10213-1300=8913
During the AMFA drive the union and the company claimed we had over 18000 mechanics. I think the AMFA list was closer to 15000. So we have lost at least 40% of the mechanics.
40%, thats pretty close to what the bankrupt airlines cut, plus you have to figure in that some of those cuts at those airlines were due to the fact that those airlines used BK to get mechanic job eliminating concessions that the TWU put in place two decades ago (pushbacks etc).That was good for a 20% reduction.
Using the company union figure of (18000-9000) x $80,000*=$720,000,000 a year less in payroll costs that we were given ZERO credit for.
This is the reward you get for "Working Together". Help the company find ways to do more with less and after the paycut they lay you off.
The reason why they are telling everyone that the 1300 is coming from "somewhere else" is because they dont want to see performance decline even more-they are lying. Pretty much everywhere is going to get hit when you lay off 13% of the workforce. Who knows what the number will be, maybe more-maybe less.
The A-300 B-check at JFK was mentioned , well they've only been doing a couple of B-checks a week for months, on the off days they either work contract maintenance or help with the line planes and there is still OT. So even if they terminate the B-check its doubtful that they could lay off the 40 guys or so that are assigned to it. Even if they did, that would still leave 1260 more.
The Rumor we heard is that LGA was going to get hit hard. I think they have at most 200 guys and I think LGA has more flights a day than JFK. How much can they cut them? Even if they closed the Station that would still leave over 1000 more. Thats not likely.
The only way that these stations that they are claiming wont get hit, dont get hit, is if they decide to close MCIE. This isnt wishful thinking I'm just looking at it for what it is. Tulsa will always be AAs #1, AFW is new, state of the art, plus they have Taesel. MCI may be very productive and management may claim they are impressed with its output but from what Ive seen that doesnt matter. The only numbers that really matter to them are the ones that they are more familiar with dealing with-demograhics and costs associated with it. MCI is old, the workforce is older-thus higher cost because of Max Vacation and more payouts to Medical and the company doesnt have to pay relocation costs for those who decide to bump the system. The output doesnt matter because it assumed that output is the same regardless of what it actually is.
My guess is that the majority of the guys in MCI have max sick time and max vacation time. Not counting TWA there are only around 375 guys that have more than 25 years seniority in Title 1. So there are probably more guys with max sick time and max vacation time in MCI than in the rest of the system so if they shut MCI before the guys are able to burn off their sick time and save the extra two weeks a year of vacation time(not sure if you guys get the holidays off) they would save an additional $7million. Figure the two weeks of vaction time amounts to $2600 a man each year plus paying out $25 a day vs full pay saves another $4400. So by cutting out the most senior men they can save an aditional $7million plus the savings of closing down a base. They could keep nearly 100 more mechanics on payroll or just pocket the extra savings. Plus they get to write down the base and claim even bigger losses.
By closing down the most senior base the company only provides at best, 20 days of paid time off for the majority of the Title 1 workforce (since over 90% would have 4 weeks or less of vacation time)-20 paid days off is usually the starting amount that most companies provide-10 vac and 10 holidays. This would improve the figures they like to look at even if it does nothing for the bottom line.
I wish you all good luck, who knows, maybe they wont lay anybody off, if we all just stopped working OT maybe they couldn't, but you would need a union to do that, and we have the TWU.
* I believe the company actually uses a figure of $85,000 to cover wages plus all other costs per mechanic. If we used that you could add another $45,000,000.
Pull Together Win Together, with the TWU we will win-the race to the bottom that is..