Wasn't the TWU (M & R) and AA supposed to have met earlier this week?

[TRAMPS LIKE US]

In my opinion, that no retro pay is a deal breaker....period! we have to get pay increase in wages and without a penalty negotiations will go on forever.

Chuck;

I agree with you on the significance of retro pay. How do you plan to get it? The economic issues at play here are complex. What would compel the Company to give it to us?

 

[aetheling1]

Retro pay? Certainly. Has any union ever agreed to give up retro pay when an airline contract was amended?

Guess what union that was! The TWU Eagle contract in 2003 (expired 2001) gave a "bonus" instead of retro pay. AA/TWU got away with it w/Eagle so why not with mainline?

 

[Chuck Schalk]

Chuck;

I agree with you on the significance of retro pay. How do you plan to get it? The economic issues at play here are complex. What would compel the Company to give it to us?

This is a TWU International Issue. They are the controlling body and have the power to make no retro a deal breaker. We can only support that position. The whole point of retro is to make the company want to come to an agreement or pay for the contract extension. In my opinion, the economic issues are independent of a one time retro payment.

 

[Bob Owens]

Nope. The vendors and creditors took losses and AA never repaid them. They received about three million options (same as yours - $5 strike price) to compensate them. The vendors and creditors wrote off the losses. And, of course, they didn't have to deal with the uncertainty of Ch 11.

Yep, and they are still selling toilet seats at $1000 a pop.

We lost $120k minimum for 300 shares of stock. I doubt any of the vendors took the kind of hit we took.

As of now the Unions position is 5/1/08, the company obviously wants DOS because the longer they drag it out the more they save and the more they can spend funding their own bonuses. They've already dragged it out 8 months-and five years.

As far as negotiations the company will not address economic issues and is pushing to destroy whats left of the profession by putting ASMs in the line stations. Their greed and contempt for the people who kept them out of bankruptcy is mind boggling. Working Together, JLT, PLI, they were all a scam, 10,000 TWU jobs gone, working members losing their homes, going bankrupt because of the massive concessions and all management can say is they want to take even more. They offer us a nickel for today but it will cost us a dollar every day. They claim they need more concessions to be competitive when in fact what they want is labor costs so low that there is no way any other airline can compete.

 

[TRAMPS LIKE US]

This is a TWU International Issue. They are the controlling body and have the power to make no retro a deal breaker. We can only support that position. The whole point of retro is to make the company want to come to an agreement or pay for the contract extension. In my opinion, the economic issues are independent of a one time retro payment.

Chuck;

If retro pay as you say is an International issue; What are you and your fellow Local Officers going to do to the Interntional? I would hope that there is a plan to support our need for retro pay.

 

[FrequentFlierCA]

If the company is stalling, what's the benefit? Granted, they get to pay you on your old contract for now, but if a retro is included (almost always is, as others have said) then it's only a deferral of expense, not an avoidance of one.

I just don't see it. Now that mediators have come into play that's another step toward "self help", which is the worst possible scenario for the company. I think they've run the numbers and just can't afford it. Demand has evaporated.

 

[Bob Owens]

If you cant see how stalling is benificial to the company then you are blind.

Retro is a negotiated item, its another card on the table, one that costs them nothing, it makes them money.

Deferral of an expense is avoidance. Time and money are linked, if they get to sit on our money for two years they get to make money off our money and we lose money.

Demand has evaporated? When's the last time you flew? I flew four times last week, they were all pretty full.

Now the sob story is "advanced bookings are down". So? Available seats are down as well, if there's less seats to sell in the first place then less advanced bookings(which would be seats sold at a cheaper rate anyhow) doesnt necissarily mean the sky is falling. How much are they down? What prices are they listing for advanced bookings? Are they discounted as much as they usually are?. Maybe the airline is listing fares at high prices, then they have something to cry about. "Advanced bookings are down". It would be worth it to lose a lot of the lower paying passengers if it helps you get a few more years of concessions from your workforce. Their arguements for not coming up with the money have dissapeared. Revenue has gone up in the billions while fuel costs are about what they were five years ago and there are 24,000 less of us. They,ve retired billions in debt, Maybe they will have to keep them A-300s and MD-80s a few more years, maybe the banks will have to wait for their money, maybe somebody else will have to tighten their belt for a change but we need ours.

 

[aamechntx]

You're the man, Bob. Thanks for injecting some articulate and well thought out opinions relating to our cause.

aamech / DFW

 

[FrequentFlierCA]

Bob, I'm amazed at how you can look at the economy, AMR's quarterly loss, and say that the company can afford "restore and more". We obviously have very different views on what reality is in the industry.

 

[767 mechanic]

Bob, I'm amazed at how you can look at the economy, AMR's quarterly loss, and say that the company can afford "restore and more". We obviously have very different views on what reality is in the industry.

What I am amazed at is that you say that restore and more is not possible!!!!!!!!!!!! When these crooks in management have pocketed 300 plus million in the last 3 yrs and in April they will be filling their pockets even more. They have done nothing more than layoff thousands of people and take $20,000 a year min out every remaining employees pocket. Today they announced a loss for the year. What a coincidence!!!!!!!! Do you think that they might be laying the ground work for mediation? If they are losing so much money how can they pay for new planes that they are ordering and their bone us money? I'll give you a little hint. They want the employees to pay for it while they cry poor me to the public and the NMB while they stuff their pockets even more. Until I get my money back I will give them exactly what they pay for. An old song comes to mind by Dire Straits ----MONEY FOR NOTHING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[eolesen]

Hmmm.... ".. we got to move these refrigerators, we got to move these color tv's....."


Sounds like if you want money for nothing, and chicks for free, you need to go work at Best Buy or Sears, not an airline...

Facts are facts... revenue growth helped offset capacity, but unit costs are also up more than revenues, and they're expected to go up even more in 2009 thanks to the impact that the stock market had on the underlying investments for AMR's pension funds.... What fuel giveth, pension funding will take away.

The other fact is that CPI stayed flat year over year. Many companies outside the airlines won't be giving COLA raises in 2009 because COLA is triggered by CPI growth. So if your contract expired last year, that's as likely to get attention from a mediator (or arbitrator) as comparisons with other airline employees will.

 

[Bob Owens]

Bob, I'm amazed at how you can look at the economy, AMR's quarterly loss, and say that the company can afford "restore and more". We obviously have very different views on what reality is in the industry.

And how many years have you been in the industry? I've been in it for 28 years. I've seen this before.

The "cry poverty song" is nothing new and its not unique to this industry either.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x77mKCnHhYM

I like the line in part 2 1:50 where Quill says that "After 12 days (of a strike on the Pennsylvania Rialroad) they found all the things they couldnt find in the three years before the strike". Then later in part 3 6:15 on the Transit Authority "They could always find money the day after the strike but they could never find it before the strike. Where were they hiding it?"

Is the economy in turmoil? Yes, but the airlines have already gone through their recession, they have already leaned out and the planes are still full. With the announced capacity cuts they are likely to remain full. If the planes empty out the airlines can always once again request to reopen the contract under the threat of bankruptcy so if they really cant afford it they have a way out. If we sign a bad deal and all of a sudden the company has yet another miraculous turnaround, as we have seen EVERY TIME we gave them a concessionary deal in the past, we are stuck with the deal.

There are already 24100 less of us at AA, thats a 25% decline but revenues did not decline, in fact they increased by around $6billion. OK for 2008 Fuel ate up $3 billion, thats according to Arpeys news release, so what happened to the other $3 billion in additional revenue, plus the $1.5 billion(minimum) that the elimination of 24100 jobs is worth plus the $1.8 billion in concessions that the workers who remain gave up?

So even after accounting for the additional $3 billion in fuel AA had over $6 billion more to work with than they had in 2003, (fully restoring our compensation would only take a quarter of that windfall). The question is where did all those extra billions go? Much of it went to the banks as AA slashed their debt in half(my debt coincidentally doubled over the last five years).

The fact is that the company could fully restore our wages and not even touch the additional revenue that they brought in, they may not be able to prepay down their debts or buy as many new airplanes as they planed but its about time that the "Shared pain" actually became "shared".As we can see from the nearly $9 billion (before fuel) windfall and the PUPs the pain has been delt to the workers only. Now with the price of fuel plummeting they stand to have billions more to play with, sure ticket sales may decline as the economy sinks into recession but like I said if we get a deal that the company cant afford they always have a way out, we dont.

Look at it this way, its the company's patriotic duty to pay us more because the money they pay us will allow us to purchase the goods and services of others which will help drive up demand, job growth and prosperity for all.

 

[FWAAA]

There are already 24100 less of us at AA, thats a 25% decline but revenues did not decline, in fact they increased by around $6billion. OK for 2008 Fuel ate up $3 billion, thats according to Arpeys news release, so what happened to the other $3 billion in additional revenue, plus the $1.5 billion(minimum) that the elimination of 24100 jobs is worth plus the $1.8 billion in concessions that the workers who remain gave up?

Fuel was up $2.3 billion from 2007, but compared to 2002, fuel was up $6.5 billion. Compared to 2002, revenue was up $6.3 billion. Wage expense for 2008 was down $1.8 billion. Some other line items were up, some were down. Comparing the financials for 2002 and 2008 will reveal all the differences.

So even after accounting for the additional $3 billion in fuel AA had over $6 billion more to work with than they had in 2003, (fully restoring our compensation would only take a quarter of that windfall). The question is where did all those extra billions go? Much of it went to the banks as AA slashed their debt in half(my debt coincidentally doubled over the last five years).

That's laughable. No wonder the company laughs at the TWU.

The fact is that the company could fully restore our wages and not even touch the additional revenue that they brought in, they may not be able to prepay down their debts or buy as many new airplanes as they planed but its about time that the "Shared pain" actually became "shared".As we can see from the nearly $9 billion (before fuel) windfall and the PUPs the pain has been delt to the workers only. Now with the price of fuel plummeting they stand to have billions more to play with, sure ticket sales may decline as the economy sinks into recession but like I said if we get a deal that the company cant afford they always have a way out, we don't.

This paragraph saddens me. I want to see employees get raises; posts like this make me skeptical that the TWU and its officers are up to the task.