Hawaiian Airlines’ pilots will conduct informational picketing for four hours Wednesday at Honolulu Airport to protest what they claim is the slow pace of contract negotiations with the company.
The picketing will be held on two different levels of the interisland terminal but has been arranged so as to not interfere with Hawaiian’s flight schedule or arriving and departing passengers, according to ALPA spokesman Rusty Ayers.
He said ALPA expects to have several hundred pilots picketing but they will be working in shifts, with 30 on the upper level of the terminal and 20 on the bottom level at any given time.
The pilots, who are members of the Air Line Pilots Association, began negotiating on a new contract in May — roughly four months before it became amendable, or subject to modification upon agreement by both sides. The contract became effective Jan. 15, 2010.
“We are as frustrated with the pace of the negotiations as anyone so we are thankful that there is federal mediation helping to close the gaps.” – Alison Croyle Spokeswoman, Hawaiian Airlines
“We just want people to know we’re upset with the pace of negotiations,” Ayers said. “They’re asking for concessions when they’re making record profits. Their stock price is up over 400 percent over the last five years (actually 545 percent) and their share price has gone up 22 percent (actually 34 percent) since last month.”
Hawaiian Airlines spokeswoman Alison Croyle said the company is looking forward to upcoming mediation in Washington, D.C., to try to work things out.
“We are as frustrated with the pace of the negotiations as anyone so we are thankful that there is federal mediation helping to close the gaps,” Croyle said. “We are committed to providing our employees, including pilots, competitive compensation packages of pay, benefits and work rules. We’re looking forward to the next mediation in March in the hopes that progress toward a new contract will be made.”
Ayers said the major sticking points are pay rates, profit sharing “and our concern that we have to defend our current contract.”
“We’re asking for a market rate pay increase, meaning it would be in the same range as our competitors who are flying comparable equipment,” Ayers said. “If you look at the United pilots, they recently ratified a new contract that gives them a 16 percent raise over two years and now puts us 45 percent below the United pilots, who fly similar planes. If you look at profit sharing, the company has said they are not going to pay profit sharing for any of the months that the contract became amendable (or since September) for the Hawaiian pilots.”
Ayers said the pilots have six open items at the bargaining table while the company has “well over two dozen.”
“We want to pay profit sharing to our pilots,” Croyle said. “Under the existing terms of the pilot contract, profit sharing is suspended until a new agreement is reached. This provision is common among all work groups and applying it fairly is important.”
In January, about 2,200 Hawaiian employees representing two units of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, which includes clerical workers and mechanics, ratified five-year tentative agreements reached with the airline in December.
Under the current pay rates, a 12-year narrow-body captain (flying a Boeing 717) is paid $174.11 per flight hour and a 12-year wide-body captain (flying either a Boeing 767 or an Airbus 330) is paid $207.13 per flight hour. These are the top-scale rates in each category.
The FAA limits commercial airline pilots to no more than 1,000 flight hours per year so those rates would work out to about $174,000 per year and $207,000 per year, respectively. A 12-year 767 captain at United makes $304 per flight hour, or $304,000 a year.
At the bottom of the scale, new-hire first officers at Hawaiian make $36 per flight hour, or $36,000 a year, regardless of aircraft type.
