We are asking each business unit to manage their work flow, which means managers' jobs have been eliminated, not the union positions, and we have eliminated contract work.
We're looking forward to nailing down the details as quickly as we can. We'll continue to talk until people collapse and even then we could talk in our sleep if we have to.
[In addition, wage increases of between 3 percent and 4 percent have largely been agreed upon, though agreement on those issues could change in response to concessions on other concerns.] We have seen some positive movement on some of the issues, but this is a situation with a lot of moving parts, ... Those issues could change as we move to other issues.
The status of the bargaining is that we are continuing to talk. We continue to frankly plug through some of the more difficult issues that confront us. It's become sort of an intense, exhausting sort of a process. We're working through the issues one at a time.
We have been talking with the unions since late yesterday afternoon, ... non-stop intense talks with all sides fully engaged. It remains impossible not predict when these talks will end in a contract and get people back to their jobs.
Intense negotiations have continued late last evening, then resumed again at 9:30 a.m., ... The current talks are intense.
We believe we reached a good general framework for obtaining a contract, but right now we're down to the wire. I'm still optimistic that we'll get it done in a few days but I'm not sure we'll get it done today.
I honestly believe we are in a situation where this could come together in a matter of hours if people agree that it's time to do that, but we haven't been able to get that kind of an agreement from the unions. Frankly, we think we're there. Obviously there's not complete agreement on this.
We will certainly continue to negotiate with anybody who's here. We have no interest in walking away from talks.
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