aafsc said:
On a per mechanic per aircraft basis, a LOT less than AMFA. In NWAs 4/2/01 financial statements, they listed 424 operating aircraft and 9,300 AMFA members. Today (per their 2004 annual report) they have 435 operating aircraft with about 4,500 AMFA members last Friday and 0 today. NW has increased by 11 aircraft since 2001 yet their AMT numbers continually declined. At AA they have about 6,000 fewer AMTs, but their fleet went from about 950 (AA+TWA) down to about 740 now- a decrease of 210 aircraft. Since the number of AMTs needed is directly tied to the number of aircraft operating, when you ground a significant number of planes, you will obviously lay off a lot of AMTs (and pilots, F/A, and others). The TWU can not tell AA how many planes it can and can't ground. What is AMFA's excuse?
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Perhaps the question should have been how many A&P jobs did the TWU eliminate.
We can look at job elimnation through many different ways. Here is another.
We could go back to 1983, when Mechanics did R&D and Deicing, compare the number of cities served staffed with TWU employees then figure out how many A&Ps we would have had in the system if the TWU had not taken that work away, plus then we would need to add in all the shop positions where A&Ps were pushed out for OSMs. These cuts would have preceeded the 6000 we lost post 9-11.
So not only has the TWU eliminated more A&P jobs but they have been doing it over a long period of time.
If we look at NWAs mechanic/aircraft ratio prior to 9-11, according to your figures 9300/424=22 per aircraft, compared to AAs 13000(-2000 srps) 11,000/950=12 mech per aircraft.
Just prior to the strike NWAs average was just over 10.
So NWA simply cut their ratio closer to what AA had all along, but they were paying them a lot more money.
So despite the lower benifits, less vaction, B-scale, prefunding etc that the TWU imposed on their members the TWU also had a much lower A&Pmechanic to aircraft ratio.
NWA may have lowered their ratio under AMFA to less than what AA had through layoffs but they still got more pay, more vacation, holiday pay, uniforms, medical etc than at AA, and they are willing to fight to keep it.
What do you desire more coworkers or a bigger paycheck? "Gee honey we have to live on Franks and Beans but I sure am glad I have all these new coworkers".