Q: If the contract is voted down by the members: 1. Can we still engage in CHAOS? 2. Can the company choose to hold off on further negotiating our current contract and focus on the JCBA?
If the TA is not ratified, we will survey the members to find out their reasons for voting it down, compile new opening proposals and indicate to the National Mediation Board (NMB) that we are ready to go back to the table. The NMB will establish new dates. This process will most likely take months. After mediation resumed, we would have to reach an “impasse”, meaning no further progress could be made in negotiations, and then petition the NMB for a “Proffer of Arbitration” (release to strike). The NMB may or may not grant it. Our access to CHAOS depends on the NMB.
Management can choose to drag out bargaining anytime. However, if the merger does go through, management will be distracted with the integration and the herculean task of combining two very divergent airlines. If history is any indicator, this is most likely what would happen. Individual contract negotiations for United and America West both became folded into the United/Continental and USAirways/America West/AA mergers.