Having read the Tenative that was just voted it (ratified) I can not believe the Teamsters Think they are in a better bargaining position with the new UAL than the IAM is. The CO contract is a joke of a contract. They got that piece of junk agreement in a profitable year? I now know who the real negotiators are. The UAL IAM agreement is a concessionary agreement with a bankrupt (at the time) carrier and is still far above the IBT / CO agreement.
I now know without a doubt when it comes to the representation vote who I will vote for. and it is not James Hoffa and the IBT.
As I said in a previous forum, about 5200 people voted. It went 84-16 percentage.
What happened to the other 2700 or so people? In my opinion, a lot of people were apathetic. Some people still didn't want a union; some people didn't care which way it went - they just wanted their promised money; some people (like me) voted against (the minority); some people didn't care for all the propaganda on both sides (IAM-IBT); and some people just wanted to put their faith in the IBT because they think that the IBT will do better the next go around. A lot of people know that this is a bad contract, but people voted yes anyway, because we needed something instead of not going the non union route. A lot of people on this board will complain (and rightly so), but I'll say it again: this result is the failure of the IAM in 2008-2009 to win a very easy election.
If you know the history, 2008 was the year of the so called oil spike. Larry cut a lot of jobs before he went out the door. There were 2 rounds of cuts: 2008 - IAH & CLE got cut. 2009 - EWR and some outstations got hit. People lost their jobs, and a lot of guys got pushed to PT. They gave us 2 small increases + area differential - not restorations) in pay to placate us. After many failed drives, we were hungering for a union at that time. A lot of us had the foresight to know that a potential merger was coming (all the signs were there at that time, especially when NW/DL pulled the trigger), and since we didn't have a union , we needed something going into any merger. So we had a card drive and got enough cards for the IAM to represent us. What happened: to vote was about 180 or so people short of victory. We asked the IAM to send us some help (since they organized the card drive and got the signatures), but they had the NW/DL battle to face, PLUS a Boeing strike to attend to. We were an afterthought. All they needed to do was to campaign harder and marshall in some forces to put us over the top. We lost. So the IBT saw an opening and took it. You can't blame them on that. They put on a great campaign like never seen before and won. They won a lot of the undecided voters. With the old voting rules still in effect (they were already changed, but the IBT won with the old rules) So some people will put their faith in the IBT because they cared. Will we get buyers remorse - we probably will. They are great campaigners, but lousy negotiators after seeing the results of this POS. But the dues will start flowing in and the IBT will be happy.
Who will file for single carrier first. I will continue my support for the IAM on this one. I feel that they are the better union for us.
But they will have to organize like never before. You don't have NW/DL or Boeing to distract you this time (except negotiations with our FA's) so they will have 2 battles: Jeff & CO; and the propaganda machine of the IBT. You now have a very receptive audience; once the effects of this bad contract take hold, people will want change. I would love to see some UA people help us out on this one as well. Some of them I've talked to explained the reasoning of their BK contract, and also the major differences instead of reading about it from some leaflet in the breakroom. They intend on getting back what they lost. Like anything in life, you have to sell yourself, and the IAM aren't good salesmen in that effect.
Can they win? WE will soon see as we will definitely be doing this all over again.
