How do you know who to argue your position with if you dont know how they voted?? Your "Too busy shuffling notes"???That sounds pretty lame.
Since when do you need the blessing of others to release what is being said at negotiations? Isnt that why you were elected??
Did you vote "for" or "against" bringing the current proposal forward? Who else voted for it? Who else voted aginst it. Was there any argument not to bring it forward?
You argue your position on the motion before you vote, and not everyone speaks on a motion. Usually its only a few people who speak, sometimes several times, as the debate goes back and forth. Someone may make a point that you want to address but several others may speak before you get a chance to respond, so I jot down notes of what I want to respond to and hope that somebody doesnt call for the question before I get to speak.
I voted against presenting this to the company and will do the same if its accepted by them, I informed my members who else, with their permission, that I saw, voted with me and yes there was heated debate against bringing it back. If your not a member of our local ask your representative.
These were some of the points I put fwd against bringing it back.
Too concessionary: it does not restore anything, doesnt restore our pay, our industry lagging vacation accrual, our industry lagging Holidays, our industry lagging sick time accrual, our IOD etc etc.
Too long: at one point it was a four year deal, (remember this was the union negotiating against itself here)if the economy rebounds we will be stuck with these concessions. We make the same mistake over and over again by giving the company long term concessionary deals during the worst economic times. With that we were able to get it back down to three years.
No pay increase till 2010: this will lower our "real wages " by at least another 6%, making it even harder to recoup the nearly 40% decrease in real earnings (when holiday pay, vacation etc are included) we've suffered since 2003. So even if we get the one time infusion of a 6% signing bonus (to be based on regular hours worked no OT) it comes at the cost of a lowered hourly rate, in real terms that compounds your losses year after year. If inflation upticks, which it did last year we are looking at a 50% deacrease in real earnings since 2003 by 2011. Rememmber percentage increases must be higher than percentage decreases in order to get back where you were.
Example. You are earning $10/hr, you take a 50% pay cut, that brings you down to five dollars an hour, but if you win a 50% wage increase it will only bring you back to $7.50, you would need a 100% increase in order to get back to where you were after taking a 50% pay cut. Even more when you factor in inflation.
No Retro: if our first increase isnt until 2010 then there is no retro.
Workload:According to the company they have plenty of work till 2012, and even then, if they didnt get more work such as 3p they were looking at a 600 to 800 person reduction in headcount, we would probably lose that through attrition alone (with or without this concessionary deal). We know they are booked through the next two years, lets stick to our original table position and at least try and get back to where we were in 2003. Even if we give the company this concessionary deal there is no guarantee that those jobs wont be eliminated anyway, in 2003 we gave up all those concessions to save 2000 jobs and the company then went and eliminated around 3500 jobs.
We lag the industry: If we go to the company negotiations page, even it shows thats we are nowhere near the top in pay,(and it doesnt show UPS), we are dead center and Continental, who is already ahead of us in pay, benifits, vacation, sick time Holidays etc, after going BK twice, has been in negotiations since January, the IBT is going for their first post BK UAL contract in December, those workers have already changed unions twice, if the IBT doesnt prove themselves they may find themselves replaced by AMFA. The IBT is still sore about SWA, where they negotiated industry leading everything and were then replaced by AMFA, so they are likely to be more agressive at Continental and UAL even though our proposal diminishes their leverage significantly. (If this proposal ends up getting ratified it could end up costing the TWU dearly. In the past, in other industries, with the AFL-CIOs blessing, the IBT has raided other unions that undercut them.)
No GEO Pay. It seems that the company and the ATD are intent on turning us into an MRO, so we wont be airline workers, we will be MRO workers. Then if we are at the bottom of the charts as far as airlines the ATD and the comany will say "You can't compare us to them, be happy you got a job". The problem is that MROs tend to be either in low cost areas or overseas so their wages tend to be lower. Line workers can not afford to live on MRO wages so we need Geographic premiums in order to get by. What was really upsetting about this was the line stations didnt even stick together. The whole package was pushed by the President of one line station. One line President said he voted against it because stations like New York and LAX line stations would be getting more than his station. Another Line President said that since things are so bad in the high cost areas that "a $1.25 wouldnt make much of a difference anyway". The whole GEO Package was only $5million a year. How many cancellations and delays does it take to cover $5million? My guess is that performance improvements in the line stations, driven by increased morale would cover this cost many times over.
If the current proposal is accepted by the company then ratified by the membership we will end up being near the bottom of the industry in pay by 2011 and the gap between us and the top will be around $10/hr. We will have several carriers that went BK ahead of us in pay, holidays , vacation, sick time, OT etc.
My concern here is that the company may accept this deal, one reason why they may is that unlike our Title III guys we are not at the top in pay, and once the IBT announces what they are seeking at Continental (they are already making around $10k more than us) AMRs chances of getting anything better will diminish significantly.
If the company doesnt accept it I feel the mediator will threaten to "put us on ice" if we try and return to our former table position, at which point the ATD will step in, throw out a few more BK comments, followed by a few "lets get some cash in our members pockets" quips and a push to "stay the course", "fight for your members"(by selling them out), and "be leaders and make the hard decision(to do what I tell you to do even though you are screwing your members).
My concern is that with this offer the company hit a triple, will they go for the Grand Slam two contracts in a row? If they take whats offered and it gets ratified they already won, by coming back for more the gains would be minimal and they would risk a total collapse of negotiations and a possible negative reaction on the floor.
Those are my concerns about how this will pan out, others do not agree, time will tell.
While the ATD keeps talking BK we dont hear any such talk from the company, instead we hear about new airplane orders. A contract in place lowers the risks for creditors and AA can get better rates. Billions will be borrowed to buy new airplanes, a 1% drop in the Intrest rate on $1 billion is $10 million saved. Depending on how much and how long the loan is for they could save hundreds of millions by having contracts in place.
Just remember, ultimately itwould be up to you, if this thing does come back, VOTE NO. We've waited this long, lets wait and see what the IBT goes for at Continental before we throw ourselves under the bus again.
