Well, the biggest challenge to getting a good agreement is making sure the membership is informed and has the will to fight for it. As a Union leader I feel its my responsibility to give the members as much info as I can so they wont make their decision based primarily on information the company chooses to feed them.
When I first got into office the negotiating committee was using SWA for comparasions that favored the company but then not using them for comparasions that favored the workers. I was told that "we cant compare ours wages to SWA because they dont have OH". Well who does? We were using other carriers who earned the same or less even though they farmed out nearly as much OH as SWA and we were using SWA CASMs and other metrics but not wages. Much of what I heard from Union representatives was simply whatever they were told by the company or the Economist they hired from Eclat, the same company that duped us in 2003.
I chose not to rely on what the company wanted to feed us and look for info that supports our demands. Perhaps I'm being bold but I'd like to think that some of the info I put out had some part in the rejection of the substandard TA that was rejected last August. Since then Continental agreed to an interum deal thats superior to our rejected TA, Jet Blue has started paying their guys as much as $38/hr, and UPS just settled a deal that brings them up to $50.13 by 2013. $17/hr more than us with fully paid medical, retro and bonuses.
The company has exhausted their recall list, with huge numbers declining the recall and they are scrambling to find mechanics to accomplish the work they have. In fact several initiatives have been delayed due to not being able to get the staff in place. They've reinstituted the Flex rates in several locations in an attempt to lure people in, the problem is in places like New York they arent getting anybody locally with the quals and the ones with the quals are from elsewhere so they probably wont stay. The option of sending the work out really isnt there because third party maint providers are also having trouble getting staff for the work they are already committed to and the airlines continually suck out what they have, AA being one but not the only one of them. Several other carriers are looking for mechanics as well. Even SWA is hiring mechanics this year despite their recent merger. While UAL/CAL announced a layoff none of them were mechanics. Kalitta had to ship mechanics in from overseas, with most of the growth for Aviation projected to be in Asia most of those workers wont stay either. There are only around 140 A&P schools left in the country and many of the students in those schools are foreign nationals that will get their tickets and go home because thats where most of the future growth in Aviation will be. In other words despite the economy, despite the fuel and anything else they want to throw out there we are in a position to make some serious gains, thats the purpose of putting this info out there because when everything is said and done it is the membership that will either accept or reject the contract and they will do so based upon the information they have. Their willingness to take on the company is really the only leverage we have at the table.
If you look at the rejected TA you can see that the company's objective was to use their OH A&P staff as a huge pool to supply the line for the next several years. Its obvious that the intent was to drive the A&Ps out of OH to the line, and to do so at wage rates that would give AA an advantage over competitors who will have to compete with each other for scarce fresh meat off the street. With only around 3000 A&P mechanics a year getting certified, many of them with no intentions on working in the US Airline industry, those carriers will be forced to agree to much higher wages to attract the interest of the few young workers that have an interest in the airlines. FBOs will be forced to pay more as well, further increasing competition, and those higher costs will be passed on to the carriers. If AA had a huge pool in OH of mechanics, who are tied to AA because of the seniority system which discourages Airline hopping, with an economic incentive to go out to the line they would be in a very advantageous position. Right now the company is looking at its OH as a huge pool of what is rapidly becoming a scarce commodity, A&P mechanics, and they are looking for language that would allow them to harvest it at very advantageous rates.
So at what point will this lead to a contract? I cant say, as you are aware the RLA is very restrictive but I do believe that if the company knows that we have them where we want them and they know that we know it as well and are prepared to do whatever we need to do then we will get a better deal than if I didnt dig up what I could and said nothing. The situation is becoming critical for the company, if they wait too long they will face manpower shortages and the inability to recruit needed workers because they will be competing with other carriers for those workers. When managers come to the union asking them if they know anybody who may be looking for a job you know they are desperate. They may have 900 applications but how many of them are qualified?
