When US fleet came into the IAM, the international placed them in D141. Along the same time, the international created D141M, and placed UA and US mechs into it.
During our organizing drive, many mechs wrote letters to the IAM, saying they did not want fleet in their union.
Rather than educate the membership, the international went the 141M route to appease mechs. A ridiculous excercise - fleet was never going to be under the same contract as M&R.
How is all of that division create solidarity? Maybe the Wobblies were right - "one big union in the sky, bye-and-bye."
I distinctly remember in PIT,our union meetings(yes I went to them)constantly being disrupted by our new union brothers who got off ramp at around 10pm and the meeting didn't start until 11:30pm....whats a union brother to do with all that time? get faced at the local watering hole.so we had a constant problem with beligerent rampies arguing the point that with their first contract ever,they wanted the sky and this crap went on and on incessantly.it was a problem just doing union business.
yes we were patient and understood their dilemma but they were the ones that brought all this hardship on themselves with decertification....the first contract was a start and that was it.so it went into seperate locals/districts due to several factors,one which I listed.