Lindy,
As Bifferman said,the IAM bylaws require us to vote on ammendments to our contracts unless they take the form of Letters of Agreement.These issues are too important to be handled in that way.The IAM would be committing suicide if they chose to accept these changes without a vote of the membership.
This company may have a future,but it won't involve most of us.They will contract out as many jobs as they possibly can.We'll see how well minimum wage contract workers do.
These negotiations are being handled by your elected officials. Much like the ALPA MEC, who approved the T/A for their members, this is what is going to transpire with the CWA, IAM, AFA, and the TWU. For those of you who do not like the outcome, you will be welcomed to leave.
This airline does have a future. In order to get there will be very painful. As a person who has been in the business since the day I was born, I have experienced more than my fair share of un-fullfilled expectations. However, I come back because I have a fair amount of time with this Company and I enjoy my job.
What agreements do you think could have been made to protect anybody? ALPA is the most powerful union in the airline industry.How well have they done protecting their people?This company is looking to dump as many mainline employees as they can in favor of contract workers.By the time they're done,there won't be many of us left in any department.
[P]
[BLOCKQUOTE][BR]----------------[BR]On 12/17/2002 7:35:23 PM Mike W wrote:
[P]Lindy,[BR] As Bifferman said,the IAM bylaws require us to vote on ammendments to our contracts unless they take the form of Letters of Agreement.These issues are too important to be handled in that way.The IAM would be committing suicide if they chose to accept these changes without a vote of the membership.[BR] This company may have a future,but it won't involve most of us.They will contract out as many jobs as they possibly can.We'll see how well minimum wage contract workers do.[/P]----------------[/BLOCKQUOTE]
[P][/P]don't you think the IAM is in a corner they can't fight out of?no matter which way things go they are had.if we vote its probably toast,they lose...if they ELECT to accept on our behalf(which i'm told they can do)they lose.its a terrible situ for any union to be in.
There's always the possibility the International doesn't trust this decision to be made by membership vote, and would allow this to be done as a Letter of Agreement for timeliness, and/or because they don't trust the judgement of the membership...
The IAM has two hugely bad marks against it -- letting US and UA file Ch.11 before agreements were made to protect their members, and Charlie Bryan's ghost haunts them now more than ever.
If a membership vote were to push US into Ch.7, the IAM's credibility as a bargaining unit would be just about zero. So despite the backlash for not allowing this to come to a vote, it is probably the better of two bad choices as far as they're concerned...