The question about which union represents the combined flight attendant group at a post-merger United Airlines will be resolved separately from the issue of which collective bargaining agreement survives the merger.

A collective bargaining agreement is not owned by a union – it belongs to the union members. If a group of airline employees decide to change union representation, the new union will inherit the contract negotiated by the prior union and be bound by its terms until it can negotiate new terms to bring both pre-merger groups under the same collective bargaining agreement.

Even after there is operational integration, IAM flight attendants will continue working under the terms of their Continental contracts until two things happen:

1. Representation issues are resolved and the combined flight attendants are represented by a single union

                       – AND -

2. The surviving union negotiates an agreement with the new carrier to bring all flight attendants under a single collective bargaining agreement.

Similarly, pre-merger United flight attendants will continue working under the terms of the agreement they negotiated with United until negotiations for the combined group are concluded.

The IAM-Continental agreement already surpasses the United agreement in wages, retirement security and scheduling flexibility. Your bargaining committee is currently in negotiations with Continental to improve on what is already the leading contract in the industry.

If the IAM is the successful union following an election, we will use our Continental contract as a starting point and work up from there, bargaining to include the elements of the United contract that flight attendants find favorable.

When those negotiations are completed, the combined flight attendant group will get to vote on the first IAM-United Airlines flight attendant contract.

You can download a CONTRACTS flyer below.