I dont know of any union that has a weighted vote.
Normally each committee member has an equal vote and they decide what goes back to the members.Then the members decide, representatives from larger stations then have the ability to either try and sell or reject the deal based on their size and how the deal will affect them. Their size advantage gets one bite at the apple, not two like in our structure. What we have is 514 gets to decide what we vote on, by virtue of the Roll Call vote and then they have the larger membership.
You seem to forget that the line is to see reductions as well.
Under the plan the International put together 514 would have a little over 5000 T-1 and T-II members, they would get there by taking members from Local 567 and Local 565. 591 would have less than 4000 members and zero Title II members. Even If DWH were to remain in 565 and AFW were to remain stand alone and Title II remained as it is today 514 would still be bigger than 591.
AFW and DWH would add around 1000 to 514. DWH is on the same airport as 591 and 514 would be hundreds of miles away. AFW is only 30 miles from DFW yet they too would be in 514. That makes no sense, sure management may be different, but its the same contract.
When have I ever advocated outsourcing? I've been against rolling over every time the company threatens to do so, like you advocate. I thought the reason we were in a union was so we could act as one and fight to make things better for all of us, not have some of us be forced to accept the worst conditions in the industry because others of us are afraid to act like union men and women. I thought we have a union so as not let the company threaten one part so we all surrender and give away pay and benefits and hope that the company doesnt come back and do it again. That strategy has already failed, in 2003 when they threatened to close the base we gave up 25%, set a new low for the industry that helped push USAIRWAYS back for a second BK and everyone else in as well. Then we did it again in 2012, what do you think is going to happen in 2018 if we continue to let 514 rule with their Roll call vote and 5000 members? The same thing that happened in 2003 and 2012. Even prior to BK we had already outsourced A&P jobs to OSMs and FSCs, had been doing it for years, it took BK for AA's competitors to get such concessions. Our concessions were put in through attrition, as A&Ps left, their job functions were taken over by non-A&Ps, whether it was SRPs in the Shops in OH or FSCs doing R&D and Deicing on the line, A&Ps lost work. That option was not available to AA's competitors, we gave some of our concessions during the greatest economic expansion of our lifetime, post 9-11 the economy was in a recession. The only way AA's competitors could come close to matching what AA was able to get, thanks to people like you, without even going BK, was to outsource. So they did. In the meantime we gave up 25% supposedly to save jobs, ten years later we are once again giving in to supposedly save jobs, this time its another 17% on top of the 25%. Yet you come here and admit that jobs will be lost. You claim that if we had not agreed that more jobs would be lost. My question is do you believe their is a surplus of OH capacity for MD-80s out there? I dont, in fact "Capacity is tight". Do you think TIMCO or AAR is going to gear up to do MD-80s when they cant even handle they have now? Look at how they screwed up the 757 they OH'd and the seat pitch. How much did AA save there?
So what did we do? We claim we kept the MD-80 work in house, because nobody wants it anyway. As that work goes away we have no guarantee that we will get new work. Look at what our scope clause says.
In the term sheet they wanted to outsource 40% of the work, based upon man hours. Then they went to 35% of the work based upon man hours, so yes they reduced the amount of man hours from 40% to 35%, from the term sheet to LBOI but in LBOII they changed it to 35% of maintenance spend -including materials. In other words they increased the amount of man hours (ie JOBS) they can outsource and depending on the cost of variables, they can now outsource even more than 40% of the manhours that the term sheet they were threatening to impose allowed. The more they pay for materials the more man hours they can outsource. The less they pay for labor when they outsource, the more manhours they can outsource. As they reduce headcount, the more OT you work, the more work they can outsource as well. Great Move OS, you didnt save the bases, you sold them out, and agreed to bottom of the industry compensation on top of that!!!
Local 514 went and told their members to accept this deal, now do you see why I dont want 514 to sit there with their Roll Call vote forcing more concessions on us?
Come the next round of negotiations 514 will be even more vulnerable, with language in place that allows the company to outsource pretty much at will, at least as much as there is capacity out there to do the work, the company will use the same threat they used in 2003 and 2008-12 and get 514 to agree to even more concessions.
If 514 is willing to advocate super low wages for 514 and get their members to buy it then fine, thats up to them, what I have a problem with is 514 leaders that insist that whatever they are willing to agree to sell to their members (and hope they can slide into an International spot afterwards)that everyone else has to agree to it too. They use their Roll Call vote to get the concessionary ballott out there then with a fear campaign get their large membership to get it passed.
When the company proposed a modest adjustment for the line, 514 sudedenly switched and said that if the line got anything the bases did not get then the deal was DOA as far as Tulsa was concerned. Hewitt claimed that he voted against the 2010 deal, but he advocated for the 2012 concessions, what was the dealmaker? Was it the fact that there was no $2/hr line premium on 2012? Was he willing to give up retiree medical, the Pension and all the other concessions just to make sure that line maintenance did not get that extra $2/hr over the base? He was willing to kill the deal if the line got an extra 50 cents, Who knows, but we all are stuck with the worst deal in the industry because people like you, who claim to be Union minded,in fact, support the Walmart anti-labor approach to wages and claim that lower wages and less benefits are good because it allows employers to hire more people.
Disdain for OH? No, I respect what they do, and the 26% of 514 and members from AFW have proven that they repect their profession and are willing to fight for it. I have disdain for the structure that allows one Local to have so much power that they can ruin the profession. I have disdain for people like you who have an obvious disdain for the work we do with your "brown trout" comment, as if saying that working as a mechanic is some sort of punishment, it shouldnt be, but people like you certainly are making it become that way.
