Nightwatch said:
Yeah Booby, all upset amfaites are furloughes IAM officers......and you're a well respected individual....HAHAHA!
[post="189523"][/post]
Well, as at least one Local President brought up at the TWUs recent summitt, you know "Communication, communication , communication," over 9000 TWU members have called for an election between the TWU and AMFA (even though it was edited out of the vidieo that was released) .
How many AMFA members have filled out cards calling for an election between the AMFA and the TWU?
When I attended "TWU New officers training" the TWU said that the membership of any union can be divided into several categories from "High patriots" (10%or less) to "gripers" (10% or more) with the vast majority being "fence sitters". It appears that even AMFA has their share of gripers, but as the recent card drive at AA showed over 9000, far more than 10% want to hold an election at AA. There has been no such drive at an AMFA represented carrier. These are not the fence sitters. They are active participants. Do you really feel that the TWU even can claim that 10% are "high patriots" for the TWU?
All that AMFA needs to do is get a few more fence sitters or some of the 2000 that the TWU and the company added to the class and craft and there will be a vote, and as International Rep Bobby Gless stated under oath, the TWU "would lose".
Many times I've asked this question, still you TWU supporters will not respond. "What is wrong, or anti-union, with the desire for our class and craft to unite under one union?
The AFL-CIO unions even discussed the idea of uniting all the airline workers into one union after deregulation, but their greed prevented this from happening (told to me by IAM reps Ed LaClair and Sito Panjonia).
Twenty years gone by and workers in this industry, which despite current difficulties has expanded and prospered, are consistanly seeing their living standards decline. Clearly the structure of unionism, not just any one particular union has failed the workers of this industry. Clearly unions like the TWU which boast about increased membership amid our declining living standards has no plans whatsoever to address our problems.
How low will they go? Well with the TWU all we have to do is look at outfits like Triangle, Worldwide, Ogden, basically all the lowest paid "union" jobs on the airport. Having the TWU in place is safer for greedy companies than not having any union. I say this because as those outfits, and AA, prove, with the TWU the company can do as it pleases as if there was no union without worrying that their workers will get a real union. The AFL-CIO charter prevents this and until recently workers had no other options. However now we do, AMFA and the AGW.
Mechanics have AMFA and everyone else has the AGW. AMFA will seek to continue to unite the entire class and craft while the AGW will try to unite everyone else. THe AFL-CIO unions want to maintain the status quo, in other words maintain the same structure and policies that have resulted in cutting our real compensation in half over the last twenty years.
With both AMFA and the AGW airline workers will be able to pick their leaders. Whereas with the TWU we have just seen Sonny Hall retire, only to be replaced by his hand picked successor, a man from a rural School bus driver Local that is so tiny that they dont even have to bother to file an LM-2, Mike O Brien. So now the President of our Union, a union that represents 60,000 airline workers, is a man who never worked in our industry who probably never made more than $9/hr as a worker. By working for the Interests of the likes of Sonny Hall, Mike OBrien is now earning more than 10 times more than he ever earned as a TWU represeted worker. Do you really think he will change a thing? And airline workers have no say whatsoever in who runs this union. The same goes for the IAM and the IBT where airline workers are a minority of the union.
With the AGW airline workers will be the entire membership. School bus drivers who never had to work odd shifts, wekends or holidays will not be appointed to run the AGW, airline workers can pick one of their own. With AMFA airline workers will be the majority but hopefully the AMFA will organize third party maintenance workers too once they secure our class and craft in the airline industry.
AMFA and the AGW seek to alter the structure and unite workers while the AFL-CIO unions continue to do nothing but deliver rhetoric and make excuses as our living standards decline.
What is the right choice? Stay with unions that we do not control, can not change and blame us for our decline or try something new?
