Amfa Meetings

[LavMan]

At UAL 4,905 eligible members did not vote. There is your proof of apathy and why a decertification is a more likely outcome at US.

From the AMFA press release:

AMFA received 5234 votes of the 8239 votes cast by the 13144 employees eligible to vote in today’s representation election. This is the third time in the last 10 years that the United Airlines mechanics and related employees have campaigned for a change in representation.

Lets see 13,144-8,239= 4905 people not voting

http://www.amfanatl.org/Pages/06_News&Info...20Wins%20PR.pdf

 

[to much time to quit]

At UAL 4,905 eligible members did not vote. There is your proof of apathy and why a decertification is a more likely outcome at US.

From the AMFA press release:

AMFA received 5234 votes of the 8239 votes cast by the 13144 employees eligible to vote in today’s representation election. This is the third time in the last 10 years that the United Airlines mechanics and related employees have campaigned for a change in representation.

Lets see 13,144-8,239= 4905 people not voting

http://www.amfanatl.org/Pages/06_News&Info...20Wins%20PR.pdf

Your reaching now. All the LIES are failing so lets scare the membership. Nobody knows why that many people didn't vote at UAL. Maybe its the ones who didn't care who won. A larger possiblitiy was most were laid off and could care less. But to tell the members that 50% won't vote is pure BULL. How do you know this? They aren't going to have a 12 hour 1 day window to vote.

 

[LavMan]

Can you not comprehend? Over 4,905 people at UAL did not vote, that is not a lie, unless you are saying the AFMA press release is a lie. Do you think the 3,000 plus members on furlough are gonna take the time vote, they did not at UAL. And you and your scamfa buddies do not even have enough cards to petition for a vote since 1,000+ cards are dropping off as you read this.

Keep grasping at straws!

 

[ata36bg]

LavMan

So what you are saying is that you feel that the mechanic and related at US Airways are too apathetic to rouse at least 50% of the people to vote. This is your reason to keep the IAM as the negotiating unit at US Airways. Why have the members become so apathetic? Why don’t they come to union meetings? Why do they no longer care to listen to the IAM? Less than a third of the people supported the cause of the American Revolution. Should those who did been afraid to try and make a better life for themselves?


I’ll ask you again;

What are you afraid of, that change could happen? Are you a crusader for the mechanics and related and see the IAM as the one true pious group that can save us from ourselves. Has the IAM done such a great job of representing our group in the past that you feel without them we are headed for disaster? Is your zeal driven by this or a more personal desire to rise in the ranks of the union till that one day when you too are submitting annual expense reports that eclipse the wages of even the most topped out technician. I would love to know your motivation LavMan. I understand your reluctance to answer if this is too personal of a question.


One last question. Do the people who don't want change sit around and come up with a "reason of the day"? It seems that you try a different tact each week or so hoping that one will conjure up enough fear among the membership that they will cower and fall back in line. Lead with the positive LavMan. Sell the IAM for the good that you feel it does for the members. Don't belittle your enemy by using lower case titles or cute acronyms such as "scamfa". Make your enemy inconsequential by touting the positive things about your cause. Maybe then, and only then will intelligent people take you seriously and listen with some shred of interest. Change my mind Lavman, if you think you can.

 

[delldude]

At UAL 4,905 eligible members did not vote. There is your proof of apathy and why a decertification is a more likely outcome at US.

From the AMFA press release:

AMFA received 5234 votes of the 8239 votes cast by the 13144 employees eligible to vote in today’s representation election. This is the third time in the last 10 years that the United Airlines mechanics and related employees have campaigned for a change in representation.

Lets see 13,144-8,239= 4905 people not voting

http://www.amfanatl.org/Pages/06_News&Info...20Wins%20PR.pdf

Your reaching now. All the LIES are failing so lets scare the membership. Nobody knows why that many people didn't vote at UAL. Maybe its the ones who didn't care who won. A larger possiblitiy was most were laid off and could care less. But to tell the members that 50% won't vote is pure BULL. How do you know this? They aren't going to have a 12 hour 1 day window to vote.

get a dictionary...ones who don't care falls under apathy....

 

[ata36bg]

For those who are doing the math...The IAM garnered a whopping 22.86% of the eligible votes at UAL. Thanks for the information LavMan. Until I read your post I was ignorant of this information.

 

[delldude]

For those who are doing the math...The IAM garnered a whopping 22.86% of the eligible votes at UAL. Thanks for the information LavMan. Until I read your post I was ignorant of this information.

on the other hand my friend....a whopping 37% DIDN'T vote and if they did would you still be singing your song of adulation if it did not swing your way? apathy is a terrible condition...if it comes to U as it did at UAL.....37% COULD BE THE BIG DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A UNION AND DECERTIFICATION.
U has a terrible voting turnout record...ask anyone in the IAM...BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR MY FRIEND.YOU MAY GET IT.THEN ITS TOO LATE...ASK ANY RAMPIE!

 

[LavMan]

Bob, the members voted the contract in, not the leadership.

Maybe you need to be involved in the situation first hand instead of listening to the bs that some people have whined about.

You were not there, not involved and have no idea of what happened.

If you use your logic, the pilots should replace ALPA and US and UAL, the F/As should replace AFA here and at UAL, the Mechanic and Related should replace the IAM as should fleet service, the dispatchers should replace the TWU and the CSA should replace the CWA. And all the employees at AA, Midwest (mechanics are amfa) and every airline employee is faced should replace the unions cause it is all their fault. You really are way out of touch with what transpired.

Do you think the employees especially the pilots wanted to lose their pension? Get real!

Statements like you posted shows your total ignorance to what happened in the Bankruptcy process and what little power the employees and their elected representatives had.

Should the voters in PIT and PHL replace the entire elected officials because of US' actions. Should GECAS and every other lessor fire all their employees since US extracted concessions from them?

The dues in CLT went down, so keep trying Bob.
Negotiations are not in secret their are confidentiality agreements signed covering only certain areas because of SEC regulations.

Once again Bob, you were not there, not involved and really have no idea or clue of what transpired. All you are doing is going by hearsay and at this time at what is going on at US, the employees need to put aside the IAM vs AMFA crap and protect their work and show the company they cannot steal our work from us.

The following below is what WE employees faced, not some passenger who was not involved and did not have their jobs and livlihood on the line like we did:

US Air's Chief Lender Threatens the Ultimate

December 7, 2002
By MICHELINE MAYNARD

The chief executive of the primary lender to US Airways said yesterday that he would liquidate the airline if unions refused to provide $200 million in additional wage and benefit concessions.

In an interview, David G. Bronner, head of the Retirement Systems of Alabama, said that he did not expect to have to follow through on his ultimatum and predicted that the discussions between the airline and its employees would result in an agreement by next week.

The concessions would be the second round in US Airways' efforts to draft a reorganization plan under Chapter 11 protection from its creditors. US Airways has said it hopes to submit its proposal to a federal bankruptcy court by Dec. 20. Before that, it would like to receive final approval for $900 million in loan guarantees from the government, which gave it provisional approval last summer.


To do so, the airline has asked union members for further cuts in pay and benefits. If they do not comply, Mr. Bronner said in the interview, the airline would go out of business and be liquidated in bankruptcy court. "What's their alternative?" he asked rhetorically. "If they don't want to do this, we'll Chapter 7 it."

Referring to the debtor-in-possession financing that the Alabama pension system is providing the airline during its time under bankruptcy protection, Mr. Bronner said that without concessions, "we'll pull the D.I.P. financing and they're gone."

His stance with the US Airways unions is an example of the tough approach that analysts expect airlines to begin taking with employees now that a United Airlines bankruptcy filing seems highly likely.

Indeed, Mr. Bronner's comments came as Donald J. Carty, the chairman and chief executive of American Airlines, continued a series of meetings this week with groups of employees. In the meetings, which began last week in Chicago and are expected to continue through the end of the year, Mr. Carty is emphasizing the financial crisis American is facing and its need for concessions, an American spokesman, Tim Doke, said. The airline is telling employees that if United emerges from bankruptcy with labor cost reductions, American will have to become similarly
lean, Mr. Doke said.

At US Airways, Mr. Bronner's words carry extraordinary weight. As the result of negotiations completed this week, Mr. Bronner, who directs the $25 billion Alabama fund, will in effect take control of the airline's board at the point US Airways emerges from bankruptcy.

Mr. Bronner and the airline agreed that he will have 7 of the 13 seats on the board, up from the 5 that he and the Alabama pension fund originally gained when he came forward in September to bid for the airline.

Mr. Bronner said the seven seats would be equivalent to 72 percent voting control of the airline, for which he initially agreed to provide $240 million in immediate financing as well as $500 million more in debtor-in-possession financing, outbidding the Texas Pacific Group. US Airways has drawn $300 million of that $500 million but cannot draw the remaining $200 million until it emerges from bankruptcy.

Mr. Bronner said that he would occupy one of the seven board seats, but had not decided who would have the others. As part of the agreement with the airline, Mr. Bronner is cutting his fund's stake, originally 37.5 percent, to 36 percent, so that a larger share can be given to unsecured creditors. Management is also reducing its stake, to 8 percent from 10 percent. Whenever the company emerges from bankruptcy, which it hopes to do by March, Mr. Bronner said he would give 2 percent of his stake to management to restore its lost holdings.

The negotiations came as US Airways struggles to reduce its costs and complete its Chapter 11 plan. Though workers cooperated in an initial round of concessions, some are opposed now. Only the pilots' union has agreed to consider further concessions. The machinists' union has rejected the idea, while the flight attendants said they would participate only if other unions did so.

Mr. Bronner asserted it was vital for the airline to obtain work rules from the unions "that are in this century, and not in the last century."

Yesterday, Scotty Ford, the president of the union chapter that represents mechanics, said he was willing to meet with US Airways on the matter. "We're just going to see what they're going to say," Mr. Ford said.

Patricia Friend, international president of the Association of Flight Attendants, was critical of Mr. Bronner. "He's acting as though he believes an airline can be saved on the back of the workers," she said. "It shows his lack of experience. Maybe he's looking for an easy way out because he made a mistake. There's not going to be anything to govern if he liquidates."

Under the restructuring plan, unions will have three representatives on US Airways' board, one each for pilots and machinists, and the third to be shared by flight attendants and other employee groups. But unlike their counterparts at United Airlines, the union representatives do not receive veto power over company affairs, nor will the unions hold a stake in US Airways.

A spokesman for the airline, Chris Chiames, declined to comment on Mr. Bronner's remarks but said, "We plan to be working through the weekend, talking with our unions, and have every confidence that we'll reach agreements."

Mr. Bronner said he had no regrets about investing in the airline, despite the difficulties in this stage of the reorganization plan. "It always gets ugly right at the
end," he said.

Officials at American, meanwhile, said their airline had no timetable for achieving cost reductions. Nonetheless, the carrier hopes that employees will rapidly agree to cuts that will help achieve savings of $3 billion to $4 billion a year by 2004, compared with what it spent on operations in 2001. Management has already squeezed out spending cuts of about $2 billion a year before approaching the union
groups, said Mr. Doke, who is American's vice president for corporate communications.

"One of the purposes of these meetings is to give the sense that this is a period of immediate financial crisis," he said, "and we have to address it with that sense of
urgency. We have to acknowledge that this is a time where we need to take a real hard look at our contracts, and look for as many savings as we possibly can."

In the meetings, which involve senior executives of American, the airline is providing employees with details of those spending cuts, then presenting comparisons between its labor costs and those of its competitors. The approach
is intended to show employees that they are not the only source from which American is extracting savings.

But, Mr. Doke continued, "Obviously labor is a major expense line in this company, and we're going to have at some solutions to get us closer to the $3 billion to $4
billion target that will make us competitive."

While some analysts have speculated that American, based in Fort Worth, could follow US Airways, and potentially United, into bankruptcy court, the airline is not raising that possibility with employees, he said, nor does it expect that workers would put it in that position.

"None of our employees want to have anything close to a United situation," he said. "I don't think there's any way our employees will let us get to the point where a creditors' committee and a bankruptcy judge are writing our contracts."

But the airline is also not ignoring the economies that United could achieve in bankruptcy. "If United emerges as more competitive in their operations, we're going to have to be competitive with them on the cost side," Mr. Doke said.

He described the meetings as cordial, not adversarial, adding, "It's kind of a 180 from the kind of approach our friends in Alabama are taking."

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/07/business...7b9645784ffa2a4

 

[cat 111]

Mu union dues went up. Thats a FACT. The mechanics are so tired of the B.S. from the iam. The iam told me my vote didn't count the first time around. It sure as hell will count when I vote to boot them off the property.

 

[LavMan]

Act like a man and stop crying.

The second vote happened because David Siegel said he would hold his own ratification vote because of misinformation he gave out during the road shows.

I am so sick and tired of these grown men acting like children, I wish our contract would have been abrogated cause we would all be out of work and you would realize how severe the consequences would have been, you people would not last in a real job for more then one day.

The first day of bankruptcy the judge abrogated $800 million in plane leases and debt.

If we did not ratify this company would have went belly up, alpa, afa, cwa, and twu concessions would have been void, RSA pull the DIP money, no ATSB loan nor investment of $240 million.

Do you think all the other employees wanted to give concessions? Do you think pilots who are ready to retire gave up their entire pension what they worked 20+ years for? I mean get real.

It is time for you whiners to grow up and act like a man.

 

[delldude]

Mu union dues went up. Thats a FACT. The mechanics are so tired of the B.S. from the iam. The iam told me my vote didn't count the first time around. It sure as hell will count when I vote to boot them off the property.

you boot them off the property then pal...and when AMFA gets even more of your dues money...i'll guess then it will be ok by you,right?

 

[LavMan]

NWA mechanics went from 9,500 to just over 4,000 and $70 a month in dues and no more ATL mtc. AMFA local 33 had to go to court and get an injuction against the National Dictator for life because he did not like the way a vote was going, causing a second vote ever before the IAM took ownership of Dave's second vote.

Get the facts.

 

[cat 111]

Lav, The only thing that's keeping you here is the union. Good luck trying to find another job paying $18 to dump lavs. It seem to me you are the one crying. Afraid if amfa gets in you won't have your union job !!! Hey, I could care less if neither one got the 50% vote. You lav dumpers would be the first to go. The useless iam is crying now because they are going to get the BOOT.

 

[to much time to quit]

NWA mechanics went from 9,500 to just over 4,000 and $70 a month in dues and no more ATL mtc. AMFA local 33 had to go to court and get an injuction against the National Dictator for life because he did not like the way a vote was going, causing a second vote ever before the IAM took ownership of Dave's second vote.

Get the facts.

Lav, once again I don't believe your findings are accurate. Do you have proof NW went from 9500 to just over 4000?? And as far as $70 a month, thats correct because that is 2 times their hourly wages. You see they make alot more money than us and haven't given concessions. You know that. And for you to talk about Atl being shut down at NW. They were told of the closings well ahead of time. No union can tell their company what city to keep a hangar in. But TPA at Usairways was shut down in 1 day with no notice, and yes I won't hide the fact that the lawsuit filed by the union will probably prevail. As far as your story concerning revotes at AMFA, you don't have the whole story, probably just the part the IAM wants you to know, so you can go to your computer and TWIST THE TRUTH!! ata36bg asked you your motive in all of this, and you refuse to answer his questions?? What are you hiding?? What will you gain or LOSE?? Here is ata36bg's questions again and again to refresh your memory!!


I’ll ask you again;

What are you afraid of, that change could happen? Are you a crusader for the mechanics and related and see the IAM as the one true pious group that can save us from ourselves. Has the IAM done such a great job of representing our group in the past that you feel without them we are headed for disaster? Is your zeal driven by this or a more personal desire to rise in the ranks of the union till that one day when you too are submitting annual expense reports that eclipse the wages of even the most topped out technician. I would love to know your motivation LavMan. I understand your reluctance to answer if this is too personal of a question.

 

[cat 111]

Dell dud,

I would double my dues to see the iam kicked off the property.


Lav,

Wake up, the iam at united contracted out ALL OF THEIR HEAVY MAINTENACE.

The fighting whimps !!!