UPS pilot talks again on hold

A split within union leadership ranks has put contract talks between UPS and its pilots back into an indefinite recess, just as formal bargaining sessions were set to resume in the coming week, said a key union official. Tom Nicholson, president of the Independent Pilots Association, said in a message to members that after spending almost a full day on May 9 with union officials, the senior mediator from the National Mediation Board “concluded that the association is not prepared to enter negotiations at this time.” Nicholson explained that the IPA’s executive board had voted 5-0 to support a recommendation from the union’s two-person negotiating committee for a proposal to resume the talks with UPS. However, he said, within minutes two of those executive board members “began to backtrack.” Nicholson said that the National Mediation Board official then observed that the IPA’s decision-making process is “dysfunctional,” and called off talks that were set to resume in the coming week. “We are now in an indefinite recess,” Nicholson said, “with no talks scheduled for the remainder of 2006.” The IPA chief also told his members that he agreed with the mediator’s judgment. “The EB executive board is in a state of dysfunction, and the mediator has made it clear that negotiations will not resume until the association’s leadership can speak with one voice.” Nicholson said union officials would immediately begin holding informational meetings with members to begin to address how to go from here. The mediator recently put both the union and company under a secrecy order for public comments on the negotiation process, as she prepared to call the two back to the bargaining table after five months. Nicholson’s comments came in a message for union members. The last time the two sides negotiated, shortly before Christmas, the IPA declared that talks had broken down. It asked the mediator to declare an impasse and start the clock ticking toward a possible strike against UPS, but the company maintained that it wanted to keep talking about the contract issues and the mediator put the talks into a long recess. A number of other cargo airlines also have labor contracts going through federal mediation, including UPS rival FedEx Express.