Kicked When You''re Down

A320 Driver

Veteran
Aug 24, 2002
3,358
2,319
www.usaviation.com
I'm not surprised. Sorry, you guys worked hard and put out a great product. You deserved better than this. I worked with most of you, and you guys are class acts. Hurts worse when it comes from your co-workers.

A320 Driver
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I will try and make this as short and to the point as I can but I must provide background. I am extremely frustrated as so many of us are in this business and I am just wanting to get some other points of view or suggestions on possible courses of actions.

I am currently furloughed as of June 1. Former Airbus F.C.T.I. (ground instructor). Member of the TWU union. In our last restructuring agreement the company gave our group, as I believe they did others, stock as an incentive to sign. We obviously signed that agreement and our group was given 101,000 shares. At the time of signing our group had 111 members. I am not exactly sure about the specifics of the formula that was used to determine the amount of shares but basically it was based on 111 people's give backs over seven years. Evidently, the company left it up to the union to decide how to distribute this stock. Here comes the dilemma. Approximately 35% of our group was furloughed on June 1. It is our unions leadership view that a union member is only eligible to receive a disbursement if they are an active employee at the time of disbursement. One can obviously see the problem. When our president finally informed the union of his intentions on this matter, after the beginning of May, the junior members put a proposal together that gave all 111 members their fair share of stock. We had a vote on this matter with two proposals. View 1 which gave all members a fair share of stock, and View 2 which basically stated that if members were not active employees at the time of disbursement their shares would go to the active employees. Our president's philosophy is that the formula used to determine the amount of shares given to the group was based on W-2 wages and if a union member is furloughed he has no W-2 wages and he is not giving up therefore he deserves no stock. View 1 won the vote by one vote. So all is good and us people who are without income have a little something, although who know what it will actually be worth, as a parting gift. Not so. Our union president simply cancelled the vote! Stating there was controversy over the count and just wanted to make sure that we got an accurate and fair count. WE HAVE THE PHYSICAL BALLOTS ! So two months after everyone is furloughed,(out of sight out of mind), we get a new ballot in the mail for a revote. Guess who won, by four votes. View 2. Big surprise. I apologize for the lengthy post but I really feel strongly about this for obvious reasons.

My point is this. In this agreement our group was given 101,000 shares based on 111 people's give backs. If there were 65 people on the property at the time there would not have been 101,000 shares awarded, obviously it would have been a lesser amount. So how can our union president,(I use the word president loosely because he is self appointed meaning there never was or ever will be any elections), actually feel that these shares belong to him and the rest of the senior members? If one truly believes in his philosophy that the 101,000 shares are based on W-2 give backs then the amount of shares awarded should be reduced coinciding with the reduction of W-2s! So basically the Local 547 is stealing money from U.S. Airways and giving it to the people who still have jobs, completely at the expense of those of us who do not have jobs, have families to support, and most importantly of all gave up their jobs to save the airline so the very people who are stealing this money can have a paycheck!!! There never even should have been a vote on this matter! Our leadership should never have even considered the option of keeping the furloughed people's shares for themselves.

I appologize again for going on so long but it made me feel a little better just doing it. I appreciate all who took the time to read this. It's a matter of ethics, responsibility, accountability, and just doing the right damn thing for once. What gets me most is all of the correspondance that refers to me as a union Brother.

I would never fatten my wallet at the expense of my brother's hardship.

Thank You for Listening,

Good Luck to All