seed said:
IF I had a wish, or goal, it would be to unify our members for "push" against the companies and the BK courts they are in bed with.
[post="239029"][/post]
Well in this case its a "menage et trios" because the unions are in the same bed.
Attainable goals you say? Ok, I agree.
Unify our members you say?
Well the TWU has worked for at least twenty years to ensure that it never happens.
Your IAM did not do what the TWU did.
The TWU not only isolated workgroups within the union by making sure that they could not freely move between classifications without losing seniority but they also freely encouraged and engaged in other policies that pitted the members against each other.
22 locals under one contract, have you ever seen anything like that in your life?Some Locals with 7000 members with others with 200.
They took work away from one classification and gave it to others, they had their Presidents tell their members to work harder because the company said that they would send the work to those stations where the work got done, even if it was a lie, like your STL brothers found out. A real union would not participate in pitting members against each other.
The separations between classifications are too deep to be overcome and besides we need unity on an industrywide basis, not just one company.
So what is attainable? Unifying the profession is attainable and it makes sense. It has certainly worked for the pilots.
The real debate is not TWU vs AMFA, or Little vs Delle. The debate centers around should we seek to unite across the entire industry or not?
The TWU does not feel that we need to be unified, their contracts prove that and the fact is that AFL-CIO affiliation prohibits trying to attempt it unless the leaders of other unions are willing to do it, and do you really think any of those guys are going to be willing to walk away from million$ in dues because its the right thing to do?
I tried getting the AFL-CIO to pressure the TWU, IAM and IBT to merge their ATDs into one union. I spoke directly to Sweeny but mostly to a guy from the AFL-CIO named Bill Ragen (who has since returned to the SEIU) and they favored this but said that under its current structure that they could do nothing. They did however encourage me to continue to push from within for such a merger.
I then wrote to Hall, Buffenbarger and Hoffa on this and had a running exchange of letters on this subject.
If you have been following what is going on in the labor movement there is a lot of pressure for change, however its not likely to be very successful without something extrordinary happening.
It certainly will not happen if airline workers continue to support unions like the TWU, IAM and IBT that are resisting structural changes and consolidation of the labor movement.
The TWU is solidly on the "no change is needed bandwagon". Despite what they claim, just look at the claimed results of the TWU survey where Little claimed that the members do not support structural changes. Instead Little claims that all the members need is "Communication, communication, communication".
Hardly, what they need is a union that can help them get "money, benifits and work rules".
The fact is that by not pushing for AMFA or the AGW you are supporting the Old Guard that believes in concessions for dues, dues to fund International salaries, perks and pensions.
Attainable goals. Read the TWU Constitution and all the court cases that TWU members have brought against the TWU. I would guess that no union has had as many lawsuits filed against it by their own members per capita than the TWU. You can not fix the TWU, your representatives are bound to an oath to the International, not the members. I've been to the TWU Convention. Its a travesty, Sonnys Party it was called. "Corrupt" is a pale definition. Members are totally excluded. They can not vote, nor is it even recorded how their "representation" voted. They are only given the result. I heard Presidents of Locals claim that the members do not have a right to know how they voted at the Convention because how they vote is personal-not when you are voting in behalf of other people its not! However this is the prevailing view of the TWU with a few exceptions, some of Local 100 and Local 556 (SWA Flight attendants).
You can not fix the TWU, and even if we did it would still not help the problems we face industrywide. Our affiliation with Casino Card dealers in Vegas, school bus drivers in Pennsylvania and NASA workers in Florida does nothing to imporove our ability to handle the challenges we face in this industry. The same goes for airline workers represented by the IAM or IBT. However if we were to unite industrywide under one union then we could finally address the problems we all face. The airlines have the ATA and Aircon, these organizations are specifically chartered to push forward the interests of their airline members and are not subordinate to any other industry. Airline workers ground workers have no such organizations. Instead we are all split up between subordinate division(ATDs) of many different unions, the majority having no special interest in our industry. In fact none of these AFL-CIO unions that represent ground workers are led by someone who ever worked in this industry.
Jim Littles summation of the survey that claimed that structural changes were not needed and that all the TWU needs to do is communicate more with the members should erase any hope you have for real change within the TWU, its unattainable. In effect he is saying that they have not done enough to convince us that concessions are the way to go, he is saying that the union is on the right path and all they need to do convince us of that.
AMFA offers us the ability to unify as a profession, no other union offers us that, and it is attainable.
57 AM
