AMR Corporation Plans to Cut 1,600 Jobs

[aamechntx]

Hey Torro, I believe that you and all the other mechanics at AA deserve what the guys make at SWA, FedEx and Jetblue. Those raises should be retro to the last ammendable date too. Thats my opinion, but Im a bit biased.

 

[toroshark]

I am curious to what rankings you would use to justify the mechanics rankings? Can you come up with one that doesnt factor in managements mistakes (chromealloy apu's, no checks, raping our parts)? Please tell me o'mighty one how much I am personally worth!

To use a football metaphor, We can only produce as well as the players put around us by management and the plays called by the coach. Well, AA management put the players around us and came up with the gameplan. Management that I might add has not taken a economic hit such as Joe mechanic. And they still have the audacity to stall contract negotiations and offer crumbs if that to the employees that gave back and produced more to ensure that AA didnt go bankrupt. Management at this company is morally bankrupt! Ok, stepping off the soapbox and returning to my midnights trying to fix aircraft with no parts like a good little serf. :unsure:

 

[FA Mikey]

I am curious to what rankings you would use to justify the mechanics rankings? Can you come up with one that doesnt factor in managements mistakes (chromealloy apu's, no checks, raping our parts)? Please tell me o'mighty one how much I am personally worth!

I was told along time ago, you dont get what you are worth. You get what you negotiate for. If you think complaining about management bonuses in the shop and on this board will change anything, then I understand why you are in the situation you are in. Albert Einstein said the definition of Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Until you have a different union or AA changes hands, expecting something different is just that.

 

[toroshark]

I was told along time ago, you dont get what you are worth. You get what you negotiate for. If you think complaining about management bonuses in the shop and on this board will change anything, then I understand why you are in the situation you are in. Albert Einstein said the definition of Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Until you have a different union or AA changes hands, expecting something different is just that.

I am fully aware complaining here or in the shop does absolutely nothing. Sometimes a pro-management type makes a comment that boils your blood and you just have to open up your sewer and let it stream out

 

[Mach85ER]

AA was at one point minutes away from going to the courthouse. Speculation to the contrary is just noise to distract us from the fact that AMR was indeed in the most dire of situations.

That of course is the legend., then the FA's voted thier contract down, then it was off to Chuck E. Cheeses for the "attorney's on the courthouse steps"

 

[FA Mikey]

The deals were reached in order to allegedly starve off a 4pm bankruptcy filing in April of 2002. The language, road shows and votes followed that.

Would they have filed? Hard to say for sure. I just think that if it was a hoax, why create a secret trust to protect SR managements pension and benefits?

 

[700UW]

From a former US employee who was on the IAM M&R Negotiating team during the 2nd chapter 11, concessions suck no matter what, but in bankruptcy the unions really have no leverage, we gave the company a complete offer that met the ask, except the pension as we knew judge rubber stamp would terminate it, and US refused the offer saying that it kept too many people employed.

You guys took concessions, but you are way better off than being forced to negotiate when the company is in bankruptcy.

 

[FWAAA]

From a former US employee who was on the IAM M&R Negotiating team during the 2nd chapter 11, concessions suck no matter what, but in bankruptcy the unions really have no leverage, we gave the company a complete offer that met the ask, except the pension as we knew judge rubber stamp would terminate it, and US refused the offer saying that it kept too many people employed.

You guys took concessions, but you are way better off than being forced to negotiate when the company is in bankruptcy.

I agree with you but you'll never convince many of the TWU members who post here, some of whom are once again officers of their TWU locals.

They'll try to explain to you that you only had to take the second (and third) round of concessions because AA's out-of-court concessions were so large they lowered the bar for the bankrupt airlines. In effect, AA's unions are to blame (if you believe them) for all the concessions suffered by all legacy airline employees since 2001. Continuing their argument, if AA's unions had stood firm, then wages at AA (and all other legacies) would be higher now than they are.

 

[700UW]

We took two rounds of concessions in the first bankruptcy, only to have the company violate the CBA and outsource work, which we won in arbitration but they filed bk again and got out of the award.

We had our CBA abrogated in court, its not a fun process, only yo try and keep labor peace the Judge told the company to give us a final offer to vote on as he did not want to impose a CBA but he would if the company wanted them too, but they feared the house burning down so they threw us a piece of crap that laidoff 46% of the mtc workforce and people voted for it to get their severance pay.

 

[eolesen]

That of course is the legend., then the FA's voted thier contract down, then it was off to Chuck E. Cheeses for the "attorney's on the courthouse steps"

Can't confirm who was or wasn't at the courthouse, but there were gate agents at DFW watching during the week to see who was flying positive/reserved space (A10/A6/A4) on DFW-NYC, plus DFW-PHL (in case they decided to file in Delaware).

Fairly certain that one of those in LGA was Gary Kennedy (general counsel for AMR), another I remember hearing was John McClean (VP purchasing). Other guy I recall in LGA was a senior manager in fuel purchasing, but I can't remember his name.

I'm sure there might have been other reasons for AMR's head lawyer and two high ranking people in Purchasing to all be in NYC at the same time, but you have to admit it's one heck of a coincidence....

 

[700UW]

Executives dont file for bankruptcy, law firms do it, in US' first case all they did was file the petition on a Sunday by getting stamped at the courthouse, Executives dont show up till the first hearing is done so they can continue to operate and pay for certain obligations. You can file 24/7.

 

[FWAAA]

A 10K is not a labor contract. Show me where in the contract it says that the additional job losses were tied to the agreed upon concessions. The dollar figure was met with direct concessions from TWU members, the savings from addition job losses through attrition and productivity gains was not figured in-the company scored double. Show me where in the figures presented and agreed upon by the union it agreed to additional job cuts to reach the figures presented.

No, thanks, Bob. I've presented evidence that your claims are false, and you respond with a demand for "proof" that you find satisfactory. I'll pass. All three unions agreed to wage scale concessions along with work rule changes that resulted in redundencies. The facts are that the TWU agreed to $620 million of annual concessions, and a sizable portion of that savings came from reduced headcount. Same with the pilots ($660 million) and FAs ($340 million).

The fact is that my assumptions on what may have happened in BK are just as valid as the assumption that AMR would have filed BK at all.

If you say so. You have previously posted your doubt that AA would have filed Ch 11 had the concessions been defeated. Why would AA not file in that case?

I view it as a mechanic who has been in the industry for 30 years and witnessed it first hand, your view is from 10K reports and what the airlines say happened.

Ok, Bob, you win. You showed up for work and turned wrenches, so that makes you singularly qualified to report the "facts" about AA's finances as you see them. Uh-huh.

What happened to the other airlines and their overhaul is a little more complex than you make it out to be. There are many factors that led to the abandonment of heavy overhaul by AA's competitors, not the least was the fact that we undercut all of AA's competitors time after time, most significantly in 1995 with the introduction of SRPs. So from 1995 to 2003 AA had been replacing highly paid A&P mechanics with low paid SRPs, later reclassified as OSMs. When hard times came the other carriers were screwed. They had no way to compete with AA in overhaul, so they sent it out. AA had put SRPs in through attrition, the other carriers would have had to convince the unions on their property to allow the company to reduce some members pay by half in order to set up a competitive pay structure-that wasnt possible, both from a union standpoint and a management one so they were forced to send it out. I believe that after the recall periods expire and the economy rebounds that we will see some of those and other carriers try and secure contracts that grant them OSM like classifications and start to bring work back in house again.

Again, you blame your union (yourselves) for what happened to mechanics at other airlines. So the thousands of UA overhaul mechanics who lost their jobs in IND and OAK should blame the TWU and AA mechanics for their job losses? What about the NW mechanics? Are you (AA mechanics and the TWU) to blame for their predicament? When the DL and NW mechanics were combined, the news reports said that NW had only about 1,000 mechanics remaining and DL had about 5,000 mechanics. The world's largest airline (substantially larger than AA) has only about 6,000 mechanics on the payroll. Mechanic and Related at AA still number about 12,000. And you don't think AA could get by with about 6,000? Easy to do if overhaul was sent elsewhere. I agree with you that keeping it inhouse must be beneficial or else it would have been shipped out.

 

[FWAAA]

According to depositions taken in the RPA legal case, the Board of Directors was not thinking of Chapter 11 at that time.

Could you provide a link or a quote or any substantiation? Here's what the company said on April 15, 2003 in the 10-K:

Although these Labor Agreements enabled the Company to avoid an immediate filing of a petition for relief under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code (a Chapter 11 filing), these Labor Agreements must still be ratified by the unions' memberships.

Revisionist history persists.

 

[FWAAA]

Executives dont file for bankruptcy, law firms do it, in US' first case all they did was file the petition on a Sunday by getting stamped at the courthouse, Executives dont show up till the first hearing is done so they can continue to operate and pay for certain obligations. You can file 24/7.

An officer of a corporate debtor must sign the petition. Yes, petitions can be filed 24/7 but lawyers' signatures don't replace those of the debtor.

David Siegel signed the first US petition. See it here: http://fl1.findlaw.com/news.findlaw.com/ws...air81102pet.pdf

Same with UAL, where the General Counsel signed on behalf of UAL: http://fl1.findlaw.com/news.findlaw.com/ws...0902ch11pet.pdf

 

[700UW]

And they can be signed anytime, Siegel wasnt even present when on a Sunday afternoon when the company told the IAM NC that they were filing chapter 11 the first time.