Twu Outsourcing Numbers

[Buck]

It has been stated by a member of the RO committee that the outsourcing system between the company and the TWU, that there are two different percentages. One for the Line and one for Overhaul.

Overhaul has been reported by the TWU at around 20.5%, but if more work were to come in like it should, it would go to around 19%. These appear to be the numbers that the union has. Are these the numbers that the company reports? It would seem that a certain member of the RO committee of the TWU has stated that the union does not like the way the company comes up with their outsourcing numbers. It was also stated by this member of the RO committee that the union used its own calculations to come up with their own numbers and that the company method way of calculating outsourcing was flawed.

This member of the RO committee then stated that the company was attempting to bring in Third Party maintenance, that MCI was going to be this Third Party maintenance facility and that TUL and AFW would do everything else. The company wanted to keep contract work separate from their own and that if they couldn't get any contract work MCI would lose 1000 mechanics and their work would be split between Tulsa and AFW.

 

[James T. Kirk]

Buck you need to stop smoking that BAD DOPE.

 

[Buck]

So you are denying the entire post?

 

[scorpion]

so mr. kirk
what are the company's numbers on outsourcing? This is supposed to be given to the union every six months. Every January and July. Why are these figures kept from the membership? Everyone knows the company wont be totally honest with this number, its up to us to prove any different but when the twu's numbers are less than the company's it would be kind of hard to file a grievance. The only reason the twu wont reveal what the company put out is because they lie even more to the membership about outsourcing than AA does.

Prove me wrong here and post the company version on outsourcing.

 

[TWU informer]

I think G. T. Bunch knows for a fact that there are two different sets of numbers and the union and company do not agree on how to calculate outsourced work.

What I find most interesting is the desire of TWU advocates to use the unaudited, unchallenged Form41 as accurate accounting.

19% Outsource My ASS!

It is a true chame that the TWU Officers will NOT be honest with the membership about a matter that needs priority attention.

 

[twuer]

You guys are getting more desparate every day!!!
:unsure: :unsure: :unsure:

 

[TWU informer]

You guys are getting more desparate every day!!!
:unsure: :unsure: :unsure:

Those one liner responses always demonstrate extreme understanding of the issues, and leave us completely speechless.

DO you guys use that same tactic in negotiations and arbitration?

des•per•ate

Pronunciation: (des'pur-it, -prit), [key]
—adj.
1. reckless or dangerous because of despair or urgency: a desperate killer.
2. having an urgent need, desire, etc.: desperate for attention.
3. leaving little or no hope; very serious or dangerous: a desperate illness.
4. extremely bad; intolerable or shocking: clothes in desperate taste.
5. extreme or excessive.
6. making a final, ultimate effort; giving all: a desperate attempt to save a life.
7. actuated by a feeling of hopelessness.
8. having no hope; giving in to despair.

THIS DOESN'T SOUND LIKE ANY AMFA SUPPORTERS I KNOW OF!


On the other hand, check out this for desperation. Read the Agenda. This is a "desperate" attempt to coherce both loyalty of officer candidates and timely dues payment.

Why would such action be required at Local 514?

 

[twuer]

des•per•ate

Pronunciation: (des'pur-it, -prit), [key]
—adj.
1. reckless or dangerous because of despair or urgency-amfa
2. having an urgent need, desire, etc.: desperate for attention. -amfa
3. leaving little or no hope; very serious or dangerous: -amfa
4. extremely bad; intolerable or shocking: clothes in desperate taste. -amfa
5. extreme or excessive. -amfa
6. making a final, ultimate effort; giving all: a desperate attempt to save a life.-amfa
7. actuated by a feeling of hopelessness. -amfa
8. having no hope; giving in to despair. -amfa

THIS DOESN'T SOUND LIKE ANY AMFA SUPPORTERS I KNOW OF!

DONT' BE TOO SURE!!!!!! LOOKS LIKE THE AMFA WE ALL KNOW AND LOVE!!!!
(You opened yourself up for that one Informer!!

 

[TWU informer]

Wow, you got me on that one, didn't you?

Please, let me up for air. The pressure you apply is too intense.

Maybe you will understand this one. My Dog is Bigger than Your Dog.

On a more serious note: Why is it that mechanics are being placed in desireable jobs on the 737 regardless of seniority? All I have heard for the last four days is how the TWU has allowed the company to fill highly desireable jobs with low seniority mechanics.

Have you guys now destroyed the only thing we had left? Seniority is also gone with our pay, benefits, vacation, and holidays?

It's a wonder we don't have 100% cards signed!

 

[Bob Owens]

One of the problems with the outsourcing numbers here on the line is that AA has employees in other countries that do regular overnight checks and SICs in addition to Pireps. AA has these employyes all over the place doing our work but according to AA they are considered in house work even though they are not in our contract. We recently had mechanics from London over getting 777 training. They not only did not lose any benifits or pay but they top out at around $20,000 per year more than we do. They have no union.

So in addition to outsourcing numbers that are understated we see that being a TWU member, even at the same airline, is a disadvantage. The mechanics in London still get all their vacation and Holidays also.

 

[j7915]

One of the problems with the outsourcing numbers here on the line is that AA has employees in other countries that do regular overnight checks and SICs in addition to Pireps. AA has these employyes all over the place doing our work but according to AA they are considered in house work even though they are not in our contract. We recently had mechanics from London over getting 777 training. They not only did not lose any benifits or pay but they top out at around $20,000 per year more than we do. They have no union.

So in addition to outsourcing numbers that are understated we see that being a TWU member, even at the same airline, is a disadvantage. The mechanics in London still get all their vacation and Holidays also.

Bob, cut the BS. You can't turn a wrench in the UK and they can't turn a wrench in the USA. By the way the same applies to probably all other foreign repair stations.

If the British make that much more than I doubt if AA is going to have them work any longer than is necessary to turn airplanes. As for not being unionized, I suspect that the labor laws give them most of what we have to have a union to obtain.

 

[Buck]

But you do not deny any of my original post.

Could you please comment on the two outsourcing numbers and the difference of opinions between the way the union and the company calculates these figures?

And what about MCI becoming a 3rd party maintenance facitlity?

Are they going to that at $30 an hour? ( or at least until the OSM rates kick in)

 

[Hopeful]

TA/TWU COOPERATION RESULTS IN FASCIST SLAVE LABOR
NEW YORK CITY, March 29 -- Fascism marches on in Giuliani's Workfare concentration camp. After the Transport Workers Union (TWU) agreed, in its last contract, to allow the Transit Authority (TA) to force 500 Workfare workers to work off their welfare checks cleaning the subways at one-fourth the union wage rate. That union capitulation adds another 1,000 to this slave labor task. And this follows the budget-cut reduction of 800 regular union workers at a time when the TA has declared a huge surplus!
While the TWU goose-steps right behind their transit bosses, bus drivers are suffering intense pressure to maintain schedules under an increase of 500,000 riders with no corresponding increase in drivers. Is there any clearer example of how social fascist union leaders help the bosses keep the workers in check? What's next? Part-time Workfare subway conductors, bus drivers, mechanics' helpers?

All this is common practice for a ruling class that uses racist cops to pump 41 bullets into an unarmed West African immigrant worker; that fills the prisons with nearly two million inmates and forces them to work for U.S. corporations for 20cents-an-hour wages; that employs mass terror bombing against defenseless workers and their families in Iraq and the Balkans. Hitler must be smiling in his grave.

Increasingly, transit workers are beginning to see the link in all these ruling-class attacks. This is reflected in hundreds of workers taking PLP leaflets at a local bus barn and dozens buying Challenge, with many donating a dollar a copy. We hope to win many of these workers to march on May Day.

A capitalist system--based on profits first, last and always--extracting those profits out of the mass exploitation of the working class, must be smashed. Organizing on the job to fight for more drivers, increased rider service and ending slave labor Workfare creates the basis for joining and building the Progressive Labor Party in order to smash this bosses' system. That's our goal. Our system, communism, wipes out bosses and profits and puts workers first, both as riders and as operators of mass transit.

To help build this movement, join the May Day March in Washington, DC on Saturday, May 1st.

 

[Hopeful]

Union leaders -- wardens of
slave labor workfare.
Union leaders have endorsed the bosses' slave labor workfare. These traitors, lieutenants of the capitalist class, are trying to deliver the working class into the arms of fascism in the name of saving jobs. Supporting workfare will not provide job security. There can be no job security under capitalism. Economic crisis, mass unemployment and racism are built into the bosses' profit system. The bosses proclaim that a healthy economy, that is healthy for them, requires at least 6% unemployment. In the U.S. that's eight million out of work; and the actual figure is more than twice that.
These union traitors turn job security into its opposite. They use it to depress wages to the lowest possible level, which in turn is used as a threat to all those earning above that level to bring them down also. They disarm workers from rebelling, from turning to revolutionary communism. Thus, in the world according to Clinton, the AFL-CIO and their Wall Street masters, fascism -- job security via workfare -- is good.

For example, the New York City Local of the Transport Workers Union (TWU) recently signed a union contract with the Transit Authority (TA) allowing the TA bosses to use thousands of workfare workers to clean subways and buses to work off their welfare checks and food stamps. The TWU agreed to let the next 586 cleaning jobs go by attrition, in exchange for a no layoff clause -- but no layoffs only for the life of this contract. Even then, a letter dated September 18 from the union to the TA implies that in the event of a "financial emergency," all bets are off. Layoffs could come even during this contract. On top of all that, Point 9 of the agreement says: "The aggregate number of WEP [Work Experience Program] participants that may be utilized is not subject to limitation." The TA bosses boast that this fascist contract will save them $100 million.

An individual welfare recipient cleaning these NY subways receives in welfare what works out to $81.25 per week. Forced to work off that amount for 26 hours a week, his or her hourly wage is $3.12. The union rate for those 586 jobs is $16.62 an hour, more than five times the slave labor wage! And that doesn't include the cost of benefits a TWU cleaner receives. Workfare workers get NO benefits. It's not hard to figure out that the bosses will be reaping huge profits by saving tens of billions in wages and benefits across the country, while millions of workers will be pushed into the lower depths of poverty. Hitler would have been proud of this reform.

 

[Hopeful]

THE AFL-CIO
THEIR GLOBAL SOCIALIST AGENDA

By: Alan Caruba

My friend, Cliff Kincaid, runs America's Survival, Inc. (PO Box 146, Owings, MD 20736) and maintains the Internet site usasurvival.org. He's also one of the last of the real journalists left in the nation, the kind that actually investigates important issues, writes about them, and backs it up with footnotes to document what he writes.
That's why his latest report, "Big Labor and Its Global Socialist Agenda", deserves attention and should be the subject of Sunday morning talk shows, but it won't. The last thing you are going to read in your newspaper (written by members of a newspaper union) and hear on television (run by members of various unions) is a criticism of the American labor movement. His report starts out by noting that "AFL-CIO President, John J. Sweeney, who may exercise considerable influence over the next Congress and the next president, is an identified member of the far-left Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), the principal U.S. affiliate of the Marxist Socialist International." We're talking Communism here.


The press has taken little note of the role union members have played in the WTO riots in Seattle or the protests occurring at the political conventions. Astonishingly, "in 1995, the AFL-CIO, Teamsters and the United Auto Workers received close to $8 million in U.S. funds" while openly calling for "action to regulate transnational corporations." These are the engines funding the huge surpluses the U.S. is enjoying while bringing concepts of democracy and freedom to countries hungry for their investments and participation in their economies. The American labor movement, under the leadership of Sweeney, is opposed to this.
The labor movement has always played an important role in American politics and Kincaid notes that "In 1992 and 1994, AFL-CIO political action committees spent about $42 million to elect liberals." They will spend an estimated $40 million this year to secure liberal control of the House of Representatives. Their agenda includes gay rights, affirmative action, amnesty for illegal aliens, opposition to Social Security accounts, more federal gun control, opposition to big tax cuts, more foreign aid and financial bailouts for the Third World, a federal takeover of the health care system, opposition to school choice or vouchers. This list is a long one.

Kincaid notes that "There is absolutely no evidence that Sweeney is a Communist." Then he provides a wealth of information to support the reasonable assumption that Sweeney and the AFL-CIO are very sympathetic to the Communist agenda. For example, in February 1999, my friend, Scott Hogenson, editor-in-chief of the Conservative News Service, reported that "The AFL-CIO voted in September 1997 to change its constitution and allow Communist Party members into the labor federation, repealing an anti-Communist provision that had been part of the group's constitution for decades." Indeed, under previous AFL-CIO presidents, Lane Kirkland and George Meany, the AFL-CIO was strongly anti-Communist. That has now changed. However, the public image has not so the public is unaware of this.

Moreover, the American labor union has, in many cases, joined forces with the environmental movement that is strongly driven by Socialist and Communist ideology.

I'm guessing that many labor union members have no idea whatever about the direction their leadership under Sweeney has taken them and would be appalled to learn the truth. Many labor members are also stockholders and investors in American companies. Many believe we need to pay down the U.S. debt, not give our money to Third World nations. Many would oppose having new taxes imposed on them to generate funding of the United Nations, the World Bank or the International Monetary Fund, but, in his book, America Needs a Raise, Sweeney says that "Big tax cuts are a loser." We know who the losers are, taxpayers.

Ironically, the greatest growth in membership for the American labor union movement has been unions that represent people who work for government at all levels. Governing Americans has been a growth industry, intruding into every aspect of our lives. If you think smaller government and less taxation is the way to go, you are out of step with the American labor movement. Guess who they will be voting for in November? And consider the Socialist agenda they intend to bring to the table if Al Gore is your next President?