Southwest, mechanics reach deal in labour row

Bloomberg

Southwest Airlines Co. and the union for its mechanics reached an agreement in principle for a new contract, amid an exchange of lawsuits and more than six years after beginning negotiations.
The proposed five-year accord would give mechanics $160 million in retroactive pay, an immediate 20 percent raise effective April 1, and 3 percent annual increases each August, according to a joint statement from the Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association and Southwest.
The terms are an improvement from a proposal union members rejected in September, but since increased in part because of the added time they had worked without a new contract. Southwest secured work rule changes that will allow the low-cost carrier to become more efficient.
The two sides must put the agreement into contract language before it is sent to members for a vote. The accord was reached in the first talks since Southwest sued AMFA, claiming mechanics were engaging in a work slowdown by grounding planes for repairs not related to flight safety. The airline was forced to cancel hundreds of flights at a cost of millions of dollars weekly, Chief Executive Officer Gary Kelly had said.
Aviation regulators warned Southwest and the union on March 8 that their contentious contract talks and legal fight are putting the carrier’s safety at risk. The Federal Aviation Administration urged the two sides in a letter to work cooperatively on safety issues. Southwest flies the most passengers on domestic flights of any US carrier.
“The FAA cautions that a breakdown in the relationship between Southwest and AMFA raises concern about the ongoing effectiveness of the airline’s safety management system,” wrote Ali Bahrami, the agency’s associate administrator for aviation safety.
Southwest has been in contract talks with the union representing its 2,700 mechanics for six years. Union members rejected a tentative agreement in September. “As a standard practice, we have increased oversight at this time,” the FAA said in an emailed statement.
Southwest called the FAA letter a routine action during times of labor unrest. “We appreciate the FAA’s oversight and maintain our dedicated focus on assuring the highest level of compliance and safety at all times,” it said in a statement.
In the letter, the FAA said it wasn’t a party to the legal battle and wasn’t taking sides. The agency urged the company and its mechanics to “ensure that any judicial order that might result from the litigation does not constrain appropriate safety activities.”
Southwest asked a federal court in Dallas last week to order its mechanics and AMFA to stop reporting excessive maintenance issues that were grounding an unusually large number of aircraft and threatening “irreparable injury” to the airline.
The alleged job action began Feb. 12, shortly after the most recent contract talks, the company said in the suit. The following day, the number of aircraft pulled from flights for maintenance issues rose to 35 from 30, and eventually hit a high of 62 on Feb. 19, the suit said.