bigjets said:
Bob Owens wrote this in a previous post:
I offered plenty of ideas and still do, but you on the other hand dont have much to offer before, during or after except criticism.
That line caused me to do a lot of soul searching, I would like to offer my deepest apologies to Bob, and GP for comments I have written. The work that all the officers of 591 do is for the benefit of us all, doing the work they do is tough and most of the time thankless. It's easy to sit back and throw out barbs, but to actually standup and do something that benefits someone other then myself, is a selfless act that the officers of 591 do on a daily basis.
Thank you, to all the stewards and officers of TWU local 591 !!!!!
Thanks, while the job is no doubt challenging, and at times fustrating I've never agreed when people said the job is thankless or selfless. The job of an elected Union rep is an honor given by peers who entrust the person they chose to represent our collective interests. On top of that, as some try to make an issue of, we get paid for it.
The fact is your elected Union reps are one of you and they should never forget that. I'm an aircraft mechanic. I went into this to try and fix my profession, not to start a new one. One of the biggest flaws of the American labor movement is that the Internationals try and get elected people to think that instead of representing their peers to management that they represent the collective bargaining agency to the membership. Thats especially true with top down organizations such as the IAM where blind support of the direction chosen by people in the union not subject to accountability through the ballott box and not subject to the terms they sell to their members is demanded. We see this with our USAIR friend that posts here all the time. We see how he supports and attempts to justify the deal the IAM struck with the NEW AA that left members working for the most profitable airline at the bottom of the industry. They signed away the little bit of leverage that sect6 and synergies gives for pay rates that meet our post bankruptcy bottom of the industry wage to a company posting quarterly profits in the billions. They sold their members on getting a better deal outside of section 6. If they didn't trust the TWU with supporting them in a contract dispute where if they succeeded in getting industry leading (real industry leading, not the parameters chosen by the company) how can we expect this Association to be anything good for us. Lets look at what we have so far from the Association
-We have a Constitution that no member had any input on and was never put before us for approval
-We have a Constitution that strips the members and their elected peer representatives from any say in the Association
-They have determined that seniority tie breaking will be done by SSN.
-They have stated their intent is to get us all in the IAMNPF. They have not given further details as far as what they plan on doing with our AA pensions. But here is the thing, in order to sell the IAMNPF to the TWU side they will have to come up with numbers that look pretty good. With the average age being 55 we wont earn much of an IAMNPF pension in 10 years or less. So in order to make the plan appealing I believe they will try and sell us on having all our AA Pension and time transferred to the IAMNPF. They will tell us half the story, about how we don't lose anything and the dollar amount value of our pension wont change. Thats true, sort of, we would lose the ability to retire at 60 without penalty and the ability to continue to work in the industry after retirement and the penalty for retiring before 65 is 4.8% per year. So if you needed to go at 60 you would lose 24% of your pension. Another big difference is that the AA pension is a single employer plan while the IAMNPF is a multi employer plan. If the AA plan falls short of funding the company has to come up with it to meet their obligations to retirees, even if the company liquidates we are fully covered up to around $54000 a year by the PBGC (IIRC at 65) but under the IAMNPF if they run short they can cut your pension. If the plan went bust the most you would get from the PBGC is around $13000.
One thing for sure, we do not want any part of this Association as these objectives have already been put in writing and agreed to. The only sure way out of them is to reject the Association.
Once we reject the Association our next biggest hurdle is undoing the damage that the Little Regime and the still incumbent IAM regime have done as far as expectations. They have both worked with the company to drastically reduce our expectations.
The final straw was getting workers to accept giving up profit sharing without getting back the concessions that were given in exchange for it. Delta workers are expected to see 16% profit sharing, putting them well above the APFA's "industry leading" , five year deal. Our FA's spent what, six weeks at Industry leading and will be locked into the bottom for at least five more years with raises that don't even keep up with inflation. That said the APFA has done a much better job than either the TWU or IAM did with ground workers. Their members generally had higher expectations because their leaders are all elected and fall under the terms they negotiate, same with the pilots.
AA, and its competitors are all making billions in profits, concessions are no longer needed and other workers across the industry will most likely be demanding their concessions back over the next few years. At AA our revenue generation per worker has nearly tripled since the 2003 concessions but in real terms we are making around half of what we used to earn. Many have been so beaten down they look at the company's offer for 7% over Delta as a good deal. Delta is a non-union post bankruptcy airline, thats a good standard? Many forget what happened in 1995 when in real terms we were making around 40% more than we are now and the company wasn't nearly as profitable. They forgot how fustrating it is to be locked into a long term concessionary deal while the company makes record profits, and at least we had profit sharing back then. What were we told in the late 90s? "You voted for it". The company also claimed that they could not open the contract, a lie. Thats what the flight attendants will be hearing for the next five years as Delta (which is going to have a representation vote and more than likely pass or fail will result in increased wages for Deltas flight attendants on top of Profit Sharing) and United surpass them. The only thing holding them back is the APFA at aA, just like we are holding back the Mechanics at UAL and other carriers.
IMO the new team at AA, which is made up of the old team at NWA is seeking to do at AA what they did at NWA. The 4% for all workers except TWU is textbook Union busting. If they were sincere about building trust and they would not have lied to the public and given us the 4% as well as a show of good faith because they know as well as we do that the reason why there has been no further movement towards a JCBA is in the NMBs hands as they decide whether to enforce the rules and secure our right to choose representation or allow the IAM and the former head of the TWU to force us into an Association that nobody ever signed a card for.
IMO this team, now that they have long term deals in place for the Pilots, and FA's, wants to bust our Union, the question is after looking at how they treated the mechanics at NWA do you really want to expose yourself to these same people without a Union contract? They were so bad that Delta fired them.
These guys are in this for the quick buck, they want to run the biggest carrier in the world as if its America West, we saw this strategy with Frank Lorenzo, it doesn't end well. One thing we know for sure is if we give them what they want they will simply want more. They give with one hand and take back twice as much with the other. They lack honor, they flagrantly violate the contract and refuse to address grievances then make up lies about how the Union is unwilling to meet with them. Not addressing grievances is another classic Union busting tactic. They don't look at a contract as a deal between equals, they look at it as in their words a "book of restrictions" that they will violate at will and just let the grievances just pile up.
So just because they got deals with the pilots and Fa's, (as they did at NWA, before they demanded a 51% headcount reduction and gutting of the mechanics contract) that doesn't mean they intend to make a deal with their mechanics at AA.
This may wind up being a battle to determine whether we end up Non-union subject to the whims of people who have a history of demonstrating their contempt especially towards mechanics, or we drive out the team thats looking to bust our Union. The Union lost at NWA, different times, plenty of A&Ps out there, between IAW and the shortage of mechanics with most mechanics in the industry working record numbers of hours the terrain is very different than it was in 2005. One thing for sure is we cant go into this battle with an Association that none of us wanted.
