Contract Explanation

Added: 2026-06-01

[00:00:01]Hi, welcome to the contract explanation video. My name is Tim Nelson. You can reach me at tim neso n. My name Tim Nelson and the number 63 atyahoo.com for any questions you have about the video. I'm going to leave that on video on YouTube. I'm going to leave it open for comments, good or bad. I know you guys all got colorful comments. Uh and so we're just going to let it rip.

[00:00:25]Anybody can say whatever they want. And so it's very important. It's very important for all opinions. All opinions matter. Uh I think this is about a 90% maybe 95% no vote. I think all these contracts are going to get rejected because the contracts are bankrupt contracts. They're actually the worst contracts I myself have ever read. And uh management wrote the whole contract.

[00:00:50]There's no negotiations here at all from your union. Zero negotiations. This whole thing was written handed to the union by management. Now unions the union's doing a fine job being a company mouthpiece uh to say, "Oh yeah, you know, you got to vote yes for this because the economy is doing bad." The economy is not doing bad. Your airline is making $4 billion according to your CEO off of like $30 billion of revenue.

[00:01:16]The margins are incredible. Uh airfares are up even though the gas prices are up. Um, you guys at United are supposed to make four billion dollars. So there's no this ain't a gloom and doom, okay?

[00:01:29]Like your union wants it to be. It's this is, you know, the harvest is ready.

[00:01:34]This is when you're supposed to get like a great union contract. However, you didn't get anything. Nothing. The union didn't get you anything. So, I'm going to prove that. You're going to have to agree with me because everything I say is in the contract and it's non-negotiable. It's not my opinion.

[00:01:49]It's not your opinion. Everything I say is going to be straight from the text.

[00:01:54]So, I can't go over all the small little things, but I'm gonna give a grade of F to all the small little things because none of the small little things went towards your favor. Uh I counted about 25 of them. I like I said, I don't have the time to do it, but here's a few like mandatory overtime. uh instead of an hour um where manage management can't can't mandatory you if it's less than an hour that changed to 45 minutes and it's like 45 like 15 minutes they they knocked 15 minutes off there and of course the union didn't do that that's a management thing and uh that's just ridiculous that's not the only one all these little changes in your contract just the small little ones the one little word it means a lot is like shift bidding, you know, you know, a lot of times you might have a schedule change and and you know, people have to be adjusted and you have to have a new bid if you get adjusted by an hour going on in this contract. In this contract, there's that one little word that says more than an hour. And these things matter. I can't go over all of them, but all these all these new languages, several more pages in your contract, and it's all gray. These little one little word they all go towards management.

[00:03:14]Management wrote all of this. The you the union of course didn't write you know the word more than more than an hour. These are all concessionary uh uh terms concessionary words. Management loves these words like more, but maybe or may. There's a lot of these that were thrown into your contract. So like I said, I can't go over all of them, but I'm going to give the grade an F. for all the little small things in your contract. The grade is an F. You didn't get anything. Uh second thing, let's go over the four pillars. I want to go over the main things, the meat and potatoes of the contract. You got the four pillars. You have health care. We're going to give the health care an F because the union walked away. Uh, by the way, in your survey, you guys, uh, the members chose health care as the second greatest concern that you needed addressed because the costs are out of control and they go up every year. And so, the union went in the first part of negotiations and said they wanted to cut the cost. The company didn't get back with them until, I guess, about three or four weeks ago.

[00:04:21]And when they did get back, they said they they understand, but they want to shove the health care, the whole article, shove it till 2031, and then they'll address the cost. That's all BS.

[00:04:34]The I don't understand why the union did not address this because you have to um compare it with other airlines. Okay?

[00:04:44]And so the 9.25% 25% increase.

[00:04:48]Uh that's that's the highest in the industry. Uh some union contracts have six and a half or 7%. And so when you negotiate like when this gets voted out, when you go back in, you're going to want to negotiate the cost. You really have to I mean I don't know. It's it's a must negotiate. Okay? You have to negotiate costs down. Your your airlines making$4 billion dollars. They can negotiate the cost of health care down.

[00:05:16]I'm sorry. You know, don't buy what the union's telling you that, you know, oh, you know, the economy is bad. The economy is not bad. Your airline and all airlines raised fairs. I mean, the gas is, I mean, inflation is bad. Gas is, you know, through the roof. Grocery prices are going up, but the airlines are prospering because people got money.

[00:05:37]And uh your airline is going to make4 billion dollars this year according to Kirby off of $30 billion of revenue.

[00:05:43]It's going to be record. Okay? It's going to be record. So don't listen to union saying, "Oh, this is the best you're going to get. We couldn't negotiate health care because, you know, you got to consider cost." Baloney.

[00:05:54]Baloney. Uh they didn't even touch health care. Not one thing was touched there. When you go back to negotiations, you have to negotiate that 9.25% 25% that's got to come down because that's cutting into your wage increase. That's cutting into everything else. And you're starting to feel that because inflation.

[00:06:12]So that's an F. Uh you know, it's shameful that a union would walk away not even touch this and agree with management to shove the whole thing and and you know, until next next time. It's crazy. The second pillar is retirement.

[00:06:28]I'm going to give you an F on retirement. Okay, this is a complete joke. It's absolutely wicked. It's evil.

[00:06:36]Your retirement article is completely evil. You got nothing nothing extra here. Okay, even aim pension um still $25. You didn't get any increase there.

[00:06:49]However, the company added the company added some stuff to protect them. you have uh a 401k which of course for some bizarre reason your lower seniority people don't get to in don't get to participate in aspects of this 401k until they got 15 years and nobody under five years that's not how any union contract is at at American or anywhere else like an American as soon as you're hired you're into 401k you don't have to wait five years or then you got to wait 10 years to get 2% % or 15 years to get 3%. You know, all the members get the same except that with this contract. Um, and not just that, but it's very important. This is very important for you guys to read on page 28, at least in the fleet service contract. I know it's in the passenger service contract, too, but I I forget the page number. Um, the AM pension, we all got this notice, the the funding notice. This was uh I got this two weeks ago. All of us in the IM pension got this. It's not good. It it went down again. The funding we stayed in the critical which of course is going to be critical because it's in a jam. But now it's under 88%. It's down to 87%. And it says here about the um the companies, the employers, they're obligated for a 10% search charge now. 10% search charge. And this is on top of hundreds of millions of dollars. Okay. So Kirby, he he doesn't want to pay this. He doesn't want to um have this obligation.

[00:08:28]So he wants you to pay for it. So in your contract, he's going to take 2% of your 401k and cancel it be uh with his uh with his re with the rehabilitation plan, the IM pension uh fund, when he is obligated to pay more. He doesn't want to pay it.

[00:08:47]Even though he's going to make4 billion dollars this year, he doesn't want to pay his obligation. He wants you to.

[00:08:53]Shame on the union. Shame on the union for coughing up 2% 1% and 1%. Read it at uh page 28 and the top of page 29 when when uh Kirby has to pay more for the sir charge on an AIM pension fund, which he which he will. And by the way, they sent us some PPGC information, too. is like the thing has a possibility of just flopping right into the government and and that's not good for any of us. But Kirby doesn't want to pay it. The union wants you to pay it. I've never seen a union do this where you have to pay 2% of your 401k. Your base pays almost $100,000. That's 2,000 buck. 2,000 buck that Kirby wants you to pay. Now, if you work overtime, it's going to be $3,000.

[00:09:41]So, you're cancelling that. you're stuck with the bill instead of the company and because you're gonna get get 2% of your 401k cancelled. Now, um the committee met in Chicago yesterday. They asked CLM about that. They said I was saying this and Clem said Clem said it's not true what I'm saying. The IM pension fund feels good about their investments. They think they're going to have a good turnaround and uh this is never going to happen. Well, Kirby thinks it's going to happen. And by the way, um, yeah, and some some girl said, "Oh, well, that's good news. Uh, I didn't know the IM pension was going to be so good and going to turn around. I'll tell that to my people."

[00:10:26]What's wrong with these people? Listen, Clint went back to school to get a GED.

[00:10:31]You know, he's acting like he's Warren Buffett out there. All I know is I don't think the IM pension fund is going to turn around. And if it doesn't, you know, Kirby doesn't think it is either.

[00:10:43]If if Clem really believe that, have them wipe this out of the contract because this protects Kirby and, you know, and it's a trigger that goes against you. And if the IM pension is going to turn around because they got these great investments all of a sudden, then just scrap this. How come Kirby wants this in your contract? Because it's real and your contract is non-negotiable and it's going to be in there and you're going to lose that 2%.

[00:11:09]um you know this this uh critical funding that's not good. It's not good for any of us. So you get a big big F on retirement and uh uh scope number another pillar is scope. You get an F on scope, the company walked away from scope. The union walked away from scope.

[00:11:29]The union's like oh we want some more uh you know we'd like to have a few more stations where United Ground Express isn't in. and the the company said, "No, no, we're not going to do it." And uh we'll talk about scope in 2031.

[00:11:47]That's an F. The union walked away. Now, your job protection depends upon the growth of your scope. By the way, your job protection at any job depends upon the growth of your scope. And in this case, the union agreed to keep the 35 flight threshold, which is the worst in the industry. It's the worst. Uh, American has a 20 flight threshold.

[00:12:11]Southwest is under 10 under 10 flights a day. Okay. You at United is 35 flights a day.

[00:12:19]You kept that. And uh, so you know how what does this mean? Well, let's say for passenger service, here's what it means.

[00:12:27]American has over a hundred stations that is with their contract to Teamsters. Okay. Uh yeah, Teamsters at America. Over a 100 stations is passenger service. Southwest IM141. They have over a 100 stations. Okay. Because of their scope at United uh customer service, you guys only have 49 stations.

[00:12:52]40. I I thought it was 52, but I actually counted 49. You got 49 stations.

[00:12:58]Delta non-union has 92 stations. You guys have half the stations as Delta because you guys have done nothing. Your union's done nothing about your scope.

[00:13:09]And and now they shove it until 2031.

[00:13:13]And you know, at the meeting the other day, uh Clem said that he he didn't want he didn't want to uh violate United Ground Express, their members, too. and that if he increased if he if you guys increase your scope at South at uh United down to maybe let's say 20 flights or 25 flights a day then that's going to affect his members at UG that are just based they're in 70 airports.

[00:13:38]Okay. When that they're doing your work, UGG is doing your work and Clem is putting them over you. You guys have got to stop this at United U.

[00:13:48]It's not even fair to UG because they can't even get United jobs. By the way, UGG's got a 12page contract. Read it on the IM website. A 12-page contract. The last five pages are about union dues and uh uh union bosses being able to fly and time off. There's nothing in there for a UG employee. The wages are like $20. Um most UG people, they can be on public aid. Half of them are probably on food stamps. Um they have There's one whole page about they have to be able to get Obamacare and that that type of public aid or whatever for healthcare. It's a disaster and it's the IM's baby. Shame on clam. Shame on this union. This union is anti-worker as hell. Uh they should have family rearing jobs instead of undercutting its main members and not increasing your scope. Uh you have to increase scope when you go back after this rejection. You got to get your flight your flight threshold down below 35 flights a day. Those are big stations with 35 flights. You got to get that down to 20 flights. You know, anything a success. But right now, by by Shelvin scope until 2031, it's an F. It's actually a Z. If there was a a better letter grade than F, I would say Z. Okay. And shame on it. This this is absolutely ridiculous.

[00:15:20]wages. Wages is a I got down here wages is a C minus. Um I would say an F, but you're walking into this thing. You're going to have um industry leading the top the top people industry leading for about five months and then you're going to start falling backwards again.

[00:15:40]Everybody else is going to um get more than you. And then over five years, you only got 3% a year. 3% a year, which is horrible. I told you if you look at my video from three years ago, it's still online. It's public. Go look at it. I told you vote against this con this extension because although you initially you get ahead of everybody by about a quarter, you're going to be behind by $3 at the end of this. And I'm not a prophet. I'm just doing the math and look at the scoreboard. And this is exactly what happened. you are about $3 behind even Delta, America, everybody because you got these little 3% wage increases when inflation's going up. And I'm not going to get into politics or I'm not an econ an accountant or economist, but when your governments spend trillions of dollars a year, stuff like silver goes up, stuff like um groceries go up, gas goes up, everything goes up, and it's a lot more than 3%. Right now, I think it's four, four and a half%, but it's going to keep going up. 3% ain't going to stay with it. So, you get an F on that. all your future wage increases is F. And the union did not get you your $40. The union did not get you that.

[00:17:00]Kirby had to give you your wage increases because everybody else got them. I mean, JetBlue was sucking up the bottom at $39. JetBlue, small little JetBlue, $39. Okay. So, you're not much ahead of them. None of us are much ahead of them, but everybody's over 40.

[00:17:17]Delta's over 40. Everybody's over 40.

[00:17:20]So, your union didn't get you this.

[00:17:22]Kirby had to give you this. And by the way, this this wage increases do nothing if you've got two or three years at United because the top the the starting pay is only like $20. You can work at McDonald's and you make about the same thing. And uh so if you're a new hire, this doesn't do anything for you. It doesn't do a damn thing. Uh and and and the bonus uh if you're a new hireer, the bonus you get $100, $125. If you get two years, you get $250.

[00:17:54]Uh there should be a minimum when you vote this contract out. You should have a real bonus. Uh this is the worst bonus that I have seen negotiated in years. Uh Southwest had a bonus at $200 a couple years ago and uh but they had a me too.

[00:18:09]So, that was a bad bonus, but they had a me too and they got what the TWW got in another work group and uh they got a lot more. But the $125 a year sucks. That's a just it sucks. It just sucks. When you when you sign a new contract, you're actually supposed to get like a great bonus. This is a joke. Uh most of the people at United are going to get about 500 600 bucks. You know, you got a lot of new hires. You're going to get $125.

[00:18:37]There's no reason why any anybody that um has less than five years would vote for this contract. Actually, no reason for it. The only person that would vote for this contract is someone that's got 40 years and maybe the spouse is getting, you know, getting divorced and the spouse has a, you know, a better divorce attorney, you know, and you need uh maybe $4,000 or something. So that I could see someone getting divorced who uh spouse has a better divorce attorney.

[00:19:07]I can see that person voting yes. I really can. That's about it though. And so the wages I I got a C minus, but I'm going to take that down to a to an F.

[00:19:17]I'm going to take that down to a F because the union didn't do anything here with the wages. Um so the the bonus is a joke. the wages. Everybody's got the same wages in in in the future.

[00:19:30]You're going to be less. You're going to get two or three dollars behind. When you vote this out, when you go back in negotiations, you can keep these same wages or enhance them, but what you have to do is you have to protect the wages.

[00:19:42]Have you have to have a mid a mid-contract wage adjuster or a cost of living adjuster. That's the only way you can do this if you want to keep this um this umbrella wages. not protecting these wages, you're going to get eaten alive. You're going to be like $3 or$4 dollars behind when you go 2031. You're going five years with this thing. It's way too long.

[00:20:06]Work schedules. You're going to get an F on a work schedules. Uh the union should have actually arbitrated your relief lines because your contract doesn't allow what your company is currently doing it. But the union has stood down and they said they don't want to piss the company off. Uh and uh you know it's gray area but you have to arbitrate it.

[00:20:29]But what happened here is the union codified the the the violation instead of fighting the violation. The union codified codified the violation and agreed to put the company's language that up to 30% of your lines can be relief lines. Now, these are very similar to ready reserve at UG. And so, I don't know if United wants to wants to blend United in with the UG type work rules, but UG has something similar called Ready Reserve. Um, this isn't ready reserve, but it's close. It's close. Relief lines, 30% of your people are going to walk into work. You're not going to know where the hell you're working at. Um and uh so basically anybody that's low seniority, five years or 10 years, some stations if you have 20 years, you're going to be low man on the list. Uh you're going to walk into relief lines. Uh 30%, you know, a third of you guys are going to be relief lines. I've never heard of any of this any of this happening in any union contract in the history of of labor contracts and airlines. And so um really bad. Really bad. And then uh uh I wanted to say one other thing about the relief lines. Um and uh yeah, it I I don't know. I I I forgot, but there was one other thing that caught my attention about this that wasn't good. Wasn't good at all. Um Oh, so if you vote against the contract and you still have to keep relief lines, United is not the only one that uses this. Southwest IM did negotiate relief lines, but they negotiated only 10%.

[00:22:11]10%. However, there's accountability clause. Anybody on a relief line gets $175 a month. $175 a month. So, that restricts management from really wanting to do this. And I don't think management is going to give $175 a month for 30% of its workforce, right? Uh so, you you want to make sure you get this accountability. But United is not paying anything. When you when you when you negotiate when you renegotiate this uh this rejection, you have to get uh uh some type of accountability for management. You have to get like what Southwest has. If you want relief lines, then you got to pay a premium of $175 per employee in their pocket. So that's an F. Your work, your work schedule is an F. Grievous system is an F. is an absolute well because they don't enforce it. Not because of your language.

[00:23:07]Although although they did say, "Oh, well, you know, we get to have we we enhanced your grievance procedure because now you get two union reps in there." Uh, one gets to write down and dict uh dictate uh you know what is said. Listen, you don't want that guy in there because most of your union reps can't even write their own name.

[00:23:26]They're, you know, their grammar. Most of these guys, I don't want them writing my case.

[00:23:31]Get them out. You don't need two guys.

[00:23:33]One's bad enough. I go in by myself because these guys and most of the guys, you know, they're not trained. They don't know what the hell they're doing.

[00:23:41]And then they agree with management. And uh the only thing I ever got out of the union lately with this group is say they all they tell me is they can do that, brother. That's all they say. And so your grievance your grievance system in your current contract actually is pretty good. The union doesn't enforce it at all. Nothing. They don't enforce it because uh uh your contract has progressive discipline. Step one, step two, step three, and then you're fired.

[00:24:08]Well, United Airlines doesn't go by that because the union doesn't enforce the step system, which is in your contract.

[00:24:15]United just pulls your badge and then you get suspended and you know what the union usually says is, "Oh, we can get your travel benefits for you." You know, screw this union. These guys are corrupt, evil, and horrible. And so, um, yeah, your grievous procedure actually is pretty good right now, but, uh, the union just does not enforce it. Uh, let me see. That's about it. Uh, there's some other things, but I'm already Yeah, I'm already like, it's 20 almost 25 minutes. So, any rate, go over the video and uh, talk about it. I think you need to go 100% no vote. I know 100%'s tough because you always got a few weirdos, right? 95%'s doable. You have to vote this down because it's an absolute evil, darkness, nasty uh contract. Have a good day.