Hopeful said:
CIO:
That's the whole argument! We want ALL our concessions back. But you yourself being a TWU supporter has to realize the TWU supported these concessions without any resistance whatsoever. What makes you think the TWU will put up a fight now?
What makes this 17% cost cutting announcement even more aggravating is the fact it comes about a week after AA announces their intention to bid for the USAir shuttle!
Why would they put up a fight now? Because they really would not be fighting so much for us but in order to keep us. They would be fighting to keep their dues coming in. See thats how accountability works. Just imagine if we had accountability all the time and not just when AMFA has 55%! Unfortunately with the TWU full time will never happen. Members do not have the right to recall in our Constitution. AMFA and the AGW however do. They offer full time accountability.
If you look at what happened here, the TWU went into these concessions, with the obvious cooperation of the company, with the plan of cutting us as much as possible while minimizing as much as possible the risk of losing the mechanics.
They keep talking as if no mechanics were laid off but they did try to mimimize the numbers. Not because they wanted to better serve our interests but to try and use that to keep us.
However if you look at what has happened over at Fleet service you see the opposite. They cut them deep. They did so because there was no threat of an outside union. While our hourly rate is still above what it was prior to the 2001 contract the rest of the TWU represnted workforce is getting a lower hourly rate than they had prior to the 2001 contract. So not only did they lose all their benifits like us but they ended up with a lower hourly rate than what they had prior to the 2001 contract. If the AGW had been around then, collecting cards this likely would not have happened.
The fact is that none of us are served by this union. This union has for twenty years sought every means possible to give AA a labor cost advantage over other carriers at our expense. They have devised elaborate schemes to defer blame and accountability and engineered their concessions to maximize the impact on us, while minimizing the impact on per capita dues.
Its time for a new direction. AMFA and the AGW, Unions for a lifetime career, not just the latest employer.
CIO;
You are saying that we should stand together. Well I'm game. What do you say we start informational picketing. Or do you want to "stand together" in the typically rhetorical TWU way and talk about standing "together" and do nothing?
