View Changer --- The Story of Alliance

[777 / 767 / 757 Love]

Guys, this thread wasn't meant to be a pissing contest between Pro and Anti-mergers or US and AA guys......meant to highlight the collateral damge of this BK and the industry as a whole.

So keep it on topic, I think we can ALL agree we have enough threads where we can bash each other


Cheers,
777 / 767 / 757

 

[700UW]

Then I guess you should PM 737823 as he is the one who posted false information and took it off topic.

Bob,
Unlike USAIR this is the only concessions related to bankruptcy you offered, whereas the IAM facilitated three rounds of concessions in Chapter 11 which resulted in the downward spiral and push for concessions we see now. People will want to work for AA, if you don't like what AA is paying or the terms of employment offered, why not leave. As you say your non-union counterparts at Fedex, Delta, and jetBlue earn more without having union dues imposed on them, so why not go there?

Josh

You know full well the IAM has brought forth concessions, Tim Nelson has posted about it and rather than address the issue you resort to name calling and attacks, typical. You feel guilty that you brought on concessions, that's why you come to the AA forum cheering on further concessions from the TWU workers only so the IAM looks less bad. You hate AMFA, no wonder the IAM scabbed them with the support of Roache, DePace and AFL-CIO. Now isn't time for you to serve Buffy his morning coffee?

Josh

 

[Kev3188]

...highlight the collateral damge of this BK and the industry as a whole.

Too many people on here are too enamored with big business to give a f**k about the very real collateral damage this industry has seen.

 

[Bob Owens]

Bob,
Unlike USAIR this is the only concessions related to bankruptcy you offered, whereas the IAM facilitated three rounds of concessions in Chapter 11 which resulted in the downward spiral and push for concessions we see now. People will want to work for AA, if you don't like what AA is paying or the terms of employment offered, why not leave. As you say your non-union counterparts at Fedex, Delta, and jetBlue earn more without having union dues imposed on them, so why not go there?

Josh

If I were younger I would. Stayed this long so I may as well stay till they close the doors and I can collect unemployment and get paid to look for the next gig. We build our own prisons I guess, so I am stuck at AA because of my own choices, and AA is stuck with me, and thousands of other who feel the same way.

 

[Bob Owens]

Bob, you urged the members to vote down the TA in 2010 which included increase holidays, sick pay , no pension freeze , no loss of vacation, no loss of pv days. Now you come on here and complain at what they did. Someone else said it in here already but really why do you stick around? If you really truly don't like it here you should leave. But do us all a favor and stop making vote no videos and urging members to vote no. We all would have been in a much better position if 2010 would have passed. Wasn't perfect no contract ever is but definitely better than what we have now.

And you urged them to vote yes so what are you saying? I urged them to vote NO against both of those concessionary deals.

fact-The company said that 2010 was a cost neutral contract. In other words there were no gains, any gains we saw would have been from somewhere else.

Is there anything you would fight for?

 

[Bob Owens]

Bob,
companies that have succeeded as much as WN has didn't just stumble upon a key component of their business plan. They planned for maintenance outsourcing precisely because they didn't have the capabilities in the beginning as a small carrier and there were sufficient alternatives around.
WN planned its strategy with respect to maintenance just as much as they planned every procedure that was part of their legendary 20 minute turn and their fabled HR strategies.

Do you really think any low cost carrier was prevented in growing because AA wouldn't provide maintenance services to them? Even if it might have made sense at one time, it is obvious today - long after Crandall - that there are enough maintenance providers that AA could either be one of them and keep mechanics employed or do what we are seeing right now.

If I were an AA mechanic or even a TWU official, I think I'd far rather do work for other carriers than be faced w/ a move, loss of dues, or worse.

No I don't think any of the LCCs were prevented from growing, Crandall was wrong, he should have just charged more to do their maintenance, like I said the end of the Cold War shifted things in the M&R world and the LCCs were able to capitalize on it.

I still say that the leaders of SWA were lucky as well as smart. And I think their business plan was built more around the 20 minute turn around and single aircraft type than whether of not they would maintain them in house or not. As SWA started their expansion and achieved the numbers where in the past the economies of scale would make it more cost effective to do the work in house the market shifted, MRO facilities were becoming more plentiful, and there were a lot of surplus skilled aviation workers available due to the downturn in military spending. Like I said that has run its course, young people are not expressing an interest in going into Aviation as they once were. So you have old guys like me who are too old to go anywhere , with an average age of 55 but what are they going do 5 to 10 years from now?

 

[WorldTraveler]

Too many people on here are too enamored with big business to give a f**k about the very real collateral damage this industry has seen.

or perhaps some people understand that ANY SIZE business is capable of operating well and ensuring that their employees win and ANY SIZE business is capable of engaging in a campaign to reduce their employees to the lowest possible point.

There have been union and non-union companies that have done good as well as bad.
.

Bob,
you may be right that WN adapted at the right time - but well-run businesses recognize changes in the environment and seize them.
AA could have figured out a way to use its immense maintenance resources to make money - and lots of it.

Sadly, Alliance is closing because its operator did not see value in the resources that worked there including its employees or figure out a way to use their talents effectively.

It didn't need to be that way

 

[amt66]

And you urged them to vote yes so what are you saying? I urged them to vote NO against both of those concessionary deals.

fact-The company said that 2010 was a cost neutral contract. In other words there were no gains, any gains we saw would have been from somewhere else.

Is there anything you would fight for?

So what if it was cost nuetral were we getting an increase in holidays, sick time and keeping the pension? Weren't we getting a raise also ?

Like I said no contract is perfect even the boys at swa give up things to make more.

No sense in looking back now I'm sure the ones who voted no back then would probably change their vote to yes .

 

[Bob Owens]

So what if it was cost nuetral were we getting an increase in holidays, sick time and keeping the pension? Weren't we getting a raise also ?

Like I said no contract is perfect even the boys at swa give up things to make more.

No sense in looking back now I'm sure the ones who voted no back then would probably change their vote to yes .

You obviously do not understand what the term Cost neutral means.
Do you feel that if we had accepted that deal that you would have kept your pension, retiree medical etc?

 

[amt66]

You obviously do not understand what the term Cost neutral means.
Do you feel that if we had accepted that deal that you would have kept your pension, retiree medical etc?

Well the pension wasn't being taken away in that contract but we had no way if knowing they would file ch 11 and take it now. I believe and this is just my opinion that if we would have signed and the other two unions would have signed there wouldn't have been a ch 11 now. I agree with you in that this ch 11 is a sham.

 

[AANOTOK]

Working for free "might" have prevented a BK filing, but highly unlikely. AA has already stated that the contracts they offered pre bk would not have fixed the mess they got themselves into.

 

[737823]

Tim Nelson is not a credible source, he is a person who tried to start his own union three times at US only to fail.

The IAM saved Tim Nelson's job when he advocated a slow down at US and they were going to fire him.

Tim was soundly defeated in the last District Elections as was his slate.

Tim was also removed from office for promoting dual unionism, and the tried to raid the TWU at AA and failed there.

He filed short of cards back in 1991 which forced a one year bar and US took full advantage and decimated the non-union CSA and Ramp.

The IAM didnt scab at NW, the work was all ready in the Ramp CBA.

And once again, show the board how the IAM facilitated concessions at US while US was in Chapter 11 bankruptcy, seems you keep ignoring facts when you are backed into a corner.

Plenty of people believe the IAM scabbed AMFA, go read what others had to say. Maybe the IAM would have fared better had they reached agreements with the company before abrogation, clearly your negotiating team was ineffecitve. And you posted before that you had offered the company a proposal that met their ask but they declined saying it kept too many workers on the payroll. Hmmm I wonder why (dues of course), so the subsequent proposal was equally concessionary on the whole. Bob is right, you helped usher in three rounds of concessions and then cheer on concessions at other carriers to make the IAM look less bad. It's near impossible to have a discussion with you about the IAM, you believe the IAM can do no wrong and your prejudice prevents you from seeing an outside perspective. The IAM FAs I know at CO EWR-based hate the IAM no wonder they got decertified.

Josh

 

[Bob Owens]

Well the pension wasn't being taken away in that contract but we had no way if knowing they would file ch 11 and take it now. I believe and this is just my opinion that if we would have signed and the other two unions would have signed there wouldn't have been a ch 11 now. I agree with you in that this ch 11 is a sham.

We should have said NO in 2003 and let them file then. We were wrong to put it off this long and allow AA to steal as much as they have. As a result we lived under pre-bankruptcy concessions for nine years and are now stuck with post bankruptcy concessions for another 6. Thats 15 wasted years, in the meantime our peers at UAL and Delta only had to live with concessions for 5 to six years and have now recaptured much of what they had prior to 2002. And the worst part is we did so under the advice of people who are paid a lot of money to represent us.

If everyone has said yes to six more years of concessions then they would have come back for more in 2016, and if they didn't get them then they would have filed in 2020. At what point do we say NO, enough is enough?

BK has become a business strategy meant to keep us accepting concessionary deals or face them going to BK and try and get the courts to allow them to impose what they could not negotiate at the table. It is a manufactured crises. Its not something that happened to AA, its what they chose to do. We were wrong to not get together with USAIR and all the other carriers in 2002 and tell the courts that we will have the same rights as every other worker in BK and if the courts do not treat us as equals that we will shut the system down. That requires leadership, something thats lacking in our overpaid union leadership.

 

[777 fixer]

If I were younger I would. Stayed this long so I may as well stay till they close the doors and I can collect unemployment and get paid to look for the next gig. We build our own prisons I guess, so I am stuck at AA because of my own choices, and AA is stuck with me, and thousands of other who feel the same way.

That's your excuse, you have to much time at AA to leave? Sounds like a cop out to me. I've seen guys with same seniority as you leave. What's so different between you and them?

What really boggles my mind is how you talk about how AA is "done" or if we're fortunate enough we will see AA go under. Yet you turn around and say you are stuck there.

 

[Barfbag]

Too many people on here are too enamored with big business to give a f**k about the very real collateral damage this industry has seen.

Sad but true, we all shop at Walmart, and get a hard-one when Wall Street rallies and our 401K has a good day. Don't you just love it when your favorite stock moves higher even if it means thousands more workers on the street ?