Airport workers at United Airlines have voted down a long-awaited contract proposal despite unanimous endorsement by the union bosses and company officials who negotiated the deal with help from a federal mediator.

Without revealing specific vote totals, International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) District 141 President Rich Delaney announced the election outcome via the web last Saturday. He called the membership’s rejection of the tentative agreements covering some 28-thousand airport workers “emphatic.”

The vote may reveal a bit of a disconnect between the union and its dues-paying members. Delaney pitched virtues of the agreements in scripted, low-light videos that appear to have been shot with a cell phone or some low-grade video camera.

In informational meetings meant to explain the intent of certain contract language included in the deals, union reps found themselves on the defensive over a provision that stuck out like a sore thumb.

In the proposed contract section entitled “Job Security,” the following paragraph appears prominently:

“The Company may contract out work to outside vendors at the following airports: Austin (AUS), Boston (BOS), Baltimore-Washington (BWI), Cleveland (CLE), Washington-National (DCA), Dallas Fort-Worth (DFW), Fort Lauderdale (FLL), Guam (GUM), Honolulu (HNL), New York Kennedy (JFK), Las Vegas (LAS), New York LaGuardia (LGA), Orlando (MCO), Minneapolis (MSP), New Orleans (MSY), Portland (PDX), Philadelphia (PHL), Phoenix (PHX), Pittsburgh (PIT), San Diego (SAN), Seattle (SEA), Orange County (SNA), and Tampa (TPA).”

While there’s supplementary language and other layers of protection that would seem to prevent outsourcing at the listed airports, it was never made fully clear to the membership why the clause above was included in the deal. Even a promise of reversals of previous outsourcing (or “insourcing”) in certain cities wasn’t enough to assuage concerns about the breadth of potential job loss via the controversial paragraph.

It has long been union tradition to make job protection a top priority in any negotiated agreement. While the list of cities in the controversial clause doesn’t include any of the airline’s hub airports, the number of veteran workers emboldened to vote “no” on this deal in the name of job security is likely significant.

There are certainly other factors that may explain what union insiders say was indeed a resounding defeat of the 45-month contract proposal. Workers from the old United Airlines objected to the amount of retroactivity applied to the new wage scale. Those employees are currently covered by a concessionary contract that was supposed to expire on 12-31-09 but remains in effect under the terms of the Railway Labor Act.

That’s what makes any deal going forward a difficult proposition for both the union and company. The original United’s post-9-11 restructuring while in bankruptcy inflicted severe pain on labor while Continental’s mostly non-union airport worker ranks came through that period in decent shape.

The deal that brings these two work groups with different histories together must incorporate something viewed as a make-whole retro payment to the aggrieved former United set of workers in order for it to gain passage. At the same time, ratification will require some votes of approval from the former Continental workers who have recently enjoyed a competitive pay scale minus meaningful job protection.

Of course, the expense of all that must be weighed by a company balancing the cost of doing business with a still somewhat uncertain revenue environment. Two and a half years after closing the merger deal, United is anxious to blend its work groups under single, amalgamated contracts.

I saw first-hand the productive power of union representation while covering the lockout of Ravenswood Aluminum workers in West Virginia. I strongly believe in collective bargaining and having a say in the terms of one’s employment.

I will say however my view of the union has dimmed a bit since joining the Teamsters and then Machinists. The bitter vitriol used by those two unions against each other during the campaign to represent United’s below-the-wing workers was un-union-like. True democracy and transparency are lacking. Contract negotiations are a closely held secret by the select few who gain a seat at the table. The only tangible input the rank and file member has is his/her vote. Even that is shaky. During the most recent election on the tentative agreement, members received paper ballots in the mail with barely enough time to cast them.

I was in LA for a few days on vacation the week before last and didn’t get my ballot in time to meet the March 25th postmark deadline. I spoke to several members who failed to receive ballots and an attached copy of the tentative agreement until two, three or four days prior to the 25th. That’s absurd. The tentative agreement was reached on February 13, 2013. There were six weeks available to conduct the election, yet the union jammed through a voting process that spanned just a few days via paper ballot and US Mail.

What happens next? A return to the bargaining table is expected although the union will need to analyze the apparent divide between its negotiators and the membership. Delaney says surveys will be sent out to “confirm the future positions of the union on issues important to our members…We respect the decisions made by the majority of our members and will proceed with their best interests in mind.”

The company’s response was terse. In a three sentence statement, United said the tentative agreements that were voted down were in “the best interests of our co-workers and the company.”

To better understand how the airline’s effort to integrate two large workforces reached its current point, here’s a rough timeline:

5-3-10: Saying Continental Airlines has lost $1 billion since 9-11, CEO Jeff Smisek tells employees that he supports his board’s decision to merge with United Airlines. Smisek declares he will be the boss of the new company (called United). He calls it a “merger of equals” and says the new carrier will have an “unmatched scope and scale that will allow us to generate more revenue.” Smisek says ensuing profitability will “permit us to improve career opportunities for co-workers of both airlines.”

8-27-10: The US Department of Justice announces it will not stand in the way of the United/Continental merger after extracting concessions that include the transfer of 18 Continental departure slots at Newark to Southwest Airlines.

10-1-10: Smisek says legal aspects of merger are “closed.” Employees from both airlines gather together in airport conference rooms for “mixers.”

12-29-10: Below-the-wing workers at Continental ratify their first ever union contract on a vote of 3108 to 606. About half of the membership doesn’t bother to cast a vote on the deal. The wage scale improvement is significant.

8-11-11: After a nasty union vs. union campaign, below-the-wing airport workers from the combined entity chose the International Association of Machinists over the Teamsters to act as their bargaining agent going forward. The election was conducted by the federal government and the final vote tally was 5568 to 5257. The Teamsters filed a formal objection to the outcome saying the IAM used “goon-squad threats, harassment and intimidation.” After an investigation, the government upheld the election results.

2011 to present: Workers at the combined airline continue to be identified and grouped by past affiliation. Those who worked at the original United Airlines are referred to as “subsidiary UA” employees. Those who were employees of Continental are called “subsidiary CO” workers. Tasks are blended on the management side but remain somewhat segregated among the rank-and-file in part because of a failure to amalgamate labor contracts. Even worker uniforms remain different across many job types.

1-26-12: On a conference call with financial analysts and a few members of the press, United announces a 2011 calendar-year profit of $1.3 billion with the aside that $483 million of mostly “merger-related” expenses knocked that number down to $840 mil.

3-3-12: At the start of this business day (a Saturday), the combined United moves all of its customer processing functions to a computer software platform known as “Shares.” Workers at the old United had long used a different system referred to as “Apollo.” Neither platform is considered cutting-edge but one work group knows Shares like the back of its hand and the other finds it difficult to adapt to. This adds a layer of tension to the workplace at a time it doesn’t need it. Union leaders cry foul saying there wasn’t proper training in advance of implementation of the single software type. Struggles with Shares linger into the busy summer travel period and remain a source of frustration for some to this day.

12-15-12: United’s combined pilot workgroup ratifies a new four-year contract. The airline’s 10-thousand airmen and women approve the deal by a landslide margin. The agreement’s approval raises hope among other United workers that the company will move forward with good-faith proposals that will be met with the same support.

1-14-13: United says it will outsource its freight operation at Newark, eliminating nearly 500 company jobs. The existing Teamsters-negotiated contract covering those workers contains no protection against such an action.

2-13-13: United and the IAM announce tentative agreements for airport workers both above and below the wing.

3-22-13: Paper ballots seeking an up or down vote on the tentative agreement and authorization to strike trickle into the mailboxes of most of the membership.

3-28-13: Delaney acknowledges in a memo to the membership that the union lacks “contact information” for some of the members but says the deadline for a March 25th postmark on the ballot envelope will remain in effect.

3-30-13: Delaney says tentative agreements covering about 28-thousand workers were rejected. He does not specify the vote count nor does he reveal outcome of strike authorization vote.