Aloha Air accused of bad faith
A hearing continues in a battle over labor union contracts
Aloha Airlines bargained in bad faith by signing a labor contract with its flight attendants and later asking the bankruptcy court to throw out that agreement, an attorney for the carrier's unionized flight attendants argued yesterday in the third day of a hearing.
The airline, which has said its situation has changed since it last reached contracts with its pilots and flight attendants, is attempting to terminate the collective-bargaining agreements of those groups as well as their retirement plans.
Attorney Robert Clayman, representing about 400 members of the Association of Flight Attendants, said the union has given enough and that filing a motion to change the contracts doesn't give the company the right to come up with a collective-bargaining agreement that completely favors the airline.
"You can't remove one portion without unraveling the fabric of the agreement," Clayman argued. "That's exactly what they're attempting to do."
The hearing, which went into the early evening yesterday, is scheduled to resume today and conclude tomorrow.
"Of course, I continue hoping we will have a Perry Mason moment here and somebody will stand up and say we have a deal here and it will be all over," Bankruptcy Judge Robert Faris said at the outset of yesterday's hearing.
Earlier in the day, Aloha announced that unions representing about 2,400 of its 3,100 unionized employees had ratified new contracts that run through April 30, 2009. The unions represent clerical, passenger service and ramp service employees, mechanics and inspectors.
Last week, the Transport Workers Union, which represents 30 dispatchers and crew schedulers, also ratified a new contract. All the agreements still need court approval.
In court yesterday, Aloha Airlines attorney Charles Dyke said the carrier had received a proposal from the flight attendants that it was still evaluating, and that discussions with the pilots were continuing.
"I'm glad to hear the parties are still talking," Faris said. "Everybody would be better off agreeing on something."
Clayman said the company received the flight attendants' proposal on Oct. 29 and the union was recently told the airline was not yet ready to respond.
The flight attendants don't have a defined-benefit plan like the pilots but rather a defined-contribution plan. The company currently contributes 10.25 percent of the flight attendants' salary into the plan, and Aloha is proposing to reduce its contribution to 3 percent unless it gets productivity work-rule concessions.
Clayman said that the flight attendants have been willing to renegotiate the contract again even though the company signed an "unambiguous" letter saying it wouldn't go to court to terminate the contract. The letter was part of the tentative agreement that the flight attendants agreed to last December just before Aloha filed bankruptcy.