Lets see, lets get the facts straight.
I believe your asking a union that you bashed and left for help? Did you seriously think they would support you after YOU turned YOUR back on them?
They left the IAM, but they didnt turn their backs to you, you turned yours on them. I've brought this up before but I guess you didnt hear it;
Several years ago I was vacationing in the west of Ireland when there was a rail stike going on. It seems that a group of Rail workers had recently split from the main union SEPTU and then went on strike. Well the Rail Bosses figured they had them, they simply routed lines that were represented by Septu to cover the area that was struck, SEPTU refused, even though they and their brothers had dissagreements they still would not help the other side screw their brother. When your kids move out of your home and dont do as you say anymore do you now look at them as strangers? Have you never had dissagreements with family members? My brothers and I had wicked fights as kids, but no matter what we would stick up for each other when attacked by an outsider.
What the IAM did was far more despicable than what the mechanics at NWA did. Unions should not do struck work, no matter what has transpired between them. Look at whats going on in Wisconsin, dont you realize that between Patco, Lorenzo, the BK scams of 2002-03, the rape of Auto workers and what the IAM did in 2005 all played a part in giving anti-union forces the green light in actaully going after our right to organize? Your union F%#$*d up, they aided and abetted the enemy just to settle an in house score.
Yor belittled the IAM and the other classifications and looked down on them with your high and mighty attitudes, Elitism is what it is called and it doesnt work in the airline industry. Amfa wanted to be a mechanics ONLY union, that was made quite clear, the NMB wouldnt let that happen.
Tell that to the Pilots and the Flight Attendants as they deny you membership in their unions. Yes, some mechanics are jerks, no union man should ever belittle the labor of another, but mechanics dont have a monopoly on jerks. Why is it OK for Pilots and Flight Attendants to have Craft Unions but if mechanics do it they become the enemy and you are willing to ally with the company to do them harm? I say unions should stick with unions, whether they are Industrial unions or craft unions, keep our fighting in house, but never help a company destroy another union. If craft unionism is so evil why dont you go after ALPA and the AFA with the same vigor that you go after AMFA?
The sad fact is that what happened to the mechanics at NWA was not unique, the IAM and other established unions have a long history of failures. IAM workers at Hudson General doing struck work at IAM represented EAL (LGA) was a particularly sad example of IAM failure. AMFA is the product of fustrated Unionists, not anti-unionists not to say that some anti-unionists havent jumped on the bandwagon when they criticized the incumbant union. If you want to make AMFA go away all you have to do is start acting like a union and secure livable wages and benifits. Stop hopping into bed with companies that are bringing in more money than ever before then turning around and telling workers-"sorry, there's nothing left for you" as you stand bedside them nodding your heads. "YUP, we saw the books, all gone,nothin left for you, maybe next time". Sure guys like you always have excuses as to why you didnt act like a union but your excuses have hurt all workers. When the leaders failed to support Patco, they had plenty of excuses as well. Time and time again unions let their memberships down and allowed companies to strip away members wages and benifits, alls fine as long as the contract, even if its just a shell of it former self, as long as check-off remains in place and its only now, when the ability to collect dues is threatened and
their way of life is put at risk do we here calls for a mobilization of labor. Yes I do feel that we should follow their lead and stop whats going on in places like Wisconsin, we must win that battle, but they better not go back to their old ways afterwards and better start to realize that other battles are just as important.
Going back to the TA. You guys are around $7 short. Job protection really doesnt have a lot of value when the company cant find enough mechanics to do the work they have. At AA OT is at all time highs, they have planes sitting outside hangars at the bases that ran out of time. To me it seems like UAL is tired of paying vendors to screw up their airplanes and wants to bring more work back in house, well last year the FAA only issued enough certs for around 3000 A&Ps. Half the A&P schools across the country have shut down since 2001. You have a commodity thats scarcer than oil and demand is rising. Dont sell yourselves and the industry short. If the IBT can get UPS $50/hr why should you settle for $15/hr less? At least close the Gap between yourselves and SWA who will be making $10/hr more. At AA we just put across an offer to the company that would restore most of what we lost in 2003 and put our top guys at $43.96. We rejected a TA that had around the same money as yours last August. We are doing what we can, will you? Please Vote NO.
