F/A Furlough

[Bob Owens]

I came to TWA from PanAm and certainly didn't expect to bring my seniority, pay, vacation. It was MY choice to join TWA.

Why not? Do you feel that executives should control the seniority system?

However, I think the reason the former TWA f/as have such a hard time with the staple is the "do unto others" philosophy.

Hmm, so you are saying that workers at AA, some of whom left other carriers to go to AA should step aside and let workers from a company that AA bought take their jobs?

We did the right thing with our acquisition of OZ.

A little bit of a differant situation.
1. OZ was never a major carrier, most of their workers would have been reletively young with little seniority.
2. TWA was a major carrier that was in decline for a long time meaning that they had mostly older workers with considerable seniority.
3. Was the question of what to do with OZ ever put to a vote before the members? Or did the TWA unions buy off on Dovetail to facilitate the mereger?

The ratio was surprisingly similar and we had the added burden of nearly 5000 f/as locked out from out strike. BUT, we gave DOH because it was the right thing to do and followed the tenets of past labor mergers and acquisitions.

Or was it that the unions at OZ had merger protection language in their contracts and they werent about to abrogate their contracts to facilitate the merger like the unions at TWA did?

I remained locked out for an additional year because of this decision. And, I can honestly say I do not know of one former TWA f/a that begrudges our OZ peers one day of their seniority. As you know, I always said DOH would not have been appropriate at the time of the AA-TWA acquisition because we were top heavy in seniority. BUT, a 4 (of yours) to 1 (of ours) would have been the right thing to do. Too late for me, but it isn't for the rest of you. Only time, honor, and negotiations will tell... Unfortunately, it will never be over.

Well I've spoken to a former OZ mechanic who went into TWA and his experience was different. He did face resentment.

The whole situation is unfortunate. The TWA flight attendants paid a price for not trying to change a deeply flawed structure. The AA flight attendants certainly had no ties or obligations to step aside and let the TWA flight attendants take their jobs. We have all accepted the risky career move of banking on a single employer where everything we have is under the control of people we have no control over.

I personally would rather see airline workers structure their agreements and unions so that seniority is portable. Our seniority is the airlines best weapon against us.

If TWA had simply liquidated and sold the assetts, which is where most feel they were headed, then there would be no question, you guys would have lost all your seniority, company, occupational, vacation, sick time, everything, you wouldnt even have recall rights. Oddly you seem to feel thats acceptable, but since AA bought TWA you appear feel that the workers at AA, who had nothing to do with the decision and nothing to gain from it should step aside and let you take their jobs because of a decision made entirely by management.

You stated "I came to TWA from PanAm and certainly didn't expect to bring my seniority, pay, vacation. It was MY choice to join TWA". Why do you want to give the employer the right to say what happens to your seniority, pay and vacation? Why as a union member would you find that acceptable? Shouldnt the unions get together to give workers portability in their careers so they could neutralize the single most powerful weapon the airlines have against their workers?

Its too late for you, but in true "do unto others" ideology shouldnt we work to make portability of our careers a priority in this industry?

Maybe I am a dreamer but I'm not the one who feels that the FAs at AA should have stood in place for TWA FAs on the unemployment lines.

 

[galleyguy4u2]

Hey ... You dog the union every chance you get...But dont forget that APFA protected your senority otherwise you'd be getting furloughed on 01Apr09. Also the union cant just go into management and demand things be changed overnight....You'll see for the first time that it takes a long time to get what we want....
We had bag tags and slogans in 1993 that brought us all together .... That togetherness got us an industry leading contract after an indusrty leading strike..

Industry leading strike???? I don't think so since Clinton had to intervene. You need to take a look at the 86 strike at TWA. Your few day's on the picket line are nothing in comparison to other f/a strikes.

 

[galleyguy4u2]

1) Sorry dear, but APFA "saved" your seniority by stealing it from other people.

2) And so sorry if you are bothered by those horrible "bitter" people who have lost their careers. I think what bothers you is the fact that anyone who has lost their job and might be voting on "your" next contract, is just a guilty reminder of how horrible you have treated your fellow union members.

When it's all said and done, the APFA will have been on the wrong side of history when it comes to the story of what was done to the former TWA flight attendants. For me personally, it's not really a matter of trying to "get over it", as much as having to live with the consequences of a horrible union injustice. Shame on the APFA.

Ah yes Stapled, we TWA people will have over 1,600 votes on this next contract. AA f/a's don't vote like we do. AND WE WILL VOTE!!!

 

[BigBangTheory]

Instead of B&C'ing about everything, go to the APFA Convention and vent to the BOD. I'm so sick of hearing we got screwed or staapled. What's done is done. The AA "nAAtives" didn't staple or screw the TWA f/a's. You should be addressing that with your former union, the IAM.

Get of your a**es and start doing something. We're all AA f/a's and APFA members. This crap has gone on long enough. It's been 8 years since AA bought TWA. You guys continue to beat a dead horse and it's getting old.

Skymess, you complain about the APFA more than anyone. Put your complaints to use and get of your a** and do something. Get involved and do something other than complaining!

APFA Annual Convention will be held this year in Boston, at the Westin Copley Place, from March 5 – 8. Go to Boston and voice your opinions.

 

[BigBangTheory]

Why not? Do you feel that executives should control the seniority system?



Hmm, so you are saying that workers at AA, some of whom left other carriers to go to AA should step aside and let workers from a company that AA bought take their jobs?



A little bit of a differant situation.
1. OZ was never a major carrier, most of their workers would have been reletively young with little seniority.
2. TWA was a major carrier that was in decline for a long time meaning that they had mostly older workers with considerable seniority.
3. Was the question of what to do with OZ ever put to a vote before the members? Or did the TWA unions buy off on Dovetail to facilitate the mereger?



Or was it that the unions at OZ had merger protection language in their contracts and they werent about to abrogate their contracts to facilitate the merger like the unions at TWA did?



Well I've spoken to a former OZ mechanic who went into TWA and his experience was different. He did face resentment.

The whole situation is unfortunate. The TWA flight attendants paid a price for not trying to change a deeply flawed structure. The AA flight attendants certainly had no ties or obligations to step aside and let the TWA flight attendants take their jobs. We have all accepted the risky career move of banking on a single employer where everything we have is under the control of people we have no control over.

I personally would rather see airline workers structure their agreements and unions so that seniority is portable. Our seniority is the airlines best weapon against us.

If TWA had simply liquidated and sold the assetts, which is where most feel they were headed, then there would be no question, you guys would have lost all your seniority, company, occupational, vacation, sick time, everything, you wouldnt even have recall rights. Oddly you seem to feel thats acceptable, but since AA bought TWA you appear feel that the workers at AA, who had nothing to do with the decision and nothing to gain from it should step aside and let you take their jobs because of a decision made entirely by management.

You stated "I came to TWA from PanAm and certainly didn't expect to bring my seniority, pay, vacation. It was MY choice to join TWA". Why do you want to give the employer the right to say what happens to your seniority, pay and vacation? Why as a union member would you find that acceptable? Shouldnt the unions get together to give workers portability in their careers so they could neutralize the single most powerful weapon the airlines have against their workers?

Its too late for you, but in true "do unto others" ideology shouldnt we work to make portability of our careers a priority in this industry?

Maybe I am a dreamer but I'm not the one who feels that the FAs at AA should have stood in place for TWA FAs on the unemployment lines.

Well said, Bob. Cheers!

 

[aafsc]

1) Sorry dear, but APFA "saved" your seniority by stealing it from other people.

2) And so sorry if you are bothered by those horrible "bitter" people who have lost their careers. I think what bothers you is the fact that anyone who has lost their job and might be voting on "your" next contract, is just a guilty reminder of how horrible you have treated your fellow union members.

When it's all said and done, the APFA will have been on the wrong side of history when it comes to the story of what was done to the former TWA flight attendants. For me personally, it's not really a matter of trying to "get over it", as much as having to live with the consequences of a horrible union injustice. Shame on the APFA.

Wrong, APFA "saved" his/her seniority by preventing other people from stealing it; they fulfilled their fiduciary/legal responsibility to the nAAtive F/As. Your career ended long before AA came along due to the fact that TWA was a walking dead man, no one wanted anything to do with TWA because of Karabu. America West and Airtran considered merging with TWA and after studying the situation, ran away as fast as they could. Any airline buying TWA with karabu would be like a healthy sane person knowingly injecting themselves with the AIDS virus. Yes, karabu was TWAs version of AIDS. In 2001 AA was one the healthiest airlines around while TWA was on it's death bed vomiting blood. You expecting employees of a healthy airline to pay the price for TWA's sickness while you shoot to the top of the seniority lists shows just how much YOU think of "your fellow union members". It just eats away at you that you were unable to resurrect your dead TWA career at AA on the backs, and at the expense of, the AA F/As. History has already proven the APFA right. They were totally against the deal and knew from AA's past practices (AirCAl. Reno Air) that it was possible AA would shed TWA's "assets" leaving only the debt and employees. History has proven beyond all doubt that APFA was right and they provided justice to their members by protecting them from the TWA onslaught. Kudos to APFA!!!!

 

[aafsc]

There is only so much that can be blamed on 9-11. Unfortunately, I think this was "the plan" from the beginning. Funny how these things seem to happen during negotiations. The first order of business should be to negotiate that no AA flight can be flown by any f/a not represented by the APFA. Tighten the SCOPE or force AA to mirror the contract at all of the foreign national bases. In 2009 the SCOPE should absolutely protect the US workers and AA should do as other carriers have done and close the foreign bases. (we lost foreign nationals in the mid seventies) Job protection is job one for any union and you all should be very well versed in your SCOPE provisions. But given the apathy (as demonstrated by the recent union vote) I doubt if 1/4 of the AA f/as could define SCOPE.

If AA closed the foreign bases (BOG, LIM, SCL, and EZE) then those governments would revoke AA's authorities to fly into those countries. AA obtained the EAL Latin American rights from the Latin American governments on the condition it hire all the employees down there. Not only would AA no longer be allowed to fly to BOG, LIM, SCL, and EZE but would almost certainly be barred from flying into CLO and MDE in addtion to any other cities they may add in the future to those countries. Many of the South American based F/As at AA worked for EAL, then Braniff before that, then PanAgra before that. The F/As have to be taken with the routes.

If they did fire the foreign nationals and lost service to those cities, AA would also have to lay off many US based (mostly MIA) F/As because not only do the foreign nationals fly those routes but a lot US based F/As do also.

 

[MCI transplant]

<_< ------ Again aa your spouting off your prejudice, and opinions, on what came about with the AA/TWA merger/buyout! Do you really believe AA went into this deal blind? They knew about karibou! In fact AA's Legal Dept. took great pains, expended agreat deal of time, expense, and resources, to figure out a way to side track Uncle Carl and karabu! Now why do you think they would do that? Obviously they must have seen something of value there!----- Also promises were made to Congress for a "Fair" integration of the work forces, that in the case of the F/A's, was not kept! -------- I know aa you feel slighted because Eastern never got the chance TWA did, but that my friend was out of our (TWA's) control!------ And that bugs you doesn't it? :huh:

 

[aredeeyou22]

Wait a minute, AA is allowed to furlough "real" flight attendants before getting rid of the foreign nationals? People in LGA BOS DCA etc will be walking out the door before FA's in So. America? Or have the foreign nationals already been let go in previous layoffs?

Shocks me that APFA would allow foreign nationals in the first place....

 

[aafsc]

<_< ------ Again aa your spouting off your prejudice, and opinions, on what came about with the AA/TWA merger/buyout! Do you really believe AA went into this deal blind? They knew about karibou! In fact AA's Legal Dept. took great pains, expended agreat deal of time, expense, and resources, to figure out a way to side track Uncle Carl and karabu! Now why do you think they would do that? Obviously they must have seen something of value there!----- Also promises were made to Congress for a "Fair" integration of the work forces, that in the case of the F/A's, was not kept! -------- I know aa you feel slighted because Eastern never got the chance TWA did, but that my friend was out of our (TWA's) control!------ And that bugs you doesn't it? :huh:

Obviously AA was going to make sure it did not contract the "karabu" virus. Even tough TWA overall was a bad move, at least AA was smart enough to avoid karabu where as TWA management was stupid enough to agree to it. The only way to save certain parts of TWA without being infected by karabu was to go chapter 11 followed by a chapter 7 where AA could pick what it wanted without taking the whole thing. It was the only way. If TWA did not go the ch11/ch7 route they would have never been able to get rid of karabu and would have ceased operations and liquidated. The way it turned out was they liquidated and AA picked up most of their continuing operations without karabu. The judge obviously felt that the AA deal would give TWAs creditors more than an outright liquidation shutdown would have and he was right. At that time AA was expecting to get about 86 planes from the proposed US/UA merger which would have provided work for all including many new hires AA was planning on. Additionally there was no more room at ORD and DFW and AT THAT TIME AA needed more East-West capacity which is why they wanted STL. The bottom has since fallen out of the industry and continues to fall in these very bad economic times. So STL, since the terminal facilities and business traffic are far inferior to ORD and DFW, was the first to go. Not only that but ORD has seen deep cuts along with DFW albeit to a lesser extent.

With regards to "promises" for fair and equitable for the TWA F/As, again the APFA controls the F/A list at AA not Carty. The APFA wanted nothing to do with TWA and was under no obligation give them anything;especially when it would have been detrimental to their members.

As for EAL, I will just say this: EAL's Latin American routes are the saviour of AA. Yes, these have been a gold mine for AA since the day they acquired them and have carried AA ever since. They are very profitable routes. AA would not be what it is today and more than likely would have filed bankruptcy like the others if they didn't have Latin America. EAL's Latin assets have been very profitable for AA, TWA's STL hub was not when it was at 300-400 flights a day. If EAL people would have gotten what TWA people now have the EAL people would have been at top pay for almost 20 years with all benefits and 100% EAL seniority in MIA. There are many former EAL at AA and in MIA in particular and oddly enough, there is no complaining about "how we got screwed by AA and the TWU " even though we had to start at bottom scale, part time, at the bottom of the seniority list.

 

[conniegirl]

Obviously AA was going to make sure it did not contract the "karabu" virus. Even tough TWA overall was a bad move, at least AA was smart enough to avoid karabu where as TWA management was stupid enough to agree to it. The only way to save certain parts of TWA without being infected by karabu was to go chapter 11 followed by a chapter 7 where AA could pick what it wanted without taking the whole thing. It was the only way. If TWA did not go the ch11/ch7 route they would have never been able to get rid of karabu and would have ceased operations and liquidated. The way it turned out was they liquidated and AA picked up most of their continuing operations without karabu. The judge obviously felt that the AA deal would give TWAs creditors more than an outright liquidation shutdown would have and he was right. At that time AA was expecting to get about 86 planes from the proposed US/UA merger which would have provided work for all including many new hires AA was planning on. Additionally there was no more room at ORD and DFW and AT THAT TIME AA needed more East-West capacity which is why they wanted STL. The bottom has since fallen out of the industry and continues to fall in these very bad economic times. So STL, since the terminal facilities and business traffic are far inferior to ORD and DFW, was the first to go. Not only that but ORD has seen deep cuts along with DFW albeit to a lesser extent.

With regards to "promises" for fair and equitable for the TWA F/As, again the APFA controls the F/A list at AA not Carty. The APFA wanted nothing to do with TWA and was under no obligation give them anything;especially when it would have been detrimental to their members.

As for EAL, I will just say this: EAL's Latin American routes are the saviour of AA. Yes, these have been a gold mine for AA since the day they acquired them and have carried AA ever since. They are very profitable routes. AA would not be what it is today and more than likely would have filed bankruptcy like the others if they didn't have Latin America. EAL's Latin assets have been very profitable for AA, TWA's STL hub was not when it was at 300-400 flights a day. If EAL people would have gotten what TWA people now have the EAL people would have been at top pay for almost 20 years with all benefits and 100% EAL seniority in MIA. There are many former EAL at AA and in MIA in particular and oddly enough, there is no complaining about "how we got screwed by AA and the TWU " even though we had to start at bottom scale, part time, at the bottom of the seniority list.

 

[aafsc]

Wait a minute, AA is allowed to furlough "real" flight attendants before getting rid of the foreign nationals? People in LGA BOS DCA etc will be walking out the door before FA's in So. America? Or have the foreign nationals already been let go in previous layoffs?

Shocks me that APFA would allow foreign nationals in the first place....

Again, no foreign national F/As- no routes authorities. AA has indeed laid off foreign nationals (ground staff)before; mostly when they close a city (BAQ, ASU, CNF, CUZ, POA) or down guage to Eagle (PTP, FDF). It is very possible that AA has furloughed foreign national flight attendants but I do not know for sure that they have. I would imagine that if AA decides to stop flying to a certain city that is a foreign national base such as LIM, EZE, or SCL that AA would lay off everyone (ground staff and F/As) in that base/city. Also if AA sold it's Latin American route authorities to another airline then all Latin American employees (including the South American F/As) would go to the purchasing carrier (as would be demanded by the Latin American governments).

 

[IORFA]

It would be nice to put more limits on their non-home country flying. Maybe limit the departures to one flight a day to and from their home country and MIA. Also, discontinue the MIA-central america flying. That would give a few more jobs back to us. Or better yet, make AA put them on our seniority list and force them to join the union. There should still be limits to how much flying each foreign base could fly, but at least any future new hire would be at risk of being furloughed in any future down turn.

 

[MCI transplant]

<_< ------ Again aa!! Why TWA? Why did AA go through all that trouble to acquire a "worthless," "failed", "virus stricken" Airline? Why aa? -----It was because, "at the time," AA thought they needed us!------- And no, things didn't turn out like AA thought! But then who could have predicted 9/11?----- Could TWA have survived that? Probably not! But we'll never know for sure, now will we?------ As for that TWA management type who got TWA into the Karabu agreement, yea! I agree, he should have been horse whipped! Now your trying to tell me AA doesn't have that type of idiot in their top management? ------- Now, tell me aa, how did aa acquire those profitable South American EAL routes? AA bought them right? (Good move!)----- Now, tell me, how did AA acquire the TWA LHR routes? AA bought them! (Also a Good move!)

 

[upsilon]

Conniegirl, did you have your hand up? Is there something you wanted to say?