Teamsters Local 856/986 are continuing negotiations into 2025 as the union has now reached its 11th bargaining round with United Airlines (UA). Negotiations have been ongoing since August 2024 and are just now reaching a point where wages are being bargained for as the Negotiating Committee stated they reached agreements on, “non-economic proposals in previous sessions”.
In 2022, airline technicians bargained for an “Industry Reset Model” which would put UA techs at 102% of the industry standard. As such, during this bargaining period, workers were not given a raise, but an analysis is run every 12 months from December 2024 to ensure wages do not fall behind due to collective bargaining.
Teamsters gave an update in February stating that United “has no intention of reaching a fair deal that reflects the value of our hard work”. The airline presented a proposal to the negotiating committee to which the union urged its membership to vote “no” on February 12th, 2025. Among the proposals was a subpar wage increase, removing retiree plans and switching to a cash balance, and raising the health care costs for technicians. While United did raise the moving allowance to $14,000, the negotiating committee stated that the current proposals are “concessionary and unacceptable”. Likewise, the membership had rejected an Extension Agreement in April 2024.
It appears there is no end in sight for negotiations as United continue to stall in providing airline technicians a sound contract. Unfortunately, due to the Railway Labor Act, airline workers are prohibited from striking, providing no remedy from companies that refuse to bargain in good faith.
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