Letter to Carty

[blockquote]----------------On 12/31/2002 9:10:56 AM FA Mikey wrote: I have seen Jane Allen's reply. She points out, she like all senior execs and union officers, fly positive space. There is no way she would be bumping a paying passenger at the gate. Also noted that her entire family is 3 not 4. She checked about the Orchid drop. AA never did, sales, marketing etc. She even went so far as to see if the ad agency may have for a commercial or something else. The answer was No. Just wasn't true. The cappuccino test was just that a test and a bust. For parking AA doesn't pay a daily rate for the close up parking. Its charged at the same rate as the employee lot. They are allocated a set number up front in the contract. I can't believe this girl remembered the S 80 automated PA test. But she is really digging to go back to the late 80's to find something. Jane Allen pointed out is was a test and bust as well. Crews and customers didn't and didn't work well. The other points about the terminals JFK and MIA, They say they are more expensive to try to stop, than just continuing. No escape clause's in the contracts. That goes for the two arena's as well. Lost time and grooming? Hello, seen some of our people. The worst part about it, it is because, due to a few trouble makers. ----------------[/blockquote]

Positive space for any employee, should be only for business travel. The top folks make enough to buy themselves tickets when they travel for pleasure, for the stingy there is id90, and having them buy tickets, makes them rub shoulders with the hoipoloi, aka customers.

Ditto for prefered reserved parking, to paraphrase "Up the Organization by R Townsend: if you have to cross the parking lot you meet interesting people, and if you don't have designated aprking no one can tell if you are there or goofing off." They might also understand the first impression customers, vendors and employees get every day they come into business business.

Would D. Carty have made a fuss about the new security regulations if he were allowed to just by-pass them? Maybe that is the problem with the TSA etc, are the folks in Washington, I mean Senators and Congressmen, etc. subject to the rules they have imposed on the public? Anyone at the D.C. airports know?

So called bad business decisions are in the eye of the beholder. Cafe makers, the pre-canned announcement system on MD80, and so forth, if you don't try it you'll never know if it works. I wish they had kept the inflight phones as origionally set up, handsets in front and back of the cabin, after all we went from no phone booth in the sky to many and now back to none; cell phones are illegal in-flight, 9/11 usage not withstanding.
Aircraft purchases, I don't want to touch that subject, you can never please all of the people all of the time, but the folks in Dallas are not even pleasing some of the people ever.

If the terminal plant in STL is as worn out as it looks, then 14 millinon is not even a start, and fixing jetbridges makes for commonality system wide.

Billions for terminals, I can recall when the luxury touch was the ramp agent with the umbrella stand, so you'd get to the terminal dry. With today's digital display technology do all the airlines really need dedicated gates and terminals?

What the industry needs is a friendlier atmosphere again, check non-passengers through security and then let them roam the gate area as in pre 9/11, a ticket and boarding pass are a small prize for terrorists anyway. Not being able to see relatives and friends off sucks, same for arrivals. JFK's international arrivals terminal with the visitor's gallery upstairs is a good compromise between security and letting people watch for arrivals.
 
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On 12/31/2002 9:28:36 AM Hopeful wrote:

What I can't understand is that in M&E, they are STILL HIRING SUPERVISORS!
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Because supervisors and TWU alike are still retiring, being fired, or leaving the company voluntarily, and at some point need to be replaced.

For all of 2002, 11 supervisors were hired off the street at the three bases. That's hardly what I'd consider out of control hiring. There were also 100 TWU represented workers hired off the street during the same timeframe at those same three locations. That doesn't include recalls or transfers.
 
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On 12/31/2002 7:28:49 PM eolesen wrote:

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On 12/31/2002 9:28:36 AM Hopeful wrote:

What I can't understand is that in M&E, they are STILL HIRING SUPERVISORS!
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Because supervisors and TWU alike are still retiring, being fired, or leaving the company voluntarily, and at some point need to be replaced.

For all of 2002, 11 supervisors were hired off the street at the three bases. That's hardly what I'd consider out of control hiring. There were also 100 TWU represented workers hired off the street during the same timeframe at those same three locations. That doesn't include recalls or transfers.
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I see the excess of supervisors at TUL.Explain to me why 2 supervisors are needed on the same shift on the same aircraft.Explain to me why every Dock position has its own manager instead of 1 manager per hangar as it was in the early 90's.We STILL have twice as many non-productive supervisor positions as are NEEDED.It will remain this way until the top management at Tulsa acknowledges this and changes it.Don Carty will not believe a union employee when they tell him of the excesses.It will take an upper management person to inform him of this or it will just remain the same.Until AA management is willing to clean up its own house FIRST,TWU should not give them back a dime!
 
What I agree with is the comparison of the pay rates between SWA and Carty. Let them also come down and adjust their lifestyle like they want us to do to our. While I agree that they should make plenty of money, they should not be excessive as they say about us labor types.

"Mr Carty, Tear down this WALL!!!!!!"
 
Explain to me why at Miami they have hired 10 new supervisors after 9/11. These guys are falling, tripping and stumbling over one another. No retirements from what I hear is happening. No one can convince me that AA is not wasting money on management payroll. Oh yea, lets shut those APU's down and save a buck or two. Get real folks. AA does is not serious in cutting costs, only blaming labor for its financial problems.
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On 12/31/2002 11:12:40 PM 1AA wrote:

Explain to me why at Miami they have hired 10 new supervisors after 9/11. These guys are falling, tripping and stumbling over one another. No retirements from what I hear is happening. No one can convince me that AA is not wasting money on management payroll. Oh yea, lets shut those APU's down and save a buck or two. Get real folks. AA does is not serious in cutting costs, only blaming labor for its financial problems.
[img src='http://www.usaviation.com/idealbb/images/smilies/7.gif']
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I agree with the statement that we have too much supervision but one thing really has nothing to do with the other. I support the idea of stopping waste for several reasons. Waste does not help us or the company. Burning fuel for no reason pollutes the air that my children have to breath and wastes a valuable resource. Whatever savings are gained through the elimination of waste can weaken the companies argument for concessions. So keep shutting down those APUs and saving wherever you can. If they come for concessions then you can point out that our behavior has resulted in huge savings for the company already, in fact it demonstrates that we do not need so much oversight. I hate to see any one lose their jobd but the surplus supervisors could be sent back to the floor and used to make up for the attrition that Eoleson mentioned.
 
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On 12/31/2002 9:49:47 PM Hopeful wrote:

But other departments have cut management's ranks! Why is M&E exempt?
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But we've also furloughed people all over the system -- so why are there recalls going on? Why have we hired mechanics off the street? Don't we have enough already?...

Simple.

In addition to the layoffs, which in theory brought us to minimum staffing, there is still "normal" attrition due to retirements, firings, and resignations. If management layoffs actually brought staffing to minimums, it is inevitable that staffing would fall below the minimum of people required to run the operation.

AA has between 1000 and 1500 employees eligible for retirement every year. That's just retirements. We probably have just as many resignations and firings. During 2002, we also had voluntary leaves.

If we lost 2% or 3% due to attrition, plus furloughs, how long do you thing we can go without ever hiring or recalling someone?

Do the math for yourself. If you don't like the answer, keep doing the math until you find an answer you like, and then share it with the rest of us, OK?...
 
Eoleson;
In 1991 the ratio in Maint of Supervisors to TWU was around 1:20. What is it now? If it is higher why? The company ran well in the past with minimal management.
(source Airline Labor Relations in the Global Era pg 206)
 
I understand that there is an actual shortage of mechanics at the TUL maintenance base for the projected work volume? This of course could change tomorrow.
 
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On 1/1/2003 10:37:42 AM Bob Owens wrote:

Eoleson;
In 1991 the ratio in Maint of Supervisors to TWU was around 1:20. What is it now? If it is higher why? The company ran well in the past with minimal management.
(source Airline Labor Relations in the Global Era pg 206)
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Bob Owons; I'm told the current ratio (for the bases at least) is somewhere around 1:26, which compared with your stats for 1991, means there are 20% fewer supervisors than there were 10 years ago.
 
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“Alleged response”? Ok I guess you got me there. Sorry, I don’t have any proof other than FA Mikey that there was a response. FA Mikey, when you get a chance, could you scan a notarized copy of the response and post on the board. Thanks. ;)

I admit it may be a mistake to assume that it was a flight attendant who distributed this, but who cares who I think is the one that photocopied it and sent it around. It doesn’t change the fact that this was distributed to mislead other employees, not to help them make informed decisions.

As for employees being “entitled to question those at the helm”, I agree whole-heartedly, and they should.

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Dont listen to Wing a bitter ex or possibly current employee. Jane Allen's responce is available on the FLTSVC web site.

Please anyone who would believe AA hired helicopters to drop orchids on people or places is as goofy as the girl who made it up in the original letter to AA HDQ.