seed,Dec 31 2004, 12:53 PM
Having such a large number of members in one locale does tend to throw blame, or praise, in that direction due to their voting block. No way around that issue, staffing is, and always will be, the company's perogative.
What I see, as an old issue, is the company's ability to have the bases compete for work. This single item issue should have been dealt with and laid to bed. Imagine, telling employees to produce or lose your work to another base. That would promote an unsafe enviroment and begin the seperation of the membership, a true management tool.
The problem is that the TWU works hand in hand with having the workers compete. International reps even say to their members that "the work will go to those that get it done". When the company moves work around the International never resists such moves. The TWU has actively worked with the company over the last twenty years to seperate the members. They have even agreed to sepersate claqssifications with schemes such as OSMs, junior fleet service clerks, B-scale,long progressions to top pay, etc. The TWU also was the first airline to agree to transfer work away from higher paid workers to lower paid workers and have strict seperation of seniority lists to supress movement between classifications. All of these schemes that the TWU put in place help to fractionalize the workforce and create internal dissent.
Do some research into the TWU at AA. You will find that what we are claiming about the TWU is true, and remember that over the last twenty years AA has expanded to become the largest airline in the world. AAs growth benifitted only the company and the unions, not the workers because that growth was fueled by concessioons. Ed Koziatek, who was Little mentor and predecessor told me flat out "The concessions created your job, if we did not give them you would not have a job at AA." I replied "Maybe not, but if the TWU had not given those concessions I would probably be at some other airline and we all (the workers) would be making more money". This is the type of comment that you would expect from the company or RTW groups, not union officers. I told him that low wages was not the only factor making flying more affordable and more in demand, growth was inevitable, part of a two thousand year effort by the human race to speed up commerece across the globe. The TWUs concessions gave AA an advantage over other carriers at the expense of its workers. At a time of industry expansion the TWU drove the industries workers in a race to the bottom. THis is unprecidented, that a unionized industroies workers would see lower standards of living while the industry itself sees increased productivity and sustained growth. As we have said before our complaint with the TWU goes way back beyond its most recent debacle.
I don't know this Mr. Little, but I do not see him as an immediate problem to our industry and survival.
Mr Little is an immediate threat to our profession because he is basically a company agent controlling the largest workforce in the industry. Because he can not be held accountable and has the power to remove officers who resist his efforts to drive down wages he can act in the interests of the company wityh near impunity. Because of its structure the TWU finds it easy to lie to its members, the appearance of the internet has become a threat to the TWUs ability to mislead their members. That was recognized as far back as Feb 7, 2001, when the IEB and the IEC passed a resolution that said;
"urge our members and officers , in the strongest terms possible, to refrain from the use of public media or any public forum, including Local websites".
I'll admit that Little is not responsible for all the treats we face, he is however responsible for his failure to lead us in resisting these threats, instead of challenging and fighting Little has done all he can to have us roll over and submit to the will of the company. Before we can address those problems we must first get rid of Little and get someone who has the workers interests at heart, not somone like Little who gets generous compensation that is provided and maintained by keeping the volume of dues up at any price to the dues payers.
From what I've read here a lot of people seem to have "tunnel vision" and extreme focus on him and the TWU. Let's face it, no union is currently making a stand against issues that demote our livlihoods, not the TWU, not the IBT, AMFA, no one.
Thats because the unions are competing with each other for dues instead of fighting to maintain a decent wage. The fact is the industry is consolidating, the unions are trying to underbid each other in the hopes that by doing so the carrier where they have most of their members will be one of the survivors. If we were all in one union that union would be more focused on maintaining the wage instead of the dues flow. Those who worked forv the loser would have to realize that over the long run they will be better off to restart with a higher standard than to continue to give concessions over a period of years, working for less and less yuntil the company finally folds anyway, like EAL and Pan Am.
If we as mechanics want to unite as one union we only have one option, AMFA. If we want to unite as a whole industry (all classifications)there currently is no structure for this. Thats because the other unions, the IBT, IAM and TWU can not raid each other and will not voluntarily combine us. For them its all about dues and nothing else. They have a "business arrangement" that suits them and the airlines just fine, but over the last twenty years has proven disasterous for the workers.
I'm not saying that AMFA is perfect, but I think that any true unionist can agree that the current structure is inadequate. Even Sweeney and Sonny Hall agreed, Jim Little however maintains that the structure is fine and that all that is needed is "Communication, communication, commiunication". Would communication communication, communication from the TWU have prevented what happened to workers in this industry? No leadership would have, Accountability would have and fighting would have. The fact is this is an essential industry yet the heads of the TWU have not let the workers exert their muscle since 1969!
Now, I'm not up to speed on the entire AA operations and finances as some here seem to be, but I can read the writing on the wall. AA may begin with the downsizing of MCIE by June of 05, to say approx. 700 members, but that will just be the beginning. It has already been proven that your "Protectionary Clause" is only as good as the next concession.
And that is because of the TWU and their cozy company relationship. THe TWU works hand in hand with the company. The company will announce that they are laying off 1000 workers, then the TWU will claim that they fought to get it down to 500 when in fact the company only intended to get rid of 500 anyway.
During the "negotiations" for concessions in 2003 the committees was given "options" for meeting the figure for concessions. One of them was to reduce headcount to meet the figure. The company and the TWU figured that they would not choose that option but they did. The company came back and said No, the could not continue to run the company if they got rid of that many people. That is how this union and the company work together.
Concessions will continue, as I see it, as long as they are approved by the membership.
How do you really know that the members approved it? Conduct your own poll. How many admit to voting yes? If you recall the TWU pulled a fast one with the ratification vote. They usedd CCC to make the presentation to the Presidents council but hired AAA, where Anne McNamara, an AA executive who had just recently resigned sat on the board. AAA used a seqential pin numbering system and allowed for votes to be changed using that pin number after they are cast. So the International could sit back with a list that they had and simply change votes without anyone knowing. AAA also deleteed the entire list of Crew Chiefs, 3000 members who would tend to be older more senior NO votes.
Besides the cop out of "the members voted for it" is a poor excuse. The union has a responsiblity to act as an agent for the members. If the union gives the members the wrong or misleading information, or fails to obtain or reveal pertainent information that would lead to having the members reject the contract then they are to blame for a lousy contract, even though they membership voted yes.If the members are responsible for obtaining and distrubuting such information then why are they paying clowns like Little, Gless and Yingst six figure salaries? Why pay the union at all if we are supposed to do it on our own?The fact is those guys are incompetant.
This has got to end. Following our industry I see the big companys throwing themselves in front of the BK judges in hopes of getting relief from their current contracts, and they are getting that relief.
They are "getting it" because the unions of this industry, for the reasons already discussed,have shown themselves to be weak. If the unions had made it clear from the get go that any attempts to attack our contracts would result in disruptions none of this (other than the typical cyclical layoffs that go with recessions) would have happened to us. Our leaders are to blame. They must go.
Giving one more dime's worth of any benefit is not going to assure your company will not still seek BK.
Agreed, just as the $1.8 billion already given didnt either. All of our concessions went right into Bush's buddies, the Saudis, pockets.
If we are to seek another profession, then so be it. I personally did not vote for the concessions, but this is a democracy and the numbers won.
Thats disputable, we only know what the posted results were.
All we can do is attempt to educate the floor in any upcoming desires the company may have on our paychecks. We are all here for one reason, to have the ability to raise our families and earn a lifestyle just a tweak better than poverty level. I do not know of anyone that comes here to work that is a millionaire.
Well our International reps are well on their way, selling us out has its benifits. Over the term of our contract Jim Little will earn just about $1million in pay and benifits.
I wish I had an insight as to what would return our profession to being just that, our profession.
The first step is to get us all into one union where the leaders can be held accountable. We do not seee other professions joining business unions that will represent anyone willing to pay dues like the TWU. We pilots in pilots unions, electricians in electricians unions, plumbers in plumbers unions etc. Even if we can reform the TWU we would still be all split up. This point is more important than Little vs Delle. Its a question of do we sit back and remain in a company friendly business union that has without question done a lousy job or try going back to the basics of unionism and try to unite our whole profession, then once that is done try to help other groups that we work closely with do trhe same?
You know as well as I that the unions have done a lousy job in this industry the only difference I favor trying to do something about it. As bad as things are for you in MCI, its worse for us in high cost areas.
I personally see AMFA as our only option to unite the profession. What do you suggest?
AA is not going to be able to keep all heavy O/H inhouse.
The fact is that AA spends more on outsourcing than any other carrier and those carriers like UAL actually saw their maintenance costs increase after outsourcing. So why couldnt AA keep it in house?
AA has to be able to compete with those that outsource, where will they want to make up the difference, our wallets is where!
Not true, those other carriers were forced to outsource in order to try and compete with AA where AA has enjoyed lower labor cost for the last twenty years.
We need someone to begin an effort to organize and unionize.
We have that, AMFA. Sign a card.
The company has got to be laughing at us, yelling at each other "AMFA is better than the TWU", or "TWA was a waste ". We are not sending AArpey the message he should be hearing, "Fire the incompetant management!".
Arpey and Little are in bed together. And you are right, they, Little included, are laughing at us. Did you miss the fact that AA gives the TWU $3.1 million a year? And despite all that we have given up and the companys continued financial distress they continue to do so? Did you miss the A-1 passes Little recieved to take his family to Hawaii ? Did you miss the fact that the whole reason why we gave concessions was to save managment from getting fired? Thats right, if we had gone into BK the most likely result would have been that AA's management, that led us to bankruptcy would have been fired. The company would not have recieved the concessoins they did because there was no precedence. The TWU imposed concessions surpassed anything that any of the Bankrupt companies got in BK.
