Hypocrisy from TWU-ATD

[eolesen]

Please bear with my jaded opinions here as a former manager who has serious problems with how bass-ackward M&E management is.

I truly believe the rest of AA's management has made great strides in changing from how rigid things were under Crandall, to being a lot more empowered to try new things under Arpey.

Yet, despite making the move from blue uniform shirts and AA logo ties to golf shirts and khaki's, M&E still seems hopelessly stuck in the 70's...

You seem to be under the impression that all M&E supervisors do is approve CS's of PV's. Well they do a bit more than that.

No, that's really not my impression, having been a supervisor at the airports and working quite a bit with the M&E supv's on ETOPS flights out of JFK and ORD.

I think you'd agree that simply having an A&P doesn't make someone a competent mechanic. It just means they took coursework and passed an exam.

If the supervisors aren't turning wrenches or signing off work, why limit the gene pool? Anyone with a decent amount of AA experience and some common sense should be able to lead people and manage an operation just as effectively (if not moreoso) than the guy hired off the street.

I've had some great analysts work for me without college degrees, and I've had absolute oxygen thieves with their masters in information systems who still couldn't code their way out of a wet paper bag. One of the best shift managers I worked with at the airport was a former flight attendant. They had no idea how to do the agent's job, but had enough common sense to know what was and wasn't right.

I hate to use the word diversity because of its other connotations, but when you only cull your managers out of one area, you tend to get the same type of people. Start pulling from other areas, and the diversity of backgrounds might help things within M&E as a whole. Until they start changing how middle management is populated, I don't think you'll never see anything better at the MD and VP level, and quite honestly, some of the MD's and VP's I've seen in action wouldn't be qualified to manage the auto shop in STL if it weren't for their A&P's.

But again, that's just my jaded opinion.

 

[Bob Owens]

I really do think that M&E is an exception to the rule when it comes to quality of their supervisors and managers, mainly because you can't take a good manager from one area and place them into a production supervisor's job or production manager's job because those positions "require" an A&P. Otherwise, I would have gladly looked at manager jobs in TUL years ago.

That's not to say that good people aren't moving into those jobs, but I think there are more than a few who are simply AMT's on a power trip and really weren't qualified to lead people. I've seen that at the L5 and L6 level when working with TUL on projects (far less so working with AFW, never worked with MCI). My gut has always said that the A&P requirement means that the gene pool for candidates is so shallow that they wind up simply pick the best of the worst in order to have a warm body in the position.

I'll defer to the AMT's on why that requirement is there, but my opinion has always been that it isn't necessary to have the license in order to manage workload or people. How many times does a manager or supervisor really have to sign off on work?
Consider this for a moment -- a large percentage of the managers and production supervisors in maintenance also held a union card at one time or another. When you promote someone out of the rank and file, friendships don't simply dissolve their because someone's pay grade changed. That in itself can lead to the appearance of a somewhat cozyier relationship between the union leaders and management.

Perhaps the limited choice comes more from the fact that there is little financial incentive for an A&P to go into mgmt?


As for the idea of having people with no maintenance experience managing maintenance all I can say is we would have a field day, and probably get our pay and benifits back, or shut the airline down.

 

[eolesen]

As for the idea of having people with no maintenance experience managing maintenance all I can say is we would have a field day, and probably get our pay and benifits back, or shut the airline down.

Based on past results of having AMT's negotiate against AA's lawyers and finance geeks, I'd say that's a long shot, Bob.

Then again, if you had a few finance geeks in place who knew how to argue properly with the geeks with corporate finance, perhaps you would be getting the proper staffing, as opposed to having a bunch of bubba's who simply accept what finance gives them as-is...

 

[Bob Owens]

Based on past results of having AMT's negotiate against AA's lawyers and finance geeks, I'd say that's a long shot, Bob.

Then again, if you had a few finance geeks in place who knew how to argue properly with the geeks with corporate finance, perhaps you would be getting the proper staffing, as opposed to having a bunch of bubba's who simply accept what finance gives them as-is...

Well coming from someone who is against unions, who believes that every A&P, FSC and Stock Clerk should be free to negotiate their own deal without interference from a "union" thats quite suprising. Basically you are admitting that most people are better off having someone else negotiate for them. Even if the levels of education may not be evenly matched the fact is that when you speak for thousands of members (even bubbas) it adds a lot of leverage, and leverage is pretty important during negotiations.

By the way AMTs negotiated the deals at SWA and UPS and they are doing pretty well, at AA the deals are made between Little, who was never an A&P, and the company.AMTs never negotiated directly with the company, everything was filtered and orchestrated by the International.

As for the finance guys and their data, to me that is all part of the problem where corrupt union officials hide behind figures. In order to justify their betrayal, where they accept $3.1 million a year from the company while they force concessions on the membership, they adopt the companys propaganda package and sell it to the members.

Go ahead fill maintenace management with people with no maintenance experience, they would get the planes stuck up their behinds and never even realize it. In fact if we didnt get it back at the table we would get it back in OT and they would be thanking us for the effort we put forth. Read Bethunes book, he's been on both sides. Like he said you can make them work all night but you cant make them fix anything, especially if you dont know anything about airplanes. So sure they can use their education to screw us at the table but when the plane breaks on the line its all ours, and what they take away there we can get back here, but instead of having their planes flying, making money, they will be sitting on the ground, costing them money. Right now I have to work around 10 hours of OT a week to make up for the concessions of 2003, with your plan I'm sure I could easily make that. Go for it! I'll sign the list!!!!