j7915,Aug 15 2004, 05:13 PM]
If it costs more to farm out how come NWA is farming out wheels and brakes? Now to mention UAL? When are you all going to stop selling yourselfs short? Are you really so insecure and incompetent as to believe that everyone who touches an airplane requires the skills and license of an A&P?
I think what he meant is that it would cost AA more to farm out that work because the TWU gave the company low cost labor like OSMs, low wage A&Ps with low cost(to the company) benifits, less vacation, no holidays, no doubletime etc.
The typical attitude I have seen: "I do the same work as the other guy" is what has gotten us into this dead end. Bring someone off the street and he is up to speed in two days may have work on Henry Ford's model T assembly line, however if you really believe it applies to aircraft maintenance then you also believe that experience means nothing. And management has only heard that "anyone off the street can do your job and should recieve equal pay from day one". After all that is the mantra of management, anyone can manage anything, without knowing the work or the product. As always you get what you wish for.
Are you saying that an experienced mechanic who leaves one airline for another will take 5 years to come up to speed? He only has 6 months to make the grade or the company will let him go. Not only that but starting everyone at top pay would protect older workers who lose their jobs elsewhere, the airlines would scoop them up first before hiring kids right out of school. Why hire someone who will take years to come up to speed if you can get someone who can produce right away? Clearly there are no negatives for A&Ps to getting rid of long pay progressions.
Long pay progressions are good for the company and for Internationasl officers because it builds in automatic pay raises for the International. Long pay progressions are bad for mechanics because it makes them more dependant on the company, punishes mechanics that move from airline to airline-thus promoting loyalty to the company instead of the profession/union, and lowers his lifetime earnings by thousands of dollars.
Why should union workers agree to a policy that impeads our ability to move from carrier to carrier? If mechanics could move easily with as little penalty as possible from carrier to carrier then we would have much more leverage at the bargaining table. While our seniority is important we should not allow it to be used as the greatest weapon the company has against us.
I don't mean to pick on wheel and brakes, but they do have a very wide range of skill requirements. If Bob Owens feels that he could only break down wheels as a higly paid A&P, then that answers the question as to why that entire line of work is being farmed out by some carriers.
Well we could break down a lot of the tasks that A&Ps accomplish and farm all of that out too but is that what you call protecting the profession? With your type of thinking, before you know it there will only be a handful of A&Ps in the whole company! Are you pushing for FAR66 too? The fact is even if the work is simple, monotonous or otherwise unpleasant we, as professionals and union men should fight to retain the work. At the very least never give up anything unless we get something of lasting value in return.
Where are you, Rusty and Bob coming up with the idea that I am trying to split the membership? I have never said it, I don't say that I should be paid as little as someone who is not an inspector, and does not have the final sign off responsibility. I firmly think that I deserve the extra pay, as do crew chiefs. If there is no differential why take the job?
What are you talking about?
Are you saying that we should have every simple job accomplished by a non-A&P and then signed off by an Inspector or Crew Chief? Dont you realize that the FAA still has FAR 66 waiting in the wings? Under FAR 66 the company can issue their own non-transferrable "certificates" that will allow unliscenced A&Ps to sign for their own work. Dont you realize that the TWU has been playing right into this program with the OSMs? First they transfer the simplest jobs to non-A&Ps and have an A&P sign off for it. Then they start with more complicated jobs, still having the A&P sign for it. Then they issue the OSM certificates and they no longer need the A&P to sign for it.
So jobs once accomplished by A&Ps are gone forever. No different from the A&Ps perspective than if it was shipped to Singapore EXCEPT for one thing, if it goes to Singapore, those workers do not have a part in determining what the A&P over here gets paid. Basically what the TWU has done is divide the workforce to the benifit of the company(low wage workers), the TWU (more dues payers) and the detriment of the A&P mechanic (divided class & craft and less jobs available).
The damage this does to the entire workforce with the resultant low wages is why none of the other unions in this industry agreed to the things that the TWU has consistantly agreed to. What amazes me is that none of these unions had the balls to make charges against the TWU in the AFL-CIO! This may be due to the fact that for most of those unions the ATD was only a small part of their overall membership. But the result of the TWUs "Walmart" style unionism" (we give employers the lowest rates -everyday!)is that just as the union retail stores are getting wiped out by non-union Walmart the carriers that they have members in are getting wiped out by the TWU-Company union, represented AMR.
So over a period of time we see thousands of A&P jobs eliminated, in the meantime the schools are still pumping them out. Less jobs available for A&Ps, plus a punitive system that ties the mechanics fate to the company means less leverage at the bargaining table, not to mention the fact that the new mechanics replacing the A&Ps-the osms, would have non-transferrable certificates. This is the companys dream, the A&Ps nightmare, and people like you and the TWU are working hard to make it a reality!
