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AMFA/ Mesaba pre 1113c negotiations for the week of January 16 to 21 commenced on Monday afternoon at 4 pm at the Mesaba Airlines General Offices in Bloomington Minnesota. When we had adjourned the previous week, Mesaba owed AMFA a counter to our proposal that we had made on January 11. The offer that AMFA had made to Mesaba consisted largely of wage and premium cuts at a rate of 7% per member regardless of step of pay scale or duration of service, the return to Mesaba of the performance incentive plan, a reduction of $100 per year per member in the uniform allowance, deletion of the four hour call in provision, and elimination of the ½ hour travel pay for airline travel. This most recent AMFA offer totaled a first year savings of over $1.2 million. It is the assessment of the committee that this sum would allow the company more than adequate relief for its reorganization, based on our expert-informed estimation and the limited and inadequate information supplied by the company to date. The duration of our proposal was until December 31st, 2006 or until the air service agreement with Northwest Airlines was finalized. This was a sincere proposal from AMFA that would have no doubt been felt throughout the membership at Mesaba Airlines. However, it would have allowed Mesaba the time it needed to produce the data and information that the association has requested over that last few months to make an informed decision with regards to our contract. This proposal would also allow Mesaba to continue work on its Air Service Agreements with Northwest, bid for new flying and avoid the 1113c process. Mesaba’s proposal to AMFA on Monday mirrored its previous proposals to a large extent. Of large concern to the negotiating team was not only article 4 language that on its face could allow for the farmout of the entire AMFA collective bargaining unit, but a duration of 6 years and an annual target savings number of approximately $2.12 million. To achieve this target number, Mesaba has made proposals to wages of up to 28% pay reductions for AMTs at the top of the current pay scale to 1% increases to a new hire AMT. Mesaba also proposes to eliminate shift premiums, slash the RII premium to $0.25 and the Lead, Inspector, Instructor, and Maintenance Controller premium to $0.95. Mesaba wishes to change the health insurance employee contribution to 50%, asks you to pay part of a Long Term Disability premium of a benefit that pays out partly based on the length of service with the company, and would like to change the Short Term Disability qualification time from three days to two weeks while paying your sick time benefit at 75% of base wages that would not even be included in qualified overtime calculations. In other attempts to achieve this $2.12 million savings, Mesaba would like to eliminate Mandatory overtime pay and not use holiday or vacation time in the calculation of overtime and would like to create a single bid system for lay off and furlough. Mesaba also introduced some language into their latest proposal that had been agreed to by both sides of the negotiating table during the last three years of section 6 negotiations in an effort to sweeten the pot. This language consisted of such things as not allowing FDR information to be used against a member. We once again met with Mesaba on Tuesday to ask questions about their proposal and to get clarifying information from John Spanjers, the COO of Mesaba. Both sides agreed to speak in the morning about scheduling the Wednesday session. On Wednesday we met with representatives of ALPA and AFA to discuss aspects of each group’s progress in obtaining data from both Mesaba Airlines and MAIR and to update each other on the progress of all of the unions with Mesaba at the negotiating table. Also on Wednesday, Mesaba called to inform the AMFA negotiating committee that it no longer wished to entertain the idea of a short term deal and that Mesaba no longer wished to meet with AMFA until AMFA was willing to engage the idea of a 6 year contract and a target savings of well over $2 million per year. That being said, we adjourned for the week. We believe that we cannot answer Mesaba’s proposals until they provide us all the information that we have requested. We have made numerous information requests and will continue to do so. To that end, we will continue our due diligence, will continue to meet with our dedicated professionals, and will remain willing and able to meet with Mesaba Management to come to a consensual agreement that is in the best interest of the membership at Mesaba Airlines.
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