Southwest agrees deal with workers

The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, which represents Southwest Airlines’ 6,000 customer service agents and customer support and services representatives, recently agreed to a new four-year contract. According to Southwest, the agreement makes provision for pay increases, along with bonus opportunities, that are linked to both company and employee performance. Southwest said in a statement that overall it is almost 83% unionized and that it is actively engaged in negotiations with six out of its 12 unions.

New glycol recovery facility at Montreal

Aéroports de Montréal and Aéro Mag recently inaugurated a state-of-the-art ethylene glycol recovery, recertification and re-use facility at Montréal-Trudeau International airport’s de-icing centre. This is set to significantly reduce the airport’s environmental record while reducing de-icing charges for airlines.

Representing a US$10m investment, the facility uses a sophisticated process to concentrate ethylene glycol employed in aircraft de-icing operations and restore it to a level of at least 99.5% purity for re-use. Interestingly, this process is considered a world first. ADM has contributed US$7.1m to the construction of the facility while Aéro Mag invested US$2.9m.

Remuneration policy to change?

Doug Parker, American Airlines’ Chief Executive, has suggested that airlines should stop sharing profits with employees and instead look to improve wages. This rather flies in the face of ongoing pressure from his own workforce, who wish to have part of their pay linked to the airline’s annual performance figures. In an interview, he dismissed profit-sharing as an outdated concept, despite the fact that other US carriers are happy to publish the pay-outs given to employees each quarter.

“They’re bankruptcy-era contracts, and we’re past those days,” he asserted, adding that airlines offered profit-sharing in the last decade to make up for wage cuts. “We should move back to what normal industrial companies do, which is pay people (what) they earn. People prefer to have the certainty of wages.”

Tanaris Power bought out

Recursos Montana has announced that it has initiated the purchase of Tanaris Power from Enterprise Asset Management. EAM is currently in negotiations to spin out Tanaris Power, which holds contracts for evaluation and sales for ground support equipment.