cuts of more than $17,000 per agent at the top rate for the same period, an offer management dismissed as "not enough."
Agents want US Airways to survive. "We want to play our part in keeping our airline operating," said Cathy Bumgarner, president of CWA Local 3640 and a member of the negotiating team. "But we cannot participate at the same level as the more highly paid employee groups who have more generous benefit packages and who have not made the level of sacrifice our members already have made."
Before passenger service agents gained CWA representation in 1999, they suffered the loss of their pension plan, elimination of post-Medicare health care and drug coverage and a 10-year wage freeze.
"Many of management’s demands would result in agents subsidizing the health care and pension benefits of other higher-paid employees," said Chris Fox, president of CWA Local 13302 and a bargaining team member.
The average US Airways agent’s annual salary is $38,000, while the average pilot earns $233,000. Yet management is demanding that all employees pay the same health care premiums and charges, while refusing to give agents the same coverage as the other employee groups.
CWA agents lead the industry in productivity, a fact management acknowledges but refuses to take into account in negotiations.
US Airways has reached agreements with the pilots and flight attendants, while CWA and the Machinists are continuing negotiations. The airline recently received conditional approval that it will receive the $900 million loan guarantee it sought from the government’s Air Transportation Stabilization Board.
CWA represents about 10,000 agents at US Airways with 2,700 now furloughed.