Tim Nelson
Veteran
I thought the Grand Lodge was suppose to be Neutral? And I hope it isn't true that Roach scheduled a meeting in HNL on the members dime while he's at the Pro Bowl today.
At any rate, your opinion is 'unfounded' in the "Halls of Labor". Your opinion is the profanity of profanities and is no more than 'devilish'. But I will respond to your utter nonsense.
It seems you have an eye towards the company as opposed to the workers. In your 5 paragraphs you didn't mention one thing about the workers, just kept pointing to the company this and company that.
Item 1: You say, "His [Delaney's] own members in Chicago don't like him. What's going to be the difference in having an experienced Randy Canale and an inexperienced Rich Delaney? Randy's experience brings more leverage to the table than Delaney.
Randy's experience of what, screwing members with his cost neutral concillitory bargaining? Puh leesseee. Delaney was barred from the UAL negotiations because he didn't agree with Canale & his team going back to 1999. Delaney is the senior AGC on the system and has plenty of experience.
At any rate, cost neutral bargaining doesn't exist and should not be tolerated. Where was this "Cost neutral' bargaining when fleet service lost it's arse in Bankruptcy? Further, the most critical difference in good negotiators and bad ones is if they can solidify the workforce. Randy ends each of his letters by talking about solidarity but he has failed miserably in this aspect. Each time he negotiates, he writes a goofy love letter telling his members that things have changed and you shouldn't expect squat. He's not negotiating anything, all he does is try to soften up fleet service so big Al can bring in a nasty contract again.
As far as Delaney and Chicago members. I happen to work in Chicago and when I decided to help out on this ticket I went around all the ready rooms and asked how they felt about Rich Delaney and 100% of them said that he was the best AGC they have ever had. This was further demonstrated when those he represents supported him in dominating fashion last week when they nominated him by 80% of the vote. I counted the ballots and I can tell you if we had counted all the void ballots that he would have beat Canale by over 200 votes. I have no idea what your talking about saying that his own members don't like him, hell, they just nominated him in dominating fashion!! OTOH, Canale's needs policemen at his own local. US AIRWAYS doesn't like him and neither do the United workers. At ORD he got lambasted and decided not to even show up. In Denver he got a whopping 4 votes out of 150 and his sidekick Vic Payne got only 2 votes in DEN even though he had 4 AGC's on his own ballot. So 2 of Canale's own AGC's didn't even vote for Payne.
DistrictForce sez, "We have been in touch with the Locals who have not nominated yet and I'm confident that theyour slate is filled with members who all have personal District agendas even though they have not even served their Local membership
Everyone on our slate has served their membership very well. In fact, they've served their membership so well that they were even able to get their own membership to nominate our slate. OTOH, the District's slate sucks at representing members. This is evident as PF couldn't get a dozen votes out of 130 in PHL, Canale even less. RE was the least vote getter in ORD as her local endorsed US AIRWAYS fellas over her. In Denver, much of the same, same in JFK, same in PHX. Has any member of the Canale team come through for other slate members?
As far as your nonsense about upcoming Locals, we are shooting for 25-30 Locals and already picked up 10. We feel confident of this but your opinion is as valid as mine at this point. We'll see.
Item 2 "Cost Neutral" Bargaining. Doesn't exist. You think it does because management gives you the appearance that it exist. There is nothing cost-nuetral in this company except when the IAM's at the table. Ask Parker if his latest greatest contract was cost neutral? Rubbish! This company also tells you it is a Low Cost company so you govern your bargaining on the company terms. In reality, this company is said to be putting things together for possibly acquiring Continental or United airlines [AP Business WIRE, February, 9th...There is speculation that US Airways Group Inc. could bid for Continental or United, although it might need a partner who can bring cash to the table.
DistrictForce said, "Do you even know what cost neutral negotiations are? Where is this leverage you keep talking about that Labor has in this environment?
Leverage is high for Labor. As the news report indicates, US AIRWAYS needs financing to do some acquiring. They need a transition and that's why they are at the table AGAIN. If Labor didn't have any leverage then the company would wait till 2009 without question.
DistrictForce said, "how much experience you have negotiating contracts? do you have enough experience to determine your company's financial health?
Any negotiator is only as good as the solidarity behind him. I don't care if we had superman negotiating for us, if the members aren't behind him then he has no 'juice'. Presently, the members aren't behind Canale at all, but we have shoved Parker's boy to the sidelines and have taken over negotiations with our solidarity across the system.
As far as your comment about the company's health, the scoreboard sez they made 1/2 billion in each of the last two years. But let's focus on the members well being and stop worrying if rampers are going to bleed a mega billion corporation to death. Puh leeeaasseee!
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email me here and get your station the NEW DIRECTION TEAM info that it needs.
Gotta go,
Regards,
Tim Nelson
IAM Local Chairman, 1487, Chicago
