The Transport Workers Union of American Airlines has rejected 2 out of 3 contracts that were being voted on.  Only the “Technical Specialists” guys accepted theirs and before you think that’s something positive, let me point out that a total of 78 members voted on that particular contract.  Rejection by the other two groups also includes a strike authorization.

What that doesn’t mean is that there is going to be a strike.  First, an impasse has to be declared and that is probably, at minimum, months away.  The two parties will enter into negotiations again and we’ll see what happens after that.

Laura Glading, president of the Association of Professional Flight Attendants, decided to chime in applauding the contract rejection and describing the pathway to success as a “struggle” against American Airlines.  Frankly, I really don’t think using language from the 1930’s and adopting an extremely loud and hostile stance towards anyone is going to get anyone anywhere. 

Regardless, I think American has a problem.  Virtually all of the unions are nowhere near agreeing on a contract and even though none of these negotiations appears very close to being declared an impasse, it does present risk to AA as a going concern.  These negotiations will only get tougher if American begins to earn quarterly or full year profits.  A great any of these unions represent frontline employees and embittered or angered employees don’t make for a successful customer service product. 

Even with AA’s recent executive reorganization, I don’t see any positioning being done to get these contracts concluded so the airline can go forward.  Ironically, the one group that has some appearance of perhaps being ready to get  a deal done are the pilots who’ve been waiting the longest to get a deal done. 

Both sides could stand some new leadership.  Sadly, I don’t see much evidence that that is going to happen.

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