American Airlines and Labor Negotiations

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if you remember local 591 (gary peterson and gary schiable) sued the international on behalf of the membership over the no vote of the association. that probably caused the first six-twelve month delay in negotiations. the hard feelings between the iam and the twu did not help. im not sure of the timing but i believe the maintenance locals were disbanded and local 591 was formed to put maintenance in its place. unfortunately the preferred candidates were not elected. Gary and Gary won and ran the largest local. the reason behind disbanding the maintenance locals were they were not financially feasible, but if you go back and check local membership the fleet and maintenance locals were the same size more or less. flash forward to today and a lot of people have been promoted and put in place to ensure the continuation af the regime.
 
According to a poster on the mechanics forum the TWU can leave the association whenever they want. Is this not your understanding? And if so why not poll your members and start exit procedures? What's really going on with these so called union experts? Why does the tiny minority have such a hold on LAA? Just makes no damn sense at all
the minority has a strangle hold because they have "equal" veto power. in the bylaws the majority or the negotiating committee AND the chair AND the vice chair need to agree before anything can come to a vote. what needs to be understood is the difference in culture of the two union. the twu members are presidents and positions that are voted in. the iam's negotiators are appointed. when you are appointed you follow the party line or you are unappointed and a proper attitude is appointed so they vote as told. the catch-22 is the equal veto power of the chair and the vice chair. it doesnt matter what position you hold BOTH have to agree for a ta to get to the membership. so if the vice chair is unhappy its a nogo. in the current situation where the iam's sacred cows are being summoned to the alter why would they agree to concessions? when and if we ever get a jcba in theory it should work better at that time we will be more equal associates with the same benefits.
the kicker is why is it taking so long? my opinion and only my opinion is that the law suit brought by local 591 pissed off the associates to cause the first 12 month delay and as things went on the iam decided or is not their style to protest and or cause waves. especially to an ungrateful associate. by that i mean why show up in solidarity at quarterly meeting protests etc. that gave the twu members the perception we are in the fight alone. personally from a business stand point an opportunity at division was detected and capitalized on. thats why we are in this mess.
 
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I don't know how it sits with the other employee groups when Parker says take any other airlines contract and we will sign it.

I figure the unionized employees understand what they Company is trying to say.

The other employee groups probably can't understand why they don't just do that if the other deals are better.
 
if you remember local 591 (gary peterson and gary schiable) sued the international on behalf of the membership over the no vote of the association. that probably caused the first six-twelve month delay in negotiations. the hard feelings between the iam and the twu did not help. im not sure of the timing but i believe the maintenance locals were disbanded and local 591 was formed to put maintenance in its place. unfortunately the preferred candidates were not elected. Gary and Gary won and ran the largest local. the reason behind disbanding the maintenance locals were they were not financially feasible, but if you go back and check local membership the fleet and maintenance locals were the same size more or less. flash forward to today and a lot of people have been promoted and put in place to ensure the continuation af the regime.

I seem to remember the argument about putting the Locals together was to try and combat the larger numbers and influence with the Bases over the smaller Line stations.

The money piece came because of the potential loss of the subsidy the Locals get to help pay the Presidents salary. It was one of the items on the chopping block in bankruptcy.
 
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I seem to remember the argument about putting the Locals together was to try and combat the larger numbers and influence with the Bases over the smaller Line stations.

I'm sure money had a piece to play in the equation.
The way I remember it, the mechs locals were acting on behalf of the mechs and wanted to have separate contracts with different amendable dates and all.

Plus the mechanic locals were acting like a populist version of AMFA, with too many presidents Vice Presidents and others showing up for negotiations.
 
I seem to remember the argument about putting the Locals together was to try and combat the larger numbers and influence with the Bases over the smaller Line stations.

The money piece came because of the potential loss of the subsidy the Locals get to help pay the Presidents salary. It was one of the items on the chopping block in bankruptcy.
Nope dont think so
 
At a certain point, the Association will be compelled to react. Whether it is by the Permanent Injunction, being held in contempt of the Injunction, proposals getting worse rather than better and/or the industry moving ahead while we are caught in stagnation.

I supposed the Association is hoping the current damage to AA makes them blink before any of those things happen.
+1
That's exactly what one of the negotiators told me, i.e., they think Isom/Parker is soft and will blink. I think that strategy is a serious miscalculation. The Permanent Injunction will also carry with it a meter with fines piling up. Just 2 days of a pilot sickout cost $47 million but that was a much smaller airline. The Association can try to fight this, but if they secure an appeal date from another court....and lose, it could mean hundreds and hundreds of millions. What we are seeing is a total butt kicking and maybe the bloodiest battle ever in Labor with the union getting the hell beat out of it and having to revoke its certificate to get out of the mess, or flipping like a pancake and signing on to a recommendation and arbitration if there is a rejection. Everyone can clearly see this coming except Samuelson and Pantoja who may have no way out anyways since they will most likely have to go their separate ways after a JCBA.

Who knows how it will work out but they will have to trigger a representational dispute to head off AMFA once again. To do that, they most likely will petition the NMB for the TWU to take the mechanics and the IAM to take the ramp. Either that or go to war against eachother. But something gotta give because everyone is going to be pissed off by the time this mess is over with. They actually should have listened to you about all of this but I think they shared Weezle's opinion which has led us right into a gutter.

I'm just hoping that the company plays nice and leaves the same offer on the table, at minimum. And with the pilots already up to bat, I can't see the company waiving all fines, when it gets to that point, since the company most likely has to hold a hard line at this point, otherwise the pilots will see it as weak and do the same illegal mobilizations.
 
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People think I'm joking but a massive fine, with a meter running, could very well force the unions to revoke their certifications and/or go bankrupt. We are talking substantial which could be in the hundreds of millions due to these idiots that run this union. Yet, there are still knuckleheads and haters on this page who support the Charlie Brown's and Sito Pantoja's. These people are costing us millions of dollars in benefits and wage gains.
 
One thing is for certain this group as a whole needs some positive news and not all these delays, I also think the closer we get to the election year the slower things will go if we are still waiting.
It’s time for these union leaders to let go of their big egos and put out an agreement to vote on after this meeting on the 15th and stop playing these damn games with the company that is only hurting us
 
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People think I'm joking but a massive fine, with a meter running, could very well force the unions to revoke their certifications and/or go bankrupt. We are talking substantial which could be in the hundreds of millions due to these idiots that run this union. Yet, there are still knuckleheads and haters on this page who support the Charlie Brown's and Sito Pantoja's. These people are costing us millions of dollars in benefits and wage gains.
Aug. will be an interesting month to say the least. This week or next is when the Judge will drop the gavel.

BusinessAmerican City Business Journals
Judge's ruling expected soon in American Airlines mechanics dispute
 
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People think I'm joking but a massive fine, with a meter running, could very well force the unions to revoke their certifications and/or go bankrupt. We are talking substantial which could be in the hundreds of millions due to these idiots that run this union. Yet, there are still knuckleheads and haters on this page who support the Charlie Brown's and Sito Pantoja's. These people are costing us millions of dollars in benefits and wage gains.
If your scenarios play out the unions will sell out to the company to save their asses. We will see a massive concessionarry contract and the unions will blame everyone except themselves .
 
If your scenarios play out the unions will sell out to the company to save their asses. We will see a massive concessionarry contract and the unions will blame everyone except themselves .
We are like a slum apartment inherited to an unscrupulous owner, they don’t have to do anything with us but collect the rent using our desire to stay employed at AA to get their money.
 
If your scenarios play out the unions will sell out to the company to save their asses. We will see a massive concessionarry contract and the unions will blame everyone except themselves .
hopefully, the company puts on offer on the table that is similar or close to the last one. Since we have the last proposal, we will be able to see how much the union and Charlie Brown cost us.
 
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