Author: Gregory Karp

Leaders of the United Airlines and Continental Airlines pilot unions received authority Thursday to call for a strike vote if the groups are released from mediated negotiations with the airline.

The action is a preliminary, procedural step but indicates the growing frustration of pilots  eager to get out of their post-9/11 bankruptcy-era contract that slashed average pay by about 40 percent. Pilots have ratcheted up their protests recently, including staging a march at United headquarters in Chicago this month and developing a website aimed at communicating  with customers, theunfriendlyskies.org.

Though the airlines have merged, United and Continental pilots are still represented by separate groups of the Air Line Pilots Association and are working toward a joint contract with the airline. Negotiations have been ongoing since May 2010.

"There has been more than ample time to reach agreement on a new contract,"  Capt. Jay Pierce, chairman of the ALPA unit representing the Continental pilots, said in a statement. "While a strike is never the pilots' preference for the path to reaching agreement, we are more than willing to use every tool at our disposal, including exercising our ultimate leverage and legally withholding our services. ... With the agonizingly slow pace of negotiations, management has left us with little option." 

United Airlines has continually said it is committed to reaching a contract but one that is fair to employees and the company.

The step Thursday, taken during a meeting in Washington, D.C., follows a request last week from the pilots union asking the National Mediation Board to release it from what it says are fruitless negotiations, a prerequisite for a strike. Mediated talks have been ongoing since Feb. 28, 2011, the pilots union said.

As of Thursday, there was no call for a strike vote and no date set for one.

"Pilots have made tremendous sacrifices since Sept. 11, and management has done nothing to restore those sacrifices," Capt. Jay Heppner, chairman of the United Master Executive Council, said in a statement. "Today, we stand together and demand that the sacrifices we made to keep this company in business are recognized.