Good News...More Flight Attendant recalls

[eolesen]

"In a nutshell, the Congressman then contacted Laura Glading and basically pushed her into a corner - either grant the remaining furloughs unlimited recall rights, or he would add an amendment to the FAA Authorization Bill granting the TWA F/A's their full seniority. Plain and simple, APFA was being blackmailed!"

I'm sure that Nancy, Harry, and O'Bummer might think that the Constitution gives them Hugo Chavez like power, but no, Congress can't just step in and add something to an FAA bill giving TWA flight attendants their seniority back.

They might be able to put something in place which mandates how seniority gets treated in future deals, but fortunately, there are limits in what they can do to something decided almost ten years ago...

 

[upsilon]

Eric is right on. Congress has no power to do what is claimed above. This is complete BS!

And to me it says that LG is naive or it gives more credence to the opinion of those who say she is, at best, devious.

 

[Maark767]

Seriously...lol Are you aware that the company hasn't even contacted our furloughed to inquire how many can speak Mandarin. This was coming, it has been well known and LG....

Doesn't AA already have their employment records??? Cant they see who speaks CM?? We're talking 228 F/As remaining on furlough and I would bet alot of cash that none speak CM. That's why AA is needing to hire off the street. This is good, we need fresh blood on this property.

 

[Maark767]

Just Answered my own question..This is an email sent out by the ORD Chairs. Wow....Dirty Politics!
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ORD E-Mail Group,

I'd like to start with an apology in not sending this information out in a more timely manner. I was in DFW all of last week with the Board of Director's Briefing/Meeting on Wednesday, and then I had to stay for the APFA Budget Committee meeting which took place on Thursday and Friday. I did not return to Chicago until late Friday.

The announcement was made on Friday that the APFA and the company have agreed to give the remaining furloughs unlimited recall rights in exchange for the hiring of 30 Mandarin speakers outside the terms of the Contract.

I strongly feel that I need to address some of your concerns and issues.

This whole issue surfaced last week and a Board of Director's (BOD) briefing/meeting was called for this past Wednesday in DFW to brief the Board on how all of this came about. After some very intense and heated discussions, it was decided by the majority of the BOD to support this decision. 368 recalls were planned for this Summer/Fall. Laura was able to get the company to agree to increase the number of recalls in the next 2 rounds by an additional 200 F/A's. After all of these furloughs are brought back, we should have approximately 200+ furloughs left. This group will begin to fall off the Recall List in November and January. Thus, the decision was made to give this last group unlimited recall rights in exchange for allowing the company to hire 30 Mandarin speakers.

First and foremost, a union's primary responsibility is to protect ALL jobs. That is what APFA is trying to do here - plain and simple. It would be irresponsible for us not to do everything in our power not to try and get these F/A's back.

These Mandarin speakers will have certain restrictions places on them:

- They will be placed on the bottom of the seniority list - behind all furloughs.
- They will be fenced in to LAX-I. If the Shanghai route does not pan out, they will be the first to be furloughed.
- They will also be APFA members. Would you rather have another 30 APFA members or 30 members of management on these flights? Does Moscow ring a bell? Those Russian "speakers" were not APFA F/A's - they were management positions. By agreeing to let the company hire the Mandarin speakers as F/A's, they will be APFA members - not management.

Some may say "Why are we giving the company anything, when we don't even have a contract"? I couldn't agree more, and until the BOD meeting, I strongly felt the same way. After our briefing, and after I received all of the facts, I then gained a clearer perspective on why APFA did what they did. I support their decision.

There were some back door negotiations by 2 TWA F/A's with their Congressman from Missouri. One of these F/A's is none other than the current SLT Chairperson. This was unbeknownst to APFA. In a nutshell, the Congressman then contacted Laura Glading and basically pushed her into a corner - either grant the remaining furloughs unlimited recall rights, or he would add an amendment to the FAA Authorization Bill granting the TWA F/A's their full seniority. Plain and simple, APFA was being blackmailed!
Questions:

1. Can he legally do this? Yes - any Congressman or Senator can add any amendment to a bill.

2. Would it have passed? Who knows. This bill has been stalled in Congress for quite a while, and the Republicans are now threatening to strip all of the OSHA protection out of the current bill.

3. Why not call his bluff? This is where the real danger lies. I am not willing to put my members at risk - period. You also have to consider how this would have looked to other members in Congress if a Union was not willing to protect Union jobs. Ask yourselves this - If we do not obtain a contract, and it gets sent to a Presidential Emergency Board (PEB), how do you think Congress would legislate our new contract? Say goodbye to your pension, your Retiree Medical Benefits, pay, work rules, etc. Why would Congress side with a Union that is not willing to protect jobs? You also have to look at what is going on in Wisconsin and Ohio - the mentality out there is to strip the Unions of all their power.

When you look at all of these things together, I for one am not willing to risk any of this and put APFA's membership in harm's way.

The vast majority of you are extremely frustrated not only with the company, but also with APFA. I COMPLETELY UNDERSTAND! In trying to obtain a new contract, not only are we facing a company that is constantly dragging their feet, but we are now on our 4th Arbitrator at the National Mediation Board (NMB). That certainly has not helped our cause. Laura met with the 3 member Board at the NMB earlier last week. She plead our case, and from her statements to the BOD, she feels that the NMB has a much better understanding on where APFA stands, and how far the company is out of touch. We should be hearing soon on what the NMB's recommendations will be.

I have heard many comments lately on how the membership has lost complete faith in the Leadership at APFA. Not to get on my soap box, but I can personally tell you that Laura has worked tirelessly for the members at APFA. She understands your frustration and anger - most of us are at our rope's end - not only mentally, but also financially. Could communication from HDQ be better? Yes - and I will continue to do everything in my power to communicate any information that I know, and when I know it.

On a different note - It was also shared with us that AA is poised for some very strong growth in the not too distant future. And I am not talking about Eagle! I know that I, and all of you, are looking for some real movement. I feel that would help a lot with the extremely low morality that is present. Both Debbie Dent and I fight tooth-and-nail for ORD - we know the bidsheet sucks; we know Reserve sucks; we know the sit time sucks, etc. We would be remorse if we did not fight every day to improve the working lives of every ORD FA. We take that responsibility very seriously.

In closing, I want to personally thank each and every ORD Flight Attendant. Thank you for standing by Debbie and me. We both take extreme pride in representing you! And I will give you my personal guarantee that we will continue to do everything in our power to get you where you need to be.

In Unity,

I find it very difficult to undo what has been done. Please, doesn't congress have more important things to deal with other than TWA seniority..... It 's just wishful thinking for some people that cant just let it go.... move on already !

 

[Skymess]

Eric is right on. Congress has no power to do what is claimed above. This is complete BS!

And to me it says that LG is naive or it gives more credence to the opinion of those who say she is, at best, devious.

Wow, this is malarkey on a few different levels.

1. I do not believe that given the opportunity to get their seniority back the unscrupulous seniority power grab coalition from defunct TWA would be willing to shelve that for 200 people. Nope, not buying it.

2. AA has stronger lobbyists in Washington than one lone ranger congressman/woman. Giving TWA their seniority would surely bankrupt AA and cause the government to either bail us out or watch as we went out of business.

3. If there's such great expansion coming our way they would get their call backs without sacrificing all of us.

4. Why wasn't this news put out immediately by Glading herself? The shady shenanigans going on at APFA to keep everything private is getting pretty tiresome. That alone makes me call for resignations. A little more transparency would go a longer way to make me feel like they are behaving honestly and in our best interest. Hiding this just makes them look guilty of misrepresentation.

5. While hopeful I was previously incorrect in my assessment of the BOD, I am now more convinced than ever that we have a giant group of complete chuckleheads representing us.

 

[IrishElf]

Wow, this is malarkey on a few different levels.

1. I do not believe that given the opportunity to get their seniority back the unscrupulous seniority power grab coalition from defunct TWA would be willing to shelve that for 200 people. Nope, not buying it.

2. AA has stronger lobbyists in Washington than one lone ranger congressman/woman. Giving TWA their seniority would surely bankrupt AA and cause the government to either bail us out or watch as we went out of business.

3. If there's such great expansion coming our way they would get their call backs without sacrificing all of us.

4. Why wasn't this news put out immediately by Glading herself? The shady shenanigans going on at APFA to keep everything private is getting pretty tiresome. That alone makes me call for resignations. A little more transparency would go a longer way to make me feel like they are behaving honestly and in our best interest. Hiding this just makes them look guilty of misrepresentation.

5. While hopeful I was previously incorrect in my assessment of the BOD, I am now more convinced than ever that we have a giant group of complete chuckleheads representing us.

 

[IrishElf]

Wow, this is malarkey on a few different levels.

1. I do not believe that given the opportunity to get their seniority back the unscrupulous seniority power grab coalition from defunct TWA would be willing to shelve that for 200 people. Nope, not buying it.

2. AA has stronger lobbyists in Washington than one lone ranger congressman/woman. Giving TWA their seniority would surely bankrupt AA and cause the government to either bail us out or watch as we went out of business.

3. If there's such great expansion coming our way they would get their call backs without sacrificing all of us.

4. Why wasn't this news put out immediately by Glading herself? The shady shenanigans going on at APFA to keep everything private is getting pretty tiresome. That alone makes me call for resignations. A little more transparency would go a longer way to make me feel like they are behaving honestly and in our best interest. Hiding this just makes them look guilty of misrepresentation.

5. While hopeful I was previously incorrect in my assessment of the BOD, I am now more convinced than ever that we have a giant group of complete chuckleheads representing us.

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Well skymess, whats hysterical and what your group shouts is for the SIA to be followed. Guess what...if you read it you would understand that it states in Article VIII that as long as the TWA flight attendants remain in STL even after the fence comes down that they would keep their TWA Inc occupational seniority. You need to reread it again as you obviously did not read it or understand it. APFA did NOT follow what they and the Company agreed on and use their interpretation rather than what it is that was agreed on.

Sorry, but Karma is finally correcting the wrong that APFA created. As for AA being bankrupted...are you serious...do you really think 3k people will bankrupt a corrupted Company who has given their executives more bonuses
than anything the TWA people would cost them. Then paying an attorney half a million a year and whatever their so called BOD is payed with all those extra perks (wink wink)....you obviously understand very little of your union.

 

[FrequentFlierCA]

Can someone please answer a question? Shouldn't the furlough list be completely recalled prior to hiring anyone off of the street reguardless of language qualifications, or not? Isn't this an issue of Seniority?

This would depend on AA's agreement with the flight attendants union, and in this case it looks like they were able to secure 30 new (Mandarin-speaking) hires to be at the bottom of the list so they could fill a need for the China flights.

I don't see anything wrong with this, especially in conjunction with hundreds of furloughees coming back to work soon. AA had a business need to hire people with a specific skill set, and the union was smart not to stop them from doing that. Sabotaging the China routes would just hurt AA's growth prospects and mean fewer recalls in the future.

 

[IrishElf]

This would depend on AA's agreement with the flight attendants union, and in this case it looks like they were able to secure 30 new (Mandarin-speaking) hires to be at the bottom of the list so they could fill a need for the China flights.

I don't see anything wrong with this, especially in conjunction with hundreds of furloughees coming back to work soon. AA had a business need to hire people with a specific skill set, and the union was smart not to stop them from doing that. Sabotaging the China routes would just hurt AA's growth prospects and mean fewer recalls in the future.

Airlines adhere to the Railway Labor Act. A Collective Bargaining Agreement cannot be interfered with and that is what AA and APFA have done. A side letter of agreement that changes the work rules has to be put out to its members for a vote. By hiring off the street while flight attendants are on furlough, the Company and the Union has just busted the Occupational Seniority that the furloughed flight attendants were furloughed by.

 

[Skymess]

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Well skymess, whats hysterical and what your group shouts is for the SIA to be followed. Guess what...if you read it you would understand that it states in Article VIII that as long as the TWA flight attendants remain in STL even after the fence comes down that they would keep their TWA Inc occupational seniority. You need to reread it again as you obviously did not read it or understand it. APFA did NOT follow what they and the Company agreed on and use their interpretation rather than what it is that was agreed on.

Sorry, but Karma is finally correcting the wrong that APFA created. As for AA being bankrupted...are you serious...do you really think 3k people will bankrupt a corrupted Company who has given their executives more bonuses
than anything the TWA people would cost them. Then paying an attorney half a million a year and whatever their so called BOD is payed with all those extra perks (wink wink)....you obviously understand very little of your union.

The SIA fence was for STL. If they stayed in STL. The bidding seniority was for nowhere else but there. So what is your point?

My point was that the reasoning for this latest agreement was bogus.

Listen, APFA may take a lot of nonsense but working AA flight attendants don't. Be careful where your Karma gets you.

You're not getting your seniority back so call it a day.
As for AA being bankrupted, I am fully serious. It's all hypothetical conjecture though. You're never getting your seniority. NEVER. So sorry. Time to press on. It's a new decade and a new company.

 

[IrishElf]

The SIA fence was for STL. If they stayed in STL. The bidding seniority was for nowhere else but there. So what is your point?

My point was that the reasoning for this latest agreement was bogus.

Listen, APFA may take a lot of nonsense but working AA flight attendants don't. Be careful where your Karma gets you.

You're not getting your seniority back so call it a day.
As for AA being bankrupted, I am fully serious. It's all hypothetical conjecture though. You're never getting your seniority. NEVER. So sorry. Time to press on. It's a new decade and a new company.

SKYMESS states "The SIA fence was for STL. If they stayed in STL. The bidding seniority was for nowhere else but there. So what is your point?"

If the Company and Union had followed the SIA the TW flight attendants would never have been furloughed. The SIA was for both AA and TW flight attendants. Meaning AA flight attendants had to follow the SIA too. As you know bidding senioirity is everything. In the SIA it states rules for AA and rules for TW and they are not the same. There was one seniority list. On that list were two groups not one. One was TW the other AA. The list was AA listed first in their system seniority and then TW in the following list with their system seniority list.
As they were not trained they remained separate entities. Do you understand now or are you still confused? TW within their own system seniority list was very senior. Additionally, the
TW flight attendants were all in STL with their own seniority so explain why they were furloughed as they were never AA flight attendants and were given their seniority in STL by both the Company and the Union?

 

[Veritas]

...do you really think 3k people will bankrupt a corrupted Company who has given their executives more bonuses than anything the TWA people would cost them.

There are only about 1,200 former TWA flight attendants left on the seniority list, including those yet to be recalled.

 

[IrishElf]

There are only about 1,200 former TWA flight attendants left on the seniority list, including those yet to be recalled.

You're right I was just throwing numbers out there even if there were 3k even 4k, the executives at AA still would make more. Besides its common knowledge, AA has a lot of hidden assets around the world,

 

[kirkpatrick]

As for AA being bankrupted, I am fully serious.

I don't get this part. Once the last TWA is recalled there will probably be less than a thousand of us on the property, and that number will diminish since, being older, we'll retire at a higher than average rate. Most of us are already at top of scale. How in the world would this (which I agree won't happen) bankrupt the company?

MK

 

[nyc6035]

I don't get this part. Once the last TWA is recalled there will probably be less than a thousand of us on the property, and that number will diminish since, being older, we'll retire at a higher than average rate. Most of us are already at top of scale. How in the world would this (which I agree won't happen) bankrupt the company?

MK

My guess is this individual is considering the cost of back pay for lost wages over the intervening years since furlough.

I find it very interesting that the union ran to this deal under threat of congressional action - however remote. It suggests to me deep down they know what was done back in 2002-2004 time frame is indefensible.