ARPEY - CEO of the Year
- Thread starter WingNaPrayer
- Start date
Perhaps, if tickets were the way that was used,(I would opt for date with current employer since not all workers have liscences) but the gains and benifits of portability would benifit the younger worker even more than the older workers. Portability would greatly increase bargaining leverage which would give younger workers a better career than we ever saw.
The date on my ticket has changed with each move I've made. :huh:
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WingNaPrayer
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Man did this thread ever go off topic!
So did Shared Sacrifice, and pull together, win together--all the things that made Aprey-CEO of the Year. :blink:
Hackman
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- Sep 30, 2003
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Which "association" do you mean? The one that sold out the AMTs at UAL, NWA, and US Air, or the one that fought all the way to a PEB and received the best contract to date?
Rank amateurs??? That would be the industrial union clowns that recite the pledge of allegance before speaking to the CEO of a major airline. Very impressive and professional to say the least.
In addition, I'm sure the matching slogan T-shirts really got his attention. I know I was duly impressed. :blink:
T
The Goose
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That's the problem, Ken - all of them seem to be dues collection agencies with only their own interests in mind; i. e., keep the money coming in, both from the membership and, more than likely, their supposed enemies.
I'm disgusted with the entire lot of unions, associations, and any other group one could fit into the catagory.
eolesen
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- Jul 23, 2003
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Not that I've ever heard of. Stock options are sometimes used as a way of bankruptcy debts, but that obviously doesn't apply here.
Yep. And as FWAAA already mentioned, most of those benefits won were negotiated well before deregulation. MBA programs didn't really take off until the 60's, but I'll guarantee you that there were a few business school grads involved in the process from AA's side dating back into the 50's. IIRC, Wharton was the business school of choice for recruiting back in the 633 Third Ave. days....
No, but I probably wouldn't sell my house without a realtor to handle the actual negotiating for me.
Yes, that's worked so well for you over the past 28 years. Really.
So you dont know. I heard there was a lawsuut that cited that AAgives flight benifits toemployees of vendors which ups the pool of pass travellers to around 1,000,000 people even though AA only has 80,000 employees.
"Yep. And as FWAAA already mentioned, most of those benefits won were negotiated well before deregulation. "
So what? Deregulation isnt the wholer story. Government interference through the RLA and the courts are what made the difference, not deregulation, deregulation is simply another 9-11. Even in the heydays before deregulation airline workers only got what other unions won before them, unions that where in other industries where airline deregulation had no impact whatsoever.
"No, but I probably wouldn't sell my house without a realtor to handle the actual negotiating for me."
Would you require your realtor to have an MBA? In other words a realtor, with limited, but specialized training, can handle sales in real estate better than an MBA?
"Yes, that's worked so well for you over the past 28 years. Really."
Who says that we have or have had either? The fact is we dont, and thats why unionism is not working. Most labor leaders today are more concerned about their personal portfolios and have no idea what the movement they are in charge of is really supposed to be about. The American labor movement castrated itself 50 years ago when they routed out all the idealists who actually had both balls and intelligence. We need intelligent people but a degree does not make one person smarter than another, even Jim Little claimed he had a masters degree (turned out to be fake). LTCM, Enron, Andersen etc, were all loaded up with people with impressive degrees, where did those institutions end up?
Got any proof of that?
Oh my God, deregulation had a profound impact on the state of carriers. How and where they expanded, real competition, and for the first time costs had to brought in to check in a real competitive environment.
eolesen
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- Jul 23, 2003
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Sabre and Sky Chefs retained limited pass privileges when they were spun off from AMR. That's old news, and IIRC, Sabre's privileges expire either next year or in 2009. Employees who were at Sky Chefs in 1986 when they were sold off got limited passes until retirement, and that was only a couple thousand people. The fact is that all of those Sabre and Sky Chefs people hired on with AA, and had no say in the spin-offs.
Perhaps y'all need to take special note of that. The SFO papers are rumbling about UAL spinning off their overhaul base. Hope those highly experienced AMFA technicians are able to negotiate travel for their comrades. Good thing California isn't a right-to-work state... They'll be able to keep a closed shop.
Let's see.... A realtor deals with contracts and negotiations for a living. They're not building or fixing up houses and dabbling in real estate contracts on the side. Yep, I think they'll know more about what needs to go into a friggin' contract and what can be done to lower my costs as a seller or buyer.
If I had it I would not have phrased it as I did.
So there wasnt competition prior to deregulation? Sure deregulation changed things for the carriers but there is plenty of competition in the construction trades yet unions in that industry have been successful at getting good deals for their members.
Your repeated reference to the construction trades confuses me. As NH/BBs often reminds us, the LA longshoremen have their employers by the short hairs also, but what does that have to do with American Airlines and the state of its organized workgroups?
In some parts of the country, tradesmen unions are very strong. In others, they hire the unemployed at minimum wage to picket the construction sites of new Wal-Marts or Meijer stores (sometimes for months and even years) even though construction progresses by non-union contractors. I don't even know if any nonunion contractors exist in the NYC area. Maybe the only realistic choice is among the various unionized contractors.
I agree with you on the big ticket item: If you could organize all airplane mechanics in the entire country into one union, then perhaps you'd obtain the bargaining power and negotiation leverage that would permit you to extract some economic rent.
But that movement isn't progressing very fast. So how to contend with the fact that AA has lots of competiton and that paying its workers significantly more than the competition will put AA at a competitive disadvantage? AA can do it as long as its revenue premium remains high enough to cover the increased costs, but what if that revenue dries up?
Perhaps y'all should start another thread, we are already off topic.
As far as negotiating travel benifits, its pretty much moot, anybody with a credit card that gets miles gets better travel priviledges than airline employees anyway.
Rabozzi and Newill, negotiators for the company, as far as I know, do not have MBAs, with all their resources AA chooses two mechanics from management to negotiate for them, why is that? Could it be that people who work under the contract on a daily basis might have more insight into what they want from it and how the language actually plays out on the floor than some MBA with a big vocabulary?
As far as your justification for hiring a realtor you must not be aware of the fact that many unions have officers that deal full time with enforcing and negotiating contracts? In some cases(obviously not the TWU) their level of expertise at what they do would be as good or better than the level of most realtors doing what they do. Maybe thats why many corporations simply bypass the business schools and try to hire ex-union leaders.
eolesen
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- Jul 23, 2003
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Simple. It's to build on whatever rapport they have with the union as much if not moreso than to draw on their experience. But they're just two of the faces at the table, and what they present has had input from more than a couple MBA's, HR generalists, financial analysts, and probably a few actuarial types as well. The TWU brings in consultants off-line from the discussions, but they're not available at the table to try and work different angles for a solution -- they're essentially there to give a thumbs up or down to whatever was proposed, and maybe come up with a counterproposal that will then go back and forth thru shuttle diplomacy, getting misinterpreted along the way...
I'm far from being a fan of MBA's, but it doesn't change the fact that when you've got people emotionally attached to the process, they don't always make rational decisions or consider alternatives which wind up putting more money in your pocket than the same ol' same ol' does.
We obviously disagree on this. You're happy to negotiate however you want to. I'll continue to use a neutral party who isn't afraid to tell the Emporer he has no clothes.
