And even your beloved AMFA knows BK is a labor screw fest. And AMFA gave up all AO in BK which is not what the TWU did. We are keeping NB AO.
The Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association (AMFA) tells ANN that its members working at United Airlines ratified the tentative contract agreement with the company through electronic balloting. Details will be forthcoming.
According to AMFA National Director O.V. Delle-Femine, "Our members accepted this agreement through democratic voting. Our choice was to consent to concessions from the company or risk even worse terms imposed by the bankruptcy judge, who has shown a proclivity to agree to company demands. The bankruptcy laws, the court system and federal agencies like the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation are strongly biased in favor of the large airline corporations. Thanks to Congress, these laws show little concern for average workers."
I agree with you Brother! The problem is the AMFA initiates don't know the complete history of their sacred organization. I've know AMFA for about 40 years and the one thing I learned early on was "you know when they're lying, it's when their lips move". That comment goes for their founder Delle and his non-licensed sidekick who started the AMFA as well.
Read these items and you'll see what I mean. They have very short memories and the way they deal with something they'd rather forget is, just make believe it never happened.
No concessions and always have observers - sure, and I've got a nice bridge in Brooklyn
I'd like to show you.
About AMFA
Overview
The Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association is a craft oriented, independent aviation union. It is not an industrial union and represents only airline technicians and related employees in the craft or class in accordance with the National Mediation Board Rules and their dictates. AMFA is committed to elevating the professional standing of technicians and to achieving progressive improvements in the wages, benefits, and working conditions of the skilled craftsmen and women it represents.
AMFA was created in 1962 but did not represent any carrier until 1964 at Ozark Airlines. It later represented Pacific Airlines, Airlift International, Hughes Airwest, Southern Airways, United Airlines, and ATA. AMFA's craft union now represents aircraft maintenance technicians and related support personnel at Alaska Airlines, Mesaba Airlines, and Southwest Airlines. Except for negotiations under bankruptcy, AMFA has never accepted concessions, give-backs, two-tier pay scales, or "B" rate mechanics. One reason for this is that the local airline representatives, who are well-acquainted with their airline's problems, are at the bargaining table with the national officers. AMFA also believes in having its members attend and observe contract negotiations. Although this is considered by many to be a novel idea, AMFA has been doing this in negotiations for years, and it has helped both sides to understand the problems and issues that must be resolved at the bargaining table.
Northwest Strike Over, AMFA too?
Thursday, February 21, 2008
The Aircraft Mechanic Fraternal Association (AMFA) and
Northwest Airlines (NWA) reached a tentative agreement
on October 9, 2006, that, if approved by the membership,
ends the 14-month strike.
The deal includes NWA withdrawing all protests against
strikers receiving unemployment benefits; offering
vacation accrual with a maximum 10 weeks severance pay
for resignations or, as an alternative for those
strikers who elect to remain with the company with 2-
year recall rights, vacation accrual with up to 5 weeks
severance.
Since NWA shut the doors of its Minneapolis maintenance
facility and contracted out janitorial and cabin cleaning jobs, few expect many of the 4400 original
strikers to be recalled.
All 800 mechanics who crossed picket lines, mostly AMFA
members, will remain working and cannot be displaced by
strikers according to the tentative agreement.
It is a tragic end to a dismal chapter of failed AMFA
leadership and strategy.
Most unions considered the strike ill conceived from the
very beginning.
AMFA had no strike fund and, reflecting its separatist
philosophy of mechanics acting alone, went on strike
while the Pilots, Flight Attendants and Machinists'
Union were still negotiating under pressures of
bankruptcy court proceedings.
AMFA bolted ahead of all the other unions,
characteristic of their often-stated mantra that
"strength in numbers doesn't necessarily mean strength. "
This was the wisdom offered by AMFA Assistant National
Director Steve MacFarlane on the eve of the August 2005
strike.
He couldn't have been more wrong.
Underestimating solidarity with other unions on the
property was only one of AMFA's strategic mistakes.
Extremely damaging to unity with other unions was AMFA's
negotiating proposal that NWA take more concessions from
IAM members and less from AMFA members.
As reported by Robert Roach Jr., IAMAW General Vice-
President Transportation: "AMFA, as an institution, has
proposed and is actively advocating, that Northwest
Airlines demand $150,000,000 more [from IAM members] in concessions than the $107,000,000 Northwest has
requested from our membership. "
While AMFA supporters dismiss these claims as slander,
most 'unskilled' airline workers who have been the
target of AMFA's scorn since their formation in 1962,
are not at all surprised by AMFA's breach of solidarity
at NWA during the 2005 summer contract negotiations.
In fact, this breakdown in solidarity is exactly what
occurred only a few months earlier in an AMFA settlement
with United Airlines that directly led to 550 IAM jobs
being contracted out.
As a result of complex legal proceedings between AMFA
and the IAM over the jobs in question, AMFA negotiators
demanded and received from UAL financial 'credits' for
this IAM job loss; thus increasing the hardship on
fellow workers, IAM members, but reducing concessions of
AMFA mechanics.
The whole AMFA experience has been a bitter, devastating
blow to airline workers. It has led to division and
defeat by an organization that claimed to be more
militant and democratic than established unions but was
not.
None of AMFA's major claims have stood up; they are neither more democratic nor more militant than
traditional unions they seek to replace.
AMFA suffers from the same political weaknesses as other
unions only compounded by active attempts to split
unions and separate 'skilled' workers from other employee
groups
Less than 3 years ago when AMFA won an election to
represent 9000 UAL mechanics, AMFA's major campaign slogan was that they would never negotiate concessions.
They claimed to always have rank and file observers at
negotiations.
They claimed to be the most democratic.
None of these claims have stood up; during NWA
on concession bargaining for example, AMFA members were
never given an opportunity to vote on the 'Final and
Best Offer' by NWA before the strike was called in
August 2005, and 'rank and file observers' were barred
from the recent negotiations with NWA on the tentative
agreement.
Only 10 years ago, AMFA's divisive sales pitch attracted
a measly 439 total members, picking up steam only during
recent years of devastating rounds of airline concession
bargaining. After only a few short years with a
significant membership, their numbers have dwindled, the
organization is in crisis and the whole project can be
declared a miserable failure.
Instead of division into smaller craft unions, we need to confront employers with unity. 'One Airline, One
Union' is the answer to AMFA's retrograde separatism.
Perhaps some misled radicals are infatuated with AMFA's
talk of more militancy and democracy. Most airline
workers are not.
AMFA's program is nothing more than elitism starkly and
tragically revealed in the failed 'go-it-alone' strike
strategy at NWA that in the end proved to be just as arrogant as it was misguided.
Not surprisingly, lessons are being drawn by AMFA
mechanics themselves who are abandoning the sinking ship
in droves.
There is an active AMFA decertification drive
at the United Airlines San Francisco Maintenance Base,
the only remaining viable AMFA unit in the country.
AMFA leaders are feeling the heat. Several months ago in
an election, 12,000 NWA Flight Attendants, ousted their AMFA-originated union in favor of the Association of
Flight Attendants, AFA-CWA, AFL-CIO.
There are other signs of internal problems.
AMFA recently fired its founding national attorneys, moved
its national headquarters thousands of miles away from
where its aging National Director resides, declared
itself to be in major debt and announced in a huge reversal of direction, that it is openly investigating affiliations and mergers with the AFL-CIO.
The fundamental tenets of AMFA have been discredited.
Sadly, lessons of unity and solidarity had to be relearned at the cost of thousands of jobs and disrupted
lives.
