Delta Mechanics get raise again

[Chuck Schalk]

Delta mechanics recieved another raise bringing them to 38.27 per hour. A non-union company is beating the crap out of the current unions on the airport! 5 dollars an hour more than AA! WTF, how weak are the unions? BTW: Delta outsources no more than anyone else so cancel that arguement.

 

[swamt]

Delta mechanics recieved another raise bringing them to 38.27 per hour. A non-union company is beating the cap out of the current unions on the airport! 5 dollars an hour more than AA! WTF, how weak are the unions? BTW: Delta outsources no more than anyone else so cancel that arguement.

Congrats to the Delta mechs!! This is how Delta keeps the unions out. They will have to continue to buy them off to keep the unions out. However, they will never have a say-so when Delta has to revert to lay-offs and rifs. And, they will have no control or say-so once the co wants the raises back as well as all the other bennies and perks that go with it.

 

[1AA]

More money and no union dues. Can not blame the AMT's for not wanting a union.

 

[FWAAA]

Congrats to the Delta mechs!! This is how Delta keeps the unions out. They will have to continue to buy them off to keep the unions out. However, they will never have a say-so when Delta has to revert to lay-offs and rifs. And, they will have no control or say-so once the co wants the raises back as well as all the other bennies and perks that go with it.

Some may decide that the vaunted "protection" that the union theoretically offers comes at too-high a price. Work rules and benefits are great, but you can't pay your mortgage with favorable work rules.

About the bolded portion: so far, no union has shown any sort of "success" in resisting concessions once their employer files for Ch 11 protection.

I'm a union member (public employee in California) but it looks like airline employees may be rational when they decide to be free-riders and stay union-free. B6 and DL mechanics appear to be doing better than AA or US mechanics, and they're not handing over $720/year like the TWU extracts from the AA mechanics for sub-par wages and benefits.

I recently posted in a reply to Bob Owens that his 25 years of TWU dues would be worth over $80k today if AA had been non-union and he'd deposited the $720/year in a S&P 500 index fund and left it there. By the time he retires, those dues would probably be worth over $100k. That's a lot of money for all that "fraternally yours" crap from the industrial union leaders.

Can any long-time AA mechanic say with a straight face that they're better off to the tune of $80k than a long-time DL mechanic? Or FedEx mechanics?

Public employee union members and unionized employees of consistently profitable companies (like utilities) tend to do very well. Airline employee union members? Not so much.

AA mechanics should vote out the TWU and vote in their choice of replacement, but if history is any guide, the dues they pay won't, in the long run, make them any better off. Voting in AMFA or AMP or any of the replacement industrial unions won't suddenly transform them into UPS mechanics. They'll still be AA mechanics working for the low wages AA pays.

 

[Jager]

"They will have to continue to buy them off to keep the unions out"

Your quite delusional..
So the company will keep " threatening them with a good time" to keep the thugs out...
What a joke you are..

 

[Kev3188]

Congrats to the Delta mechs!! This is how Delta keeps the unions out. They will have to continue to buy them off to keep the unions out. However, they will never have a say-so when Delta has to revert to lay-offs and rifs. And, they will have no control or say-so once the co wants the raises back as well as all the other bennies and perks that go with it.

...And this is the beginning, middle, and end to the story...

More money and no union dues. Can not blame the AMT's for not wanting a union.

It's easy to be dazzled with base rates. It's harder to remember that base rate =/= total compensation, nor does it equal the benefits of a legally binding agreement. I can absolutely see why you guys would prefer it over what you have now though; for as little as you get in return with the TWU, you might as well be non-union. Careful what you wish for, though...

"They will have to continue to buy them off to keep the unions out"

Your quite delusional..
So the company will keep " threatening them with a good time" to keep the thugs out...
What a joke you are..

WTF?

Paying for labor peace is *exactly* what DL does. That shouldn't be a surprise to anyone on here, and it's really not arguable.

 

[Bob Owens]

Some may decide that the vaunted "protection" that the union theoretically offers comes at too-high a price. Work rules and benefits are great, but you can't pay your mortgage with favorable work rules

About the bolded portion: so far, no union has shown any sort of "success" in resisting concessions once their employer files for Ch 11 protection.

I'm a union member (public employee in California) but it looks like airline employees may be rational when they decide to be free-riders and stay union-free. B6 and DL mechanics appear to be doing better than AA or US mechanics, and they're not handing over $720/year like the TWU extracts from the AA mechanics for sub-par wages and benefits.

I recently posted in a reply to Bob Owens that his 25 years of TWU dues would be worth over $80k today if AA had been non-union and he'd deposited the $720/year in a S&P 500 index fund and left it there. By the time he retires, those dues would probably be worth over $100k. That's a lot of money for all that "fraternally yours" crap from the industrial union leaders.

Can any long-time AA mechanic say with a straight face that they're better off to the tune of $80k than a long-time DL mechanic? Or FedEx mechanics?

Public employee union members and unionized employees of consistently profitable companies (like utilities) tend to do very well. Airline employee union members? Not so much.

AA mechanics should vote out the TWU and vote in their choice of replacement, but if history is any guide, the dues they pay won't, in the long run, make them any better off. Voting in AMFA or AMP or any of the replacement industrial unions won't suddenly transform them into UPS mechanics. They'll still be AA mechanics working for the low wages AA pays.

What makes UPS mechanics different than Fed Ex mechanics? Other than the $8/hr more per hour, better benefits and workrules, which do translate into money despite your claims.

Delta enjoys what they get because of the Unions at UPS, WN and UAL.

The IAM and TWU simply pull the profession down and help keep Delta Union free.

I agree that Bobby Gless and Don Videtich have done an incalculabe amount of damage to the value of Union membership. They have certainly guaranteed that no non union mechanic in this industry would ever seek to have the TWU represent them by choice. Thanks to them we actually suffer a huge disadvantage because we are members of the TWU. There is no arguement, we work for lower wages, lower than non-union, work more days per year, more than Non-union, even more than non-union in other departments at AA, our work rules are very weak, have no real job protection language and benefits among the worst in the industry. I figure that our membership in the TWU costs us close to $20,000 per year between all those things.


Line maintenance suffers having their labor sold at a huge discount as a result of being in the TWU. They suffer this because the leaders of the TWU did everything in their power to make it so.

Thats what happens when you have a bad structure that allows people like Gless and Videtich to get into power. Neither of them really believe in unionism and they make sure that AA gets everything they want, in some cases AA even reversed themselves. They in return are treated very well by AA, enjoying A-5 pass travel for them and their families, Admirals Club membership, a pension from AA based upon their earnings reported by the union and who knows waht else? The TWU recently supported the ATA in opposing stricter duty time limits on mechanics, they were the only labor group to do so. (I beleieve they were the only labor group to oppose Obamacare as well). While preaching to their members that they had to help the company survive by agreeing to work more hours for less pay they cut heads instead of cutting their own pay when the Union became cash strapped. Don Videtich's pay climbed as he sat there dragging out negotiations, year after year as we receieved no increases, doing everything he could to prevent the committee from voting in favor of asking to be released until AA finally filed in 2011. When the committee did vote to ask, he told the mediator that they really didnt want to be released, that we were asking for internal political reasons. When the committee again voted to ask to be released in the Summer of 2011 Jim Little told us to wait and see what Larry Gibbons had to say, claiming that Gibbons, the former head of AIRCON would go after the company, instead, as I had suspected-Gibbons went after us. The International also relied on info from AIRCON, the organization that touts "we are the guys who give you all the information you need to scare away your unions" for negotiations.

Its sad what Gless and Videtich have done to the craft they came from, (Gless at one time was an Amfa organizer) sure they lobbied against foreign maintenance, but at the same time have done their best to make this job not worth fighting for by giving away everything. They also lobbied against stricter duty times for mechanics, a measure that effectively helps reduce the supply of maintenance labor and drive up the price of that labor. A measure that has workered very well for pilots. I believe the only reason they are against low wage foreign maintenenance is because they cant collect dues from them, dues that would help pay their six figure salaries and fund their six figure pensions, they are both OK with low paying domestic wages for their members, as long as they pay dues. Glss and Videtich of course were appointed by Jim Little, the author of the 15 year Eagle contract with AMR. Our 2003 concessions ended up spanning till 2018, 15 years!!!! I guess we should have seen it coming.

 

[Bob Owens]

$33.57 at AA

$4.70/hr less


$9776 a year less, plus the $685.88 a year we pay (after Taxes) to get that lower wage.

they get 10 holidays ay at 2x, we get 5 at 1.5X

Holidays add $3061.6 to their pay at Delta,
Holidays add $665.4 to our pay at AA
That adds another $2396 to their advantage over us

DT after 4 hrs OT at Delta, we get 1.5x

7% 401k match for Delta
5.5% 401K match for us
So for 2080 hours they get $5572.11 from the company
For 2080 hours we get $3840.41 from the company
Another $1700 disadvantage for us.


Company pays for LTD
Union sponsors a plan members have to pay around $700/year for

Thats over $15,000 a year right there!


How can anyone be expected to defend that?

 

[FWAAA]

Delta mechanics recieved another raise bringing them to 38.27 per hour. A non-union company is beating the crap out of the current unions on the airport! 5 dollars an hour more than AA! WTF, how weak are the unions? BTW: Delta outsources no more than anyone else so cancel that arguement.

By the way, Delta outsources most if not all of its heavy airframe overhauls and insources various high-value work (engines, components, etc). WT has written lengthy dissertations explaining it (and will probably do so again here) but the fact is that Delta does outsource a significant portion of the typical airframe overhauls (like performed at TULE). Recently, AA has just begun doing so.

That's not to say that AA workers should not fire the TWU - I think they should. And it doesn't change the fact that DL offers higher hourly pay than the TWU has secured for AA workers. But there's no need to gloss over the fact that DL is a leading outsourcer of some types of work.

 

[WorldTraveler]

As much as some people are fixated on specific aspects of the maintenance operation, the real yardstick is how well the employees are paid and how many of them there are.

Despite outsourcing airframe overhauls, DL managed to insource enough work to keep close to 10K employees in Tech Ops. After AA's cuts, DL will have - and already have achieved it - the largest Tech Ops workforce in the western hemisphere.

At the end of the day, the vast majority of employees are happy to work on someone else's aircraft in order to receive a paycheck.

WN pays for labor peace as well... they just happen to have unions.

DL and WN achieve the same goals - one with unions throughout the company, the other with more limited unions.
The financial results of both companies allow them to keep labor happy and vice versa.

 

[FWAAA]

Despite outsourcing airframe overhauls, DL managed to insource enough work to keep close to 10K employees in Tech Ops. After AA's cuts, DL will have - and already have achieved it - the largest Tech Ops workforce in the western hemisphere.

Probably not for long if the ill-advised merger with US occurs - then AA's maintenance operations will again be much larger than any other airline's.

 

[Bob Owens]

Probably not for long if the ill-advised merger with US occurs - then AA's maintenance operations will again be much larger than any other airline's.

Not with 35% of Maint spend being outsourced it wont. There is no system protection anymore either. If they keep the high dollar work in house and outsource the AO like Delta they can shed well over 50% of the workers.

 

[700UW]

And DL is not hiring mechanics, there are bringing in contract workers using Delta Global Services, they are not DL employees.

 

[Bob Owens]

And DL is not hiring mechanics, there are bringing in contract workers using Delta Global Services, they are not DL employees.

How many mechanics has US hired lately?

 

[700UW]

If US hires a mechanic they are US employees, not working for a contractor that provides mechanics to a company.

And they are actually hiring.

https://usairways.greatjob.net/jobs/JobListingAction.action;jsessionid=D5CAFED3ACB47FB8EA8F743C4FE10B24?PSUID=1e106531-ad83-4b8e-a6d6-72552fb4b2ce

Want to apply?