Can any of you Industrial Union supporters show a single case of the Industrial Union presenting anything like the presentation below that was made before the Federal Government? Or even to the public for that matter.
The reason nothing like this exist other than AMFA presentations is because the unskilled majority would be politcally offended by these statements.
AMFA does not have to worry about offending the unskilled majority when making Mechanic and Related arguements, because there is no unskilled majority within the Mechanics craft Union called the A.M.F.A.
Below are the words of Lee Seham, that Anamoly is attacking on this forum as a fear and smear campaign to keep you in another Industrial Union, strapped into negotiations with another unskilled majority structure.
PEB #235 Transcript - Post Hearing Summary
March of 2001 - 6 Months prior to the 9/11 Terrorist Attacks
THE DISAPPEARING CRAFT OF AVIATION TECHNICIAN
AND THE SAFETY IMPLICATIONS FOR THE AIRLINE INDUSTRY
The nationwide shortage of aviation technicians is reaching crisis proportions.
This is not just an AMFA position. The shortage is confirmed by the Federal Aviation
Administration, the United States Department of Labor, PAMA, technical schools, and
the leading industry publication Aviation Week & Space Technology, which describes
the shortage as a growing safety concern.
Applications to technical schools have plummeted 50% in nine years. Current
graduation rates are 50 to 75% below the current needs of the aviation industry. The
problem is further exacerbated by the fact that, due to the availability of higher wages in
other industries, 75 to 90% of new technicians leave aviation within five years of
graduation.
Demographics will bring this crisis to a dangerous climax in a few short years.
The Viet Nam War caused a boom in the supply of technicians as these men passed from
the military to private industry. Now they are reaching retirement almost simultaneously.
For example, 15% of United Airlines’ technicians will shortly become eligible for
retirement. Similar percentages apply throughout the industry, including at Northwest.
But there is virtually no one to replace them. No one wants this job anymore. It is too
stressful, it is too physically debilitating, it is too fraught with potential liability, and it is
too unrewarding.
The decreasing safety margin caused by the shortage in aviation technicians is
already visible. Aircraft line checks that used to occur every three days are now stretched
to seven days. Technicians are forced into overtime situations that are so fatiguing that
the FAA is conducting safety investigations. Aircraft are increasingly flying without
operational backup systems, relying with ever greater frequency on “minimum” safety
standards. And that is today. Considering the trends discussed above, tomorrow will be
much, much worse.
ORIGINS OF A FREE MARKET BREAKDOWN
The traditional goal of a labor union is to obtain above market wages by creating,
and withholding, a monopoly of the available labor. Ironically, aviation technicians have
been kept below market wages by their own labor unions. For sixty years, aviation
technicians have been represented by labor unions that are dominated by an unskilled
majority. As a consequence, hourly wage rates for baggage handlers currently top out at
over $19, within a few dollars of the technicians who repair jet engines. The political
power of the unskilled majority demanded an averaging of wages irrespective of the free
market value of the technicians’ skill. And the carriers allowed this to happen.
The eyes of technicians nationwide are on the AMFA/NWA contract because they
know that, if the pay inequities are not fixed here, no other labor union will address the
crisis. These unions are simply unwilling to alienate their respective unskilled majorities.
With or without a strike, aviation technicians will abandon their jobs en masse unless the
past disregard of the free market is remedied. The free market is correcting the belowmarket
wages of aviation technicians by transferring them to non-aviation industries
where they are more highly valued, but that “correction” involves the destruction of a
skilled craft to the enduring detriment of aviation safety
