Bargaining Update

Bargaining continued this week on a contract for 14,500 agents at American Airlines.

It will be a first contract for 9,000 American Airlines passenger service agents who, after a 19-year struggle, joined with the members of the US Airways CWA-IBT Association to form the new bargaining unit at the airline coming out of the merger of American Airlines and US Airways.

The CWA bargaining team, led by CWA Chief of Staff Ronald Collins (not in photo), includes (back row): Richard Schanssey, CWA Local 3140, MIA; Kenneth Grunwald, CWA Local 3640, SERO; CWA Local 1171 President Tom Gunning; (front row): CWA Local 3640 President Vickey Hoots and Roxanne Hartfield, CWA Local 1171, LGA.

The September 2014 vote was the largest labor organizing victory in the South in decades. Three-quarters of the agents work in Texas, North Carolina, Florida and Arizona and 2,300 are home-based reservations agents.

USAirways agents have been CWA members since 2000. US Airways merged with America West in 2005; passenger service agents at the former America West had organized with the IBT in 2004. After the merger, the CWA and the IBT formed the Airline Customer Service Employee Association, CWA-IBT.