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On 8/9/2003 10:42:59 AM DFWCC wrote:
The AGW union for ramp workers is trying to make headway at DFW. There are a lot of irate FSCs who voted against the contract. I'm beginning to see info taped in hallways. TWU may go out and be replaced by AMFA and AGW.
You never know in this business.
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Back in December of 2000 I closed a letter to Sonny Hall with the warning "That which cannot evolve with a changing enviornment eventually becomes extinct".
I urged Sonny to make democratic reforms he failed to do so. Now he may lose much of the division that kept him in power, the ATD. In the ATD instead of putting through reforms and granting the members reasonable requests his response is to label any one who talks about reform, democracy, accountability or transparency an AMFA organizer. The fact is Mr Halls problems are not just AMFA, or the AGW or that Dispatchers union, he has problems with the 36000 member Local 100, the 7000 member Local 234 and raids by the IBT in I think PA. In those locals he brands them Communists for asking for the same things as us. What's ironic is that from the reports I've heard at least one of his top guys was a member of the Communist party, I think he is now the Legislative director who also heads Sonnys RED smear campains. The recent moves to purge the airline Unions are nothing new to many other locals in this union that have dared defy Sonny's edicts. The SWA flight attendants, one of the few workers who work for a profitable company have gone how long without a contract-18 months? He needs to do something real soon, retire.
Sonny and Little set us back 50 years with this last contract, I guess he wont be satisfied until he brings the union back 70 years, to before the TWU even existed? The TWU was founded by Mike Quill in 1934. Mike copied the structure of the IRA which he learned as a young freedom fighter in Ireland. I always took pride in that as my grandfather was also in the IRA, 4th Northern Division South Armagh, still known to the Brittish as "Bandit Country". Its a shame what Sonny Hall and Jim Little have done to this Union. A union founded by a fighter, now under the control of yes men who never saw a concession they did not like as long as it was for their members. Sonny and company are likely going to destroy this once proud union, a union that Aircraft mechanics sought even though they had a mechanics union. I'm sure they tucked away enough of our dues to pay him his $100000/year pension that he is due to recieve. The question is as O'Brien patiently wait his turn for the prime spot will there be anything left or will he have to go back to work?
I'm leary of O'Brien. I dont know him so I cant say anything bad about him but when one looks at what qualities it took to move up in the Hall regime a Hall picked replacement is not good news. We wanted Koziatek gone and we got Little, and now the worst contract ever. While we know Sonny must go, we have to be sure that who ever gets put in his place is better. We must demand democratic reforms to bring accountability. The IEC or IAC or whatever had better stand up soon and send Sonny back out to Sag Harbor to collect his $100,000/year pension before they all end up out of a job.
