I have read some of your posts and am dissapointed in some of your opinions upon our Unionized employees at AA, but you need to understand that not all of us are as bad as you perceive. In response to the "idiot", you have replied to.
I'm sure that you are right, I wouldn't lump everyone in with MacTern and AMFAMAN, but I will list a couple of things that drive me crazy about unions and I'll let you or anyone else enlighten me on why they make sense.
1. The idea that the company owes you something. That because you work hard and have stayed at the company a long time the company should give you something out of the ordinary.
2. The idea that the union and the company can never work together, that the relationship should always be adversarial. If the union isn't fighting the company they must have "sold out."
3. Telling customer how bad your job sucks. No one cares! All you do is drive customers away, why would anyone ever want to do this? IT will NOT improve your situation.
4. The idea that because you work in the operation you deserve anything AA makes.
5. The idea that management is stealing from you and making millions. AA's upper management gets paid about as little as any major company, they all could leave for better salaries and for the most part their stock options are worthless. If they're just interested in money why don't they leave?
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Ans #1 I don't think they (the company) owe anything but a fair shake and a paycheck for my labor. Continuing to lie, cheat, and steal like greedy big business (not all of them) does to their employees today is sickening. Seeing the thousands upon thousands of lives destroyed by management greed; Enron, WorldCom, Healthsouth and many others is the making of a worker revolt. Airlines are some of the worst.
Ans #2 I think management and employees should try to work together. I will not be a bootlicker to the man. Never have and never will. When you have been continually; stepped on, lied to, tricked, bamboozeled, told "you need to know your place in society", called lazy, uneducated, and generally made to feel inferior to "we in the ivory tower", you get a little jaded. So now we are now suppose to trust, forgive and forget. Put down the crack pipe. Like Ricky said to Lucy: You got some 'splainin to do....and I don't like what I'm hearing.
Ans #3 Customers need to know our concerns. They're life could depend on it. The AMT has always been in the shadows under the pilots and FA's, people don't know what we do and the difficulties we face. Except if something goes wrong and fingers get pointed when they fill the body bags. No one cares is right... until the body count.
Ans#4 Get off what ever your on. In 1995, the twu negotiated one of the worst concessionary contracts in history (We currently have the worst). Management cried "poor mouth" and the twu bought it hook line and sinker. The twu managed to somehow pass (still can't anyone who voted for it) the famous six year/6.5% pay raise contract while going on to make record profits afterward. We didn't even keep up with inflation. "Sorry, you have a six year contract, see you then", is what management said when we asked for a fair share of the pie.
Ans#5 Management is not feeling the pain like the unions are, and still way too top heavy. If management was sincere, then they would have led the way with the pay cuts because their blunders are mostly to blame of why we are in this huge hole. Uncle Don spent money like a crackhead in Columbia with TWA, More Room in Coach, Sleeperseats in First Class, and many other monsterous failures. Arpey might be able to turn it around, but its gonna be a looooong time before I believe any diatribe that comes out of management skidmark with a tie on. If they all wanted to leave, who's gonna hire them? I wouldn't want to hire some smartass ex-airline management flunkie that ran a once healthy airline into the ground with bonehead business decisions that cost millions because his/her ego got out of hand.
Its a vicious circle. You blame the unions and I blame management. I can go many places and get a job close to or more than what I make now. I have been looking. I have many years invested here at AA, I like what I do. I might even be proud to work here again like I use to be many years ago. However, I'm not ready to walk just yet. I have a lot invested here. There might come a time when it just won't be worth it anymore, but I will fight for what I think is right until then. I will not quit fighting until
I say so.
