Delta unit Comair renews request to reject flight attendants' collective bargaining agreement

By Caroline Salls

Pittsburgh, June 27 - Delta Air Lines, Inc. subsidiary Comair Airlines renewed its request to reject the collective bargaining agreement with its Teamster-represented flight attendants Monday in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York.

In late April, judge Adlai Hardin refused Delta Comair's motion to reject the Teamster contract, which covers 1,100 flight attendants.

"We read Judge Hardin's decision from Comair's first attempt to void our contracts and we constructed a proposal that satisfied the requirements he identified to provide necessary savings to Comair while also including essential job protections for the flight attendants," Cincinnati Teamsters Local 513 president Connie Slayback said in a union news release.

According to the release, bargaining between the parties ended in mid-June with the union presenting a final proposal that would yield necessary savings for Comair, while giving the flight attendants essential job protections.

Comair rejected the union's proposal, and insisted on a proposal "that still seeks far more than $8.9 million from its flight attendants, as well as imposing significant and onerous changes in flight attendant working conditions," the union said in its news release.

According to Comair's renewed motion to reject the CBA, Comair has reduced the size of its proposed flight attendant labor cost reductions, but the union has refused to agree to the revised proposals.

Comair said changes to the flight attendants' pay rates, rules and working conditions are necessary to realize the labor cost reductions needed for successful reorganization.

In addition, Comair said the Teamsters rejected the proposal without good cause.

A hearing is scheduled for July 10.

Delta, an Atlanta-based airline, filed for bankruptcy on Sept. 14, 2005. Its Chapter 11 case number is 05-17923.

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