United Airlines (UA) has announced that it will cut approximately 1,150 jobs at 16 US airports while keeping another 800 in-house jobs previously under scrutiny as part of its agreement with the union.
UA had started the scrutiny of nearly 28 US airports in January with the aim of reducing costs by roughly $2bn every year. At the time, the airlines said it was taking the decision to bring down its spending to stay in line with its competitors which had lesser active unions.
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Following weeks of negotiations with the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, UA said that it had decided to retain the positions of ramp workers and customer service employees at six of these airports in exchange for ‘contract modifications’.
However, the job cuts can take effect only after the agreement is approved by a vote of the affected workers who are located around Tulsa, San Antonio, Indianapolis, San Jose, California, Reno, Nevada and Billings, Montana.
The positions of ramp workers at six other airports will also be outsourced while customer service employees are expected to retain their jobs, pending vote on the same.
The airports where this will happen are in or near Atlanta, Sacramento, St. Louis, Kansas City, Raleigh, North Carolina and Fort Myers, Florida.
Union official Rich Delaney said in the website post: "It is truly unfortunate that the gap between vendors proposals and United’s contractual costs could not be bridged in all stations."
The union said that the date of voting will be decided shortly and if any concessions made by the union for workers who will keep their jobs are to be implemented, they were not immediately clear, reported Reuters.
