UAL747mech-
I think your paragraph is probably the most comprehensive as to why the mechanics voted "no". But as an outsider, most of these reasons you list will not be improved by a "no" vote and forcing the company into bankruptcy, and some of them don't even make sense in the first place, no offense. And I don't direct the below observations directly at you UAL747mech- I'm just trying to make sense of your observations.
1) they don't trust the company, the union
There isn't an employee group on the property that completely trusts the company, but we have to work with the new cards we were just dealt. Will you trust them more in a bankruptcy where you contract could be, let's say, "open to discussion"? And if mechanics don't trust THEIR union, why would they vote "no" to drag the whole company down because you're not happy with THEIR elected representation?
2) they blame part of problems on the pilots for causing the company to go downwards during the summer of hell which resulted in a hefty pay raise for them and draining the money for the mechanics,
That "hefty pay raise" covered about 10 years of inflation (6 years back, 4 forward roughly). It's been discussed a million times here and elsewhere and broken down into the simplest pieces. If you still think it's a "hefty pay raise" when basically all it did was cover inflation and regain our snapback, I don't know what else to tell you. I'll admit the summer of hell didn't help, but it didn't drag the company into near bankruptcy. Perhaps you can take comfort in the fact that those horrible summer of hell pilots are having to give up 2 and a half times more than the mechanics for all that trouble they supposedly caused? : ) And I've said it before and I'll say it again. If you REALLY think that your mechanic's salary is dependant upon what raises or cuts pilots, flight attendants, rampers, or other employee groups get, in my opinion you're just plain misinformed. You get what YOUR group negotiates, and from I have seen, particually on the SWA AMFA site, you guys are some of the highest paid mechanics in the industry.
3) peterpaul for voting the us air fiasco, goodwin and his gang for the us air fiasco, bizjet that didn't make sense,
Join the club. We're all unhappy about that. How is voting "no" going to fix the past?
4)lack of contract after 6 yrs of concession, which took 2yrs to settle and concession is here again
Wasn't it YOUR union's choice to wait 2 years to settle your contract while you guys danced with the idea of changing your representation to AMFA? Further, weren't you guys waiting for NWA to settle their mechanics' contract so that you could "one up them" with yours? The IAM is a powerful union that could have settled the contract, like ALPA did, whenever they pleased in my opinion, and they chose to take 2 years for their own reasons. How does a "no" vote, or a "yes" vote for that matter, fix that?
5) giving up the pay raise we just got this year till 2008
Yup, I'll give you that. It sucks. But do the mechanics really think that voting "no" will make any significant difference in the amount of money they will give up in the near future? In or out of bankruptcy, IAM 141M (and all of us for that matter) in my opinion WILL be giving this holiday season, and you won't find it under the Christmas tree.
6) not getting full retro and paid in installment
See #4. I would imagine that any employee group on the property that waits 2 years to settle a contract would have to be paid in retro. Our contract was only delayed a few months and we were stuck with retro payments too. It seems to me that if you were unhappy about that aspect of your contract, that "no" vote should have been cast back when you guys voted for your last contract and not now.
7) no quality of life(****ty schedule and no flexibility) and on and on
That's probably a valid point too. But how will voting "no" and forcing the company into bankruptcy improve your quality of life? I would imagine yours, mine, and my co-workers' quality of lives would get worse in a reorganization.
