Federal regulators denied Southwest Airlines pilots’ request to halt ongoing labor negotiations amid a three-year contract dispute with the carrier.
Southwest Airlines Pilots Association (SWAPA) had asked the National Mediation Board (NMB) to be released from mediation, arguing that no meaningful progress had been made with Southwest officials on critical issues like pilot pay, work rules, pilot fatigue, and scheduling, Bloomberg Law reported.
NMB is an independent agency of the U.S. government that regulates labor-management relations in the airline and railroad industries.
The agency’s decision to reject the union’s request was disappointing but unsurprising, said SWAPA President Casey Murray.
“We are further away today than the day we filed for release, which is truly the definition of an impasse,” Murray told The Dallas Morning News.
However, Southwest management has argued against the notion that negotiations are at a standstill.
“We strongly disagree that we’re at a point which justifies either party asking to be released from mediation,” the carrier said in a statement, per Simple Flying.
“We’ve continued meeting regularly with SWAPA and, in fact, made an industry-leading compensation proposal and scheduling adjustments to address workplace quality-of-life issues for our pilots. We feel confident that mediation will continue driving us even closer to a final agreement that will benefit both our Pilots and Southwest Airlines,” said Southwest.
SWAPA claimed in a post shared on social media that industry benefits paid at other top airlines outweigh benefits paid by Southwest, despite other comparable metrics across carriers.
“Nobody deserves an industry-leading contract more than the hardest-working pilots in the aviation profession,” SWAPA wrote.
Southwest seemed undeterred in seeking to let the mediation process play out.
“We remain confident in the mediation process and feel strongly that it will drive us to a final agreement that rewards our pilots and supports our business,” said Southwest Vice President of Labor Relations Adam Carlisle, per DMN.
Negotiations between the carrier and union are expected to resume next week.
As previously reported by The Dallas Express, pilots for American Airlines reached a tentative agreement with their employer last month.
