“Say NO to TeAAm Videtich”
Pretty much says it all.
Their campaign will be all about history as told by Don Videtich. How we should have accepted whatever the company offered and not dare say NO to our master. Local 591 is Don and the ATDs attempt to rebuild TeAAm Videtich again,elected guys who do whatever the appointed Don tells them to do in hopes of following Don into the International so they too can enjoy a six figure salary two pensions based on their Union Salary, A-5 passes and Admirals Club Membership and never face an election again. Ironically Don is trying to capitalize on the punitive terms he helped put in place, with the assistance of Jim Ream, and member dissatisfaction, to re-establish what took the members over three years to disassemble. Sure there may be new faces but make no mistake, they are TeAAm Videtich. The same people who locked us into the worst deals in the industry for 15 years.
TeAAm Videtich will tell you their version, here is mine;
First lets look at 2003. We were told that in 2003 the International convinced a slight majority of the membership to accept concessions that were in excess of what anybody had up to that point given up even in Bankruptcy. (Bankruptcy is supposed to level the playing field not create an advantage over competitors) In fact UAL had just weeks before settled on a deal with its mechanics in BK, and it included far less in concessions than we gave up-it was inevitable that upon seeing what AA, the largest carrier in the country at the time, was able to get outside of BK that the Creditors committee at UAL was going to reject the deal, and they did, UAL remained in BK two more years.
UAL, (unlike AA eight years later), was really “broke” when they filed BK. Now lets first clear up by what I mean by “broke”. First of all debt is not really the cause of BK, nearly all large companies carry debt, what causes companies to file for bankruptcy or default is "cash flow", the ability to service the debt. Debt is not the same for corporations as it is for people; people need to eliminate debt because eventually they retire and their cash flow is reduced, often down to minimal levels. Corporations do not have to worry about retiring, just maintaining cash flow. Inadequate cash flow causes bankruptcy, surely high debt loads is a factor because higher debt loads usually translate into higher cash flows needed to service that debt. In 2002 UAL was running out of cash when they filed BK, in other words it was a real BK. DIP, the whole nine yards. What we had last year at AA is something different, a BK of convenience, not necessity. AA had plenty of cash in the bank and their revenues for the year were at record highs, there was no real crisis.
OK back to 2003, UAL had come to an agreement where they actually reduced the concessions the company won with their 1113e(?) filing where they were allowed by the courts to impose new terms, UAL imposed a 14% cut with the 1113e and in negotiations agreed to knock it down to 13%. Then two weeks later we agreed to a concession package that essentially cut our compensation by at least 25%. Donnelly, who came from ECLAT, the same company that AA hired to convince Union leaders that they needed to open their contracts, utilized a scheme known as a roll up adjustment to maximize the savings for the company. Part of the roll up scheme was not so much to reach a dollar figure of savings for the company but to scam the workers out of as much money as possible by giving the company two bites of the apple. It basically compounded the savings for the company. Let’s say they said if you give up a week’s vacation its worth $10 million, so you give up the week. But then after you give up the week they say you need to cut your wage by 17% in order to get closer to the number, so you cut your wage by 17%, then they turn around and say, "well since you cut your wage the vacation isn’t worth $10 million any more", so you have to find another concession worth $1.7 million. In other words they were taking two bites of the apple, Instead of saying that the company needs to cut x million from their expenses it was twisted around to the employees must give up x million out of their pockets, so when you cut the wage you also cut "the value" of the other wage driven concessions requiring even more concessions to reach your out of pocket target, but for the company it compounds their savings. Who hired Donnelly and Éclat? The International.
In other words we wuz robbed.
Local 562 sued the International and AA to stop the concessions and allow a revote, at the time Don Videtich was Local 565s President, after we lost our attempt to get a TRO Don was the first President to bail, lacking the support of the rest of the line Locals there was no point in going forward. In hindsight going for the TRO was a mistake because we were limited to proving that by not issuing the TRO we would be irrevocably harmed instead of being given full opportunity to present and argue the whole case.
.
We were swindled by the people who were supposed to be checking the numbers and making assumptions that favor us, not the company. This became even more apparent when we asked for stuff back in 2009 and despite the fact that there were 35% fewer of us than when we gave it up some things cost more to get back than when we gave them up.
Another Donnelly / Éclat / Videtich / International scam is that when we give stuff up they only valued it annually but when we ask for stuff back they value it over the term of the contract. So they tell us we are only giving up $320 million, but that’s per year, but when we want restoration they spin it and claim that we are asking for nearly $2 billion in increases (6years x $320 m). This is how Don and Donnelly would spin things to the committee on a frequent basis.
In 2003 the International told us that with the Early openers that in three years, 2006, we would get it all back (Now they are saying that in three years we will get our wages adjusted to the middle of the industry, how likely is that?) 2006 came and went and seven years later the International has still not delivered.
Ok I wasn’t involved in 2008, I came on in 2009. But I still think that as a Union we were right to say NO to another round of concessions.
2009.
Don and a few of his lackeys, all of whom have been removed by their members since, went around the system doing what they called "The Road show".Fitting term. As a newly elected President I sat in on as many of them as I could. I also felt that it would give me the opportunity to try and let them know that despite the fact that some of the guys in the Road show had come to JFK the week the ballots went out to campaign against me that as far as I was concerned it was in the past and we needed to get our guys a contract as quickly as possible that would at least bring our pay, benefits and working conditions up to where we were in 2003. At the very first meeting I caught Dons spin show, the razzle-dazzle with his sidekick Gilboy. He basically told the guys to work hard to make AA profitable so we could get some of the gains, he also was telling the guys that our standing in the industry was good, that Continental may make a few pennies more but our medical was far superior than theirs so “all in” we were way ahead of Continental. Don also claimed that the strategy they were using was to "remain credible, and maintain the high road" in negotiations. That meant “aim low and hit even lower”.
You have to remember that at the time “TeAAm Videtich” consisted of the overwhelming majority of the Committee, you had Hard Core and Soft core members. The opposition was basically Pike, Ruiz, McMahon, Argentina, Zimmerman(who did an abrupt about face later) and myself.
Following Dons first razle-dazzle show I got a hold of the Continental Contract, you have to remember that of the 25% we gave up only 17% was wages. I showed Don that when you added in the value of the things we gave up (Holidays, Vacation etc) that in fact the Continental contract was worth at least $10,000 a year more than ours. After showing Don all the Data Don no longer made that claim, at least not in my presence.
The Road Show promised "Restore and More" although the table position was barely "Restore" let alone "More". That was their slogan long before I got there and even though I would have preferred a higher table position such as “Industry Leading” I figured we should take what we can and decided to support the table position as it stood. Despite the fact that they had been meeting since 2007 in 2009, nearly a year after the Amendable date, we finally entered Mediation with the NMB (I believe they asked in December of 2008). Pushing to change the table position would have likely been counterproductive at that point.
White Spaces.
Only months after going around the system with "Restore and More" we had the infamous "White Spaces" presentation given to us by the company. In the presentation the company claimed that they were running out of work in the bases and that if they did not get enough 3P work to fill the “White Spaces” in the dock plan there would be massive layoffs. This was where TeAAm Videtich revealed itself and sprang into action. (Three months later most of the hard core guys would have International titles-within three years they all would be voted out by their members). With Don Chairing the Committee TeAAm Videtich started saying that we needed to trash our modest table position and do what we can to “enable the company tofill the White Spaces with 3 P work (by working for less)”. I cited that even if the White spaces did materialize three years from then (this was only a projection) that more than likely attrition would probably absorb any headcount reduction that resulted. Don insisted that the workload projection was set in stone and those white spaces were coming, that we had to find a way that AA could price their labor competitively and attract 3P work to fill the white spaces, that my assumptions were way off base and that at best we were looking at maybe 100 guys a year attritting out between 2009 and 2012. I said that since 2003 the annual rate was nearly 5 times that and likely to accelerate due to our aging workforce. Don disagreed in his usual dismissive manner. As Chairman he gets to determine who speaks when and always gets the final say. TeAAm Videtich was usually permitted to interject whenever they felt like it, a privilege that Steve Luis used freely, but everyone else was supposed to wait their turn.
As a result of “White Spaces” our table position was trashed, GEO pay was thrown out along with many other provisions. The panic drive was in full swing, we needed to “save jobs(by giving AA anything they want)” a theme pushed by the ATD and TeAAm Videtich to the very present, a theme they will continue to promote if Don gets his boys in 591, a strategy that has locked us into the bottom of the industry for another six years.
A month later in a meeting with management unrelated to negotiations the company admitted, much to Dons frustration that my numbers as far as attrition where much closer to what the company expected than Dons was. You could see Don trying to get the company guy to lower the number but the guy didn’t catch Dons hints and steadfastly stuck to the higher number, nine months after that , in the company’s next presentation all the “White Spaces” had disappeared, AA was recalling and hiring mechanics again. The “White Spaces” scare initiative was dead.
One by one the membership was removing “TeAAm Videtich”, but the electoral process is a slow one. In fact it took until Jan of 2012 for the process to remove all TeAAm Videtich’s Hard Core Line Presidents. Pike, Ruiz, Argentina , McMahon and Myself were all, much to the ATDs frustration, reelected. We finally had all the Line Station Mechanic Presidents(Except STL) and one base on the same page-Don was losing control. 591 is the Internationals final attempt to restore TeAAm Videtich.
So, now we are back to the Spring of 2010, the White Spaces “exercise” is dead, Most of “TeAAm Videtich” now holds International titles and the “White Spaces” that were set in stone have melted away. So TeAAm Videtich, along with Jim Reams next move is what became the 2010 TA. Don claimed that there was no room to negotiate and it was take it or leave it. It was a zero cost contract, gains in one area would be paid for by concessions elsewhere and even though TeAAm Videtich prevailed the members rejected it.
Normally after three years of negotiations and two years after the amendable date and over a year of Mediation immediately upon rejection of a TA and the Mediator admitting that further Mediation will probably not resolve the dispute the Union demands that the process move forward by demanding a release. A release may, or may not end up in a strike, but it certainly makes everyone lay their cards on the table, stalling comes to an end once the process enters this step. You are released but expected to negotiate, after 30 days the parties are freed to self help or the dispute is submitted to a PEB where they propose a resolution. Normally the PEBs are accepted by the parties. Instead the International chose to do nothing. The strike vote had already been taken yet they did nothing. It took three months before the International even had the negotiating committee meet and four months before we met the company.
2010 is not 2005. By 2010 many stations had exhausted their recall lists and industry articles were already citing that MROs were having difficulty attracting and retaining mechanics. Since 2001 half the A&P schools in the country closed their doors and the rate of new certificates issued were steadily declining. We were in perhaps the best position ever as far as forcing the company to come to a deal, but Don and the International did everything they could to piss away the opportunity. They refused to progress to the next step in the process and instead kept up the fear campaign. They reorganized the negotiating committee, determined to burn out those who resisted more concessions and exhaust our resources while they “kicked the can” down the road. They put all the No Voters on the committee and we were told that we owned it. We spent nearly six months on the 1/7[sup]th[/sup] rule, and when it was settled Hewitt thanked us for supporting him, then turned around and said “Its time to get to the nut cuttin and some feelings are going to get hurt around here”. So now that the 1/7[sup]th[/sup] rule was done and the company refused to move on anything we started pushing for a release, now the rules changed again, we no longer owned it, now anything move we made had to go back to the full committee-more International created delays. My motion to ask for a release after several months of no progress was tabled till the full committee could vote on it. By now Woodward was gone and much to the frustration of what was left of TeAAm Don, including its new converts from Tulsa, the motion to ask for a release passed because many of Dons reliable Yes votes were on Summer Vacation. John Carlisle took it especially hard, I told him not to take it too hard, that despite the fact the motion passed we would not be asking for a release because Don would find a way to spin it so we didn’t ask for a release. John said he didn’t see how that could be the case since the motion passed. I said wait and see. He still believed that we had control over the process.
Jim little Intervenes.
Jim Little “requested” that we hold off on requesting a release. He said that he had arranged for Larry Gibbons to step into the process and that Larry would read the riot act to the company and get them to move and if the company didn’t move he would ask for the release. I had already researched Larry Gibbons past, as a former executive of AirCon, an organization funded by the airlines that’s sole purpose is to help airlines screw over their workers, I doubted that Gibbons would be sympathetic to labor and informed Little of how I felt. Jim shot back “Do you know the man?” I said NO, Little claimed that Gibbons had been very helpful to labor in the past but failed to elaborate as to how.
Needless to say Gibbons did the exact opposite of what Little led us to believe he would do. Instead he attacked us, saying that we needed to give AA whatever they wanted and that he did not think the President would let us strike and that since we were leading up to an election the NMB would not release us either. (This was his biased opinion as a Union buster-All through 1113 negotiations Gibbons dined and hung with his fellow AirCon alumni, AA VP Mark Burdette.) Team Videtich, now with the assistance of hired help in the form of labor lawyer Mark Richards once again sprung into action, now after ensuring that most of his reliable YES votes would be in place the full committee decided to not ask for a release. A month later Zimmerman was gone. The balance of power was slowly shifting away from TeAAm Videtich. Peterson was no friend of Videtich and Viditech didn’t have anything on Peterson to force him onto TeAAm Videtich. Don only had one major Line Local President left in his pocket, Steve Gilboy-and his election was the same as mine-December 2011.
With the introduction of Rojas and Peterson Dons hold on the committee, while still in place was starting to slip. TeAAm Videtich was steadily losing ground with every election. When the negotiating committee met for what would be its final meeting before BK Tulsa finally agreed to ask for a release, but the date had to be November 30. I was disappointed because a Nov 30 release request would push us back past the Holidays for a release but I voted in favor, better to ask late than not at all. It wasn’t until November 29[sup]th[/sup] that it occurred to me there may have been other motives for that date. Maybe it was coincidence but that’s the Day AA filed BK. Two weeks later TeAAms Videtich’s last Line Maint President was voted out and I was re-elected. The International called all the Presidents to Dallas, including American Eagle. We were informed that we were “Invited to participate” but that we really had no say. The International owned it and we were there to contribute but our participation was at the sole discretion of the International. The International also used this meeting as an opportunity to once again try and beat me down. Their hired hand, Mark Richards criticized me for revealing how Donnelley tried to screw us by accepting unfavorable assumptions on the cost outs, and had John Connelly read a speech by Donnelly (thereby negating any opportunity where I could challenge him on specifics) where Donnelly touted his credentials and ended with him saying that with all his credentials he was certainly more qualified to make such and assessment than “Bob Owens with his A&P”. As I listened to that I was contemplating asking if Donnelly got his “credentials” from the same place Little did but I saw no point in it at the time. Shortly after that Little started on me about the Bobby Gless Video where one of my members, showed up at the hotel where they were forming the Creditors Committee. The member had requested an interview with Bobby to answer some questions but Bobby kept refusing. Little was saying I should bring the member up on charges. This was after Videitich had also made the request in private, but now Little was calling me out in front of the whole room. I asked Little if he was giving me a directive to bring the member up on charges. He asked “Don’t you think what he did was wrong?” I said “It doesn’t matter what I think, the question is was he within his rights under labor law?”Little finally backed down when I asked him what the charges should be and what evidence he had to support them.
January 2012, we are in BK negotiations, they have their Lawyer Mark Richards there repeatedly stating that our objective is to “save jobs”, Jim Little was there for the first few days, each morning he would start off with the same speech about saving jobs and the company was going to get the savings they want no matter what we do. That we had “a lot of work to do”. By the third day I had enough so I told Jim we heard that speech twice already so how about letting us just do what we have to do”, Jim exploded, started cursing at me, telling me I should just get the F#%^ Out and that I only gave a #### about myself. I told him I had to live under the deal and wasn’t sitting on a $200k a year salary telling everyone about tough decisions, he countered with the claim that he took “three paycuts”. I didn’t leave, told him my members sent me there and they can remove me anytime they want, unlike him.
By now TeAAm Videtich was down to secondary supporters. All the Hard Core guys were gone, Griffiths, Luis, Pecararro, Zimmerman, Woodard, Bernal, Zimmerman and Gilboy were all voted out. Mark Richards was now the first string. Mark Richards is a Lawyer out of Miami and because he was a lawyer the Title II guys from Fleet Locals, Tulsa guys and Charlie Meyers simply took what ever he said as Gospel. When I kept challenging him one of the guys said “Bob why wont you do what the lawyer says, he’s a lawyer, he an expert”. I said “Because he is not MY lawyer, I didn’t hire him and he is here to promote the interest of those who hired him, not us”.
Seeing that the Line Presidents and Larry Pike were not buying into the “Concessions to save jobs” line, especially after they already made it clear they had no intentions on keeping AFW open no matter what we did, the International split us up into three groups. Line, base and Title II. Tulsa never batted an eye about closing AFW, they just sought to grab what they could for Tulsa. Each group was given a portion of the concessions and told to present a plan of concessions to meet that goal. The company never looked to see what the line came up with, or if they did, they never engaged in any real negotiations. They did however meet with Title II and Tulsa repeatedly and after making some changes TeAAm Videtich once again sprung into action, called a roll call vote and decided to bring the deal back “as is as a TA” without the Line guys ever getting the opportunity to meet with Ream and discuss line issues. When we approached Ream and Gary Peterson tried to tell him that we never discussed our proposal Ream said “I’m done with you guys”, turned his back to us and walked away.
So the TA is out there and the ATD, Local 514, along with the Chamber of Commerce of Tulsa and a cooperative press mount a full blown fear campaign that ignores the fact that there is a growing mechanics shortage in the industry and AA has a huge fleet of aircraft that nobody else really wants to overhaul and under the guise of savings jobs gets Tulsa to remove the most solid job protection language they ever had-System Protection. Despite the fact that AA had the largest ever order for new aircraft in place they voted in language that would allow the company to return aircraft to the vendor without a Final overhaul by AA. In other words the people in Tulsa voted away any protection they had at a time when the company could not afford to let them strike and left themselves without that protection for the future when as new aircraft come in and the MD-80s go away they can afford to let them go. The protection won’t be there when they need it.
The deal passed with a 74% yes vote out of Tulsa. TeAAm Videtich got their deal in place, but half the guys on the team still don’t even know what they did, the other half undoubtedly knew.
Ok the deal is in place, less than a year till the TWU Convention. TeAAm Videtich comes up with a plan that under the worst of outcomes would mean that the opposition loses 7 delegates, under the best of conditions TeAAm Videtich takes over all representation on the line. If the leadership of the five line Locals rebels and rejects 591 he gets a clean slate where he gets to plug in whoever he can find. This will compliment the “Committee” structures that Don has in place, funded by removing UBB from the line locals. Several groups of unelected individuals who hold positions under Don where they are permanently on special assignments getting paid by AA with some getting a 10 hour a week stipend on top of their 40 hours pay that may bring their pay up to SWA pay. We don’t know for sure because this is another one of Dons secret deals, never put out for a vote. He doesn’t have to worry about these guys getting voted out of office because they are appointed and he has bought their obedience and loyalty.
So that’s where we are now. Peterson, Ruiz, Rojas and Owens decided to keep fighting TeAAm Videtich and their destruction of our profession. We have formed a slate of people that we hope will help us continue to fight. McCormick decided to throw all his efforts into stopping 591 from ever materializing, we support him in that endeavor.
Over the next few weeks expect the ATD to be sending stuff to your home in support of TeAAm Videtich, of course they won’t try and market it under that name but that’s who they are. Who else would spend that kind of money to get the job? Don specifically wrote the bylaws so that the person who loses gets the position if the winner is removed. So if Don inituiatyes a Kangaroo Court he could remove Peterson and put Soldeviere in place. Hopefully the members on the line, who saw through the BS of 1113 and overwhelmingly voted NO against another six years of industry bottom compensation and the destruction of our profession will vote and will see TeAAm Videtich for who they really are.
Help us continue to oppose TeAAm Videtich, we already have Steve Gukelberger and Brian Friedman in the Local they are imposing on us. Even if you have written off the TWU and are hoping for a representational change I would urge you to vote. Help us fill the rest of 591with guys who will Oppose TeAAm Videtich.
Here is a list of guys I hope you will vote for :
President Gary Peterson
Vice President Gary Schiable
Treasurer Bob Owens (Me!)
Recording Secretary Jorge Rojas
Title 1 EB Jim Filippelli
Title II EB Eddie Suarez
Title V EB Joey Voccolla
West Coast Division John Ruiz
Southwest Division Gerald Mishak
Southeast Division Jimmy Knapp.
Fraternally;
Bob Owens
President
Local 562
