US Airways is divided into a bunch of UNIONS under the same worker classification right? I really don't see how AA employees (who hopefully are about to oust TWU) and Us Airways employees (you can't seem to consolidate into one UNION) are going to be "united as one" as you put it.
Also consider that American Airlines and TWU are "united as one". They won't let their bought and paid for UNION go so easily. Words like "You voted for it", "We'll get em next time", and my favorite "They can do that brother (usually after a severe contract violation) are not cheap after all. That is my opinion at least.
I have said it once I wills say it again.
"TWU is not a UNION. It is a collection of apologetic catch phrases of failure."
That is not meant to be rude or hostile just an analytical observation of the current situation.
First of all , it is almost impossible to be rude or insulting to me LOL , if you ever check the other US Airways threads you will see that people are rude and insulting to me all the time , and i'm fine with that LOL ...
I enjoy an analytical perspective , and that is exactly what I need ... I need to understand your union from YOUR EYES ....
Right now i'm pushing hard for the ouster of the IAM , and that we adopt YOUR union as ours ...... which puts us at a cross roads .... lol we are literally running away from each others union ...
First let me start off by introducing the good side of the IAM to you and my history with them as I see it ...
As you may have heard , it seems like US airways fleet is MANY unions , but the truth is we no longer are ... When America West Airlines and Original US airways merged you had TWU ( which I was a member of ) VS IAM ... long story short the higher ups at the TWU decided to simply give us to the IAM in lieu of an election ( you see when two companies merge , under the Rail road labor act , only one union can be in charge of all the workers in the same craft and class , so what happens is that a repsenational election is held to decide which union will be the surviving one , but there is something SCARY to this election , if 50% +1 of the work force do not bother to vote , BOTH unions are decertified and all the workers end up without a union ) ....
where was I ? oh right ...... So I and my fellow America west workers were suddenly thrust into the IAM ... My former company mostly had it's operations on the West side of the United States , so in the newly combined workers , my fraction was known as "westies" ....The other fraction at the time were the "easties" ( because US air had huge operations on the east coast ) ....
Now even within the "east" side of the operation there was a subfraction , they were known as "CLASS TWO cities " ... you see before AWA and US air merged , US airways had just gone through BK , and one of the results of that BK was that the larger hubs voted in the BK contract which split the ramp work group into TWO different categories , you had your CLASS one cities , which were basically the HUBS , CLT,PHL,PVD ect .. and you had your little field stations that became the class two cities .. If you were in class one , you made a higher top out , I think it was somewhere around 19 dollars an hour ? ( I don't know for sure since I wasn't part of that ) ... but what I do know is that the class two cities made about 14 dollars an hour , or somewhere near that ......
One of the main selling points in the companies push to divide the entire baggage handler work force was that they would let PHL keep their catering department .This garnered enough votes to approve the old BK contract ...To this day many in the former class two cities are still very bitter about all of this ...
ask me to tell you about the sixty day rule someday , i'll skip that for now .
So here you had really three baggage handler Fractions all thrown into the mix , and we were vying for control to see who would get to determine the terms of the joint contract with the company ..
Our internal battle was long , and to this day people actually hate me because of how hard I fought for my side ... I grant you that in my fight for my fraction to secure a new contract , it was agreed that field stations would be contracted out ..
but hear me out ..... I as a westie was VERY poorly paid , in fact we were so poorly paid that some of our workers were on food stamps , and the turn over rate at AWA was so horrific that you would literally lose 40 people a month during the summer time . I don't think I can describe the kind of poverty wages that we had ... they took an emotional toll on us ...... That's why when we merged with US AIR , it was like a blessing from heaven ... their wages were SOOOO MUCH HIGHER than ours ....we were so poor that we could see nothing but the increased wages ...
in the meantime Before we started to get rolling on a joint contract the east workers first had to come to grips with the fact that it was not going to be business as usual ... one of the first things that gave many of them a rude awakening was the CHANGE OF CONTROL issue that was brought up ...Contract talks sort of came to a stop when the East guys who out numbered us Started to believe that the CHANGE OF CONTROL ( COC ) could be litigated and that they would get HUGE backpay checks of 30K a worker ... well , many well paid , Fat and happy lawyers later , the courts or arbitratior I forget which , ruled that the COC did NOT apply ... and WOOSH dreams of getting 30K backpay checks vanished everywhere ...
Alright so let's move on to the first joint contract offer from the company ... I don't much remember the terms of the first contract offer , but I do remember that it was very similar to what we have today , so not much difference really ...
We fought and fought and fought amongst the fractions AND the company ...Here in PHX we protested daily , some workers even went so far as to stuff informational flyers in PAX baggage explaining how sad and desperate our workers situation was (that made the news ) on the east side protesting and picketing also continued ... and I should say that while all of this was going on , I don't think our workers were too motivated to really HURRY and get much of anything done ... by the book that was the unofficial rule ...
Well the first contract offer failed .. or rather it was voted down by the East ... they were not happy with it .... many of them having come out of BK and being a rather militant work group were set on retaking all that they had before ... and that first contract did NOT live up to their expectations ...
and so more fighting commenced , with our fractions becoming even more Bitter towards one another if you can imagine such a thing .. I mean there was real HATE there ... As a westie , in our view it was "the greedy East keep us working at poverty wages because they want all that they had and will never get back !" i'm sure the guys on the east thought of us as weaklings willing to give in to management at the first 20 silver thrown our way ...
The way we westies won the second contract , was no mean feat ... The east coast guys had the numbers , but WE had the determination ( up to a point )... So then the unthinkable happened ..... The West coast fraction and the class two fraction aligned together , and with both groups were able to vote in the second contract offer even in the face of East opposition ( and by that time some of their number had weakened or simply didn't bother to come out and vote thinking their numbers = automatic victory )
Working here in the PHX station , I want to give Special thanks to a man known as Ron Roth ... If it were not for Ron ,I and all of my brothers and sisters now working under the new combined contract would not have what we have today ... You must understand that for those of us from Former America West airlines , our "job" at the time was more of a gig that people did for flight benefits , SOOO many people had second jobs , that our airline job wasn't considered a REAL job ... We used to have HUGE problems getting our fellow workers to turn out ..there were 1000 rampers , and if we picketed or had a rally only maybe 30 people would turn out ...
Folks just didn't care because they all had other jobs ...We couldn't even get people to come down to the logde for union meetings or voting , EVEN THOUGH THE LODGE WAS RIGHT OUTSIDE OF THE AIRPORT !!!!!
Before the second vote took place , there was a real worry that even thou those of us were committed and committed hard , it wouldn't be enough in the face of such apathy ...
and that's when Ron Roth devised his secret plan that no one knew about until it was too late .. In all the years past that I am ware of , union voting or union activities had never taken place at the AIRPORT IT'SELF ...
He rented a conference room AT the airport and it was in an easy to find location for ALL the workers that everyone knew about ...The turn out was astronomical ,900 people here in the PHX station voted yes , I think it was 13 who voted NO ...
and so we won that 2nd joint contract , we took the Class two cities AND even the west coast cities that were laid out in that contract to be outsourced two years later ...