Mechanics target overseas airline maintenance

[MERV]

Associated Press
Mechanics target overseas airline maintenance
By JOSHUA FREED , 12.16.09, 12:01 AM EST


The union that represents mechanics at American Airlines plans to launch a publicity campaign on Wednesday aimed at steering travelers away from airplanes maintained overseas.

forbes

Don't know why AA TWU is focusing on this subject!!!! They should be trying to get us a new contract!!!!!!!

 

[The Goose]

"Don't know why AA TWU is focusing on this subject!!!! They should be trying to get us a new contract!!!!!!!

Doesn't the time-proven tactic of distraction come to mind?

 

[TWU informer]

Union members plan to hand out leaflets to members of the Senate

WOW! That ranks right up there with t-shirts with slogans.

Members of the Senate are offered almighty cash on a daily basis by the lobbyist seeking legislation and the TWU members are going to handout leaflets. Embarrassing Fools. This has been an issue since deregulation and congress has not acted yet, so what makes the fools think they will be heard this time? James C. Little is obviously disslusioned in thinking that his stolen money from hard working union members given to politicians has bought access. Not enough money Jim you are in competition with the rich.

Why not go hire some real negotiators, economist, and lawyers to represent your members?

 

[Jager]

Hey Senator... Have you got a minute...........

 

[frontline]

Amen! So sick of seeing other major airline sell out to Central America! In the end we get hurt because AA supports American jobs while the others get cost advantages by shipping the work out to foreign countries. At the least I want to see more oversight of these foreign shops by the FAA.

 

[MCI transplant]

<_< ---- I don't think just handing out hand bills will do much. But at least it's a start! And God knows that message has to get out somehow! I just hope and pray it won't take someone getting killed to drive home that message!!!

 

[eolesen]

Perhaps the unions should push for an expansion of a change they helped to effect a few years back...

Instead of showing where final assembly of the aircraft took place, your unions should be pushing for disclosure on where its last major overhaul took place.

 

[Hopeful]

Perhaps the unions should push for an expansion of a change they helped to effect a few years back...

Instead of showing where final assembly of the aircraft took place, your unions should be pushing for disclosure on where its last major overhaul took place.

Good idea. But airline executives will no doubt testify before a committee how there is no difference between aircraft maintenance done in the US or central America.

 

[MERV]

Amen! So sick of seeing other major airline sell out to Central America! In the end we get hurt because AA supports American jobs while the others get cost advantages by shipping the work out to foreign countries. At the least I want to see more oversight of these foreign shops by the FAA.

Its not only Latin America being use you got few airline using canada, asia, USA and many other countries you never hear of !! Their should be more oversight from both FAA and the companies who own the plane!! Many of our jobs in general have gone to other countries look around the house you'll find something not made here or not 100% of it!! our government sold us out to highest bidder for cheaper labor and for US WHO LIVE HERE THEY WANT US TO GIVE UP ALOT ALSO OUR WAY LIFE IS IN DANGER!!!
If AA wanted to spin the TUL MX OPS they would!!! They'll save on paying employees and their overhead in general would drop!!!! that wouldn't include the money they'll make of the sell of their MRO/Shop OPS!! And when their contract expires with the new operator guess they'll try lower their payments to them!! That if the Union allows it!!

 

[MCI transplant]

Its not only Latin America being use you got few airline using canada, asia, USA and many other countries you never hear of !! Their should be more oversight from both FAA and the companies who own the plane!! Many of our jobs in general have gone to other countries look around the house you'll find something not made here or not 100% of it!! our government sold us out to highest bidder for cheaper labor and for US WHO LIVE HERE THEY WANT US TO GIVE UP ALOT ALSO OUR WAY LIFE IS IN DANGER!!!
If AA wanted to spin the TUL MX OPS they would!!! They'll save on paying employees and their overhead in general would drop!!!! that wouldn't include the money they'll make of the sell of their MRO/Shop OPS!! And when their contract expires with the new operator guess they'll try lower their payments to them!! That if the Union allows it!!

<_< ---- "That's if the Union allows it!" That's what the "scope" clause is for!!!------
Or should be!!!?

 

[eolesen]

Good idea. But airline executives will no doubt testify before a committee how there is no difference between aircraft maintenance done in the US or central America.

So what? Did they testify before a committee that there was no difference between aircraft manufactured in US vs. those built in Brazil, Canada, or France?

The GAO figured that the actual cost of administering the "built in" requirement was less than $500K for US carriers. If they do it at the next printing of the cards, it's nil, since cards have to be replaced due to damage, theft, and wear & tear.

There's really no good way to argue against the "maintained in" disclosure now that the "manufactured in" requirement has been in place. If they try to stop it, you wind up with a scenario where someone will ask the question "if it's so safe to perform, why are you afraid to disclose it?"

If you want the issue to be front and center, then put it literally in the customers' hands.

 

[Hopeful]

So what? Did they testify before a committee that there was no difference between aircraft manufactured in US vs. those built in Brazil, Canada, or France?

The difference is labor cost. I meant that they would testify before congress in defense of cost cutting and eliminating thousands of jobs.And how if Congress were to ban or greatly limit overseas maintenance facilities,the airlines would be harmed having to pay more for maintenance.
They would defend it and say that is just as safe to have to have non english speaking people work on their aircraft as US mechanics, and that the security and non-existent background checks of these workers is not that important.

 

[eolesen]

Congress has no Constitutional authority to ban or limit overseas maintenance. Other countries would retaliate, and that would be downright ugly for all involved.

Fix the laws where you can fix them and have it stand up to a legal challenge.

The best you can hope for is to have them hold foreign repair stations to the same standards domestic repair stations are held to.

That's reasonable and defensible, and what Japan has done for decades to limit imports of US manufactured cars into their market. Japan doesn't ban US cars from being imported -- they just stipulate that they have to meet Japanese QA standards. US manufacturers have a hard enough time getting cars to survive thru their warranty period as it is.

Ironically, the US has successfully been able to protect the railroads this way. Europe leads the way with high speed rail, but none of the products in use in Japan, on Eurostar, or the French TGV can pass crashworthiness standards enforced by the Federal Railway Agency for locomotives or railcars....

If the railroads can do it, you'd think the airline unions could get a little bit of equal play.

 

[Bob Owens]

Congress has no Constitutional authority to ban or limit overseas maintenance. Other countries would retaliate, and that would be downright ugly for all involved.

You mean they dont have the authority to ban us from buying prescription drugs from Canada? They cant tell us how much money we can spend in Cuba? Of course they have the authority to require that all maintenance on US based and certified carriers has to be done in the US.

Otherwise I agree.

Its my understanding that of the top nine US carriers 71% of overhaul is outsourced but approximately 19% is sent overseas. So most of it does remain stateside. What I havent been able to dig up is how much work do foreign airlines send in to the US? I heard a story where Delta had contracted to do some overhaul for a Foreign carrier and was going to sub it out to a US based chop shop(while laying off their own guys), the carrier objected, they said that they contracted with Delta to do the job and they demanded that Delta Mechanics do the work(I think it was a Spanish carrier).

The 4000+ US based FAA repair facilities almost certainly do work for foreign carriers, I recall doing work for Foriegn Carriers many years ago when I worked in a shop. Look at places like Taesel; and UAL, they do engine work for Foreign carriers as well. So we really dont want to see an outright ban, because then we could actually end up seeing more work leaving than coming in. Instead, like you said set standards that places like Costa Rica would have a hard time achieving(the pilots have set high standards to enhance their bargaining position, we should do the same). The problem with that is our standards are pretty vauge (like our duty time limits which in reality take no consideration whatsoever into human limitations) and probably arent as high as what most industrialized countries have. We are to Europe what Costa Rica is to us. We should be lobbying that in order to perform any maintenance on an air carrier a person should posess at least one FAA Licence (or international equivelent such as JAA) and you can only sign for work that you actually accomplished or directly observed being accomplished. That would wipe out most of the 3rd world chop shops but not antagonize countries that already have high standards. It would also drive a lot of the US based chop shops into intense competition into trying to find or lure back some of the 300,000+ license holders out there. Thats why it probably wont happen, cheap labor is a more powerful incentive than quality maintenance, even if a few hundred people die.

 

[FrequentFlierCA]

At an absolute minimum any foreign operator working on a US-registered aircraft should have to be certified and overseen by the FAA. I'm sure some of these repair shops are quite good at what they do, but as a passenger I don't have the ability to distinguish between the airlines using "good" shops and "bad" shops.

I understand airlines wanting to cut costs by sending the work offshore, but if there is any degradation in work quality this is a totally unacceptable practice, especially since there are so many out of work mechanics in the US who could do a top-notch job.