Collective Bargaining at Magic Carpet Airlines: A Union Perspective

What did the union do to prepare for negotiations? What additional sources of information might it have used?

To prepare the negotiation, the union first creates a negotiation team who will bargain with the company. Then, they determine their goals and look for diverse information to conduct the negotiation.

First, they create an opening offer based on the average working conditions and wage rates for flight attendants offered by other, similarly sized carriers.

Then, they knew about MCA financial history, so they could use of those data to prepare the negotiation and settle their goals. They wanted to keep their proposals within financial reach of the company. Finally, they gather information from government sources such as wage, unemployment, and cost of living. They also used other employee groups(pilots, mechanics) within MCA as a guide- many of the LFA proposals were items that these others unions already had in their contracts.

They could have try to settle relationships with some employee at the top management to have more informal information.

What were the union's primary objectives and strategies? Were they reasonable?

The primary objectives of the union were focus on the wages and working condition. Indeed, a survey among the employees, the unions identifies two important issues, which matter to the employees: "Increased wages via a duty rig provision" and " increase job security"

The union hoped to bring wages and work rules in line with the company's financial performance and industry standards. So in this sense, they were reasonable.

The union strategy was divided in 4 points. First two point were keeping union members informed of negotiation progress and getting union members involved. Indeed, increase the commitment of the employees and member of union in order to show the reliability of their claims. It was a manner to demonstrate that the union was serious. It was also a way to get all the employees and members involved and so increase the awareness and support of the employee to the union objectives.

They also use the power strategy through the potential threat of a strike to increase the pressure on management. Finally, the last strategy was to not proceed with an issue if not all the team members in the negotiation team agree.

What were the company's goals and strategies?

MCA's goals were focus on the financial aspect, claiming that how the financial health of the company was poor and how the company could be bankrupt at any time. They also wanted to keep the situation unchanged because their new marketing agreement with a major carrier restrict their flexibility.

MCA initial strategy was to let the union present proposals, which they would automatically dismiss and then postpone talks -