How Fleet Service really is in Tulsa

[La Li Lu Le Lo]

Lets start with management. We have three supervisors. It should be noted when I started we had a lot more people and had only two supervisors and they had more responsibilities (attendance discussions for instance). The only thing the supervisors do now is adjust time for CS's and give notice of training / physicals due (they don't prepare the paperwork they just print and post or pass notices out). We could easily get by with one. Having three is a waste of money.

Now the Union side (Union, what a joke). We used to have four crew chiefs. Now we have seven crew chiefs and less dock workers than we have had since I started. We have 2 crew chiefs that never show up (CS's and FMLA) which depletes the dock workers even more (due to D1's).Four of our crew chiefs came in with high seniority (bump ins and transfers) and have litterly never worked a dock a day in their life, and here is the most ridiculous part all six of the crew chiefs on days and afternoons have the SAME DAYS OFF! Thats right, no crew chiefs on the weekends (except of course D1's).

Back when we had two crew chiefs we had one for widebody and one for narrowbody. At one point management added another crew chief slot. The idea was that we could have two remain in the hangers (narrrowbody and widebody) and one back at the shop to relay information to the other two crew chiefs and support staff. In practice all three crew chiefs sit in the office all day and soak up A/C. I go weeks at a time and NEVER see a crew chief on a dock.

We have a crew chief that can not drive due to medications. Most people think the only reason they added the third crew chief per shift (not nights) is so the company would not have to deal with forcing him out (if he can't drive he can't check his docks). so they created a position that would never have to leave the office.

So there you have it. Three supervisors doing the work of one. Seven crew chiefs three (I can't speak for the other shift since I am not there) which never leave the office.

Truth is we could get by with one crew chief per shift easily.

We have a bus driver that constantly belittles the dock workers. Yet he works less than 2 hours a day. The rest of the time he plays dominoes and watches TV. He constantly misses people for pickup and ask people to do his job when he is on lunch (thats right lunch for someone that works less than 2 hours a day!).

We have (on my shift) an inside guy that pulls supplies for docks and a cart guy that delivers the supplies. My question is why do we have two positions for that? The guy pulling supplies should deliver them to.

Explain to me why we have three crew chiefs, a bus driver, an inside guy, a cart guy and only 15 dock workers (on my shift)? If we have 2 of those people take vacation and one FMLA off that leaves us with 12 dock workers. Litterly a third of our work force would be sitting at the shop (this actually happens very frequently)!

Days is even more ridiculous with their number of inside people.

The purpose of this post was not to complain (why should I? I'm about to get laid off anyway) but to show how ridiculously bad things are ran in Tulsa.

No one is held to any kind of accountability what so ever. Incompetence and stupidity run rampant.

I would love to see the result when Tulsa cuts the shop down to 60 people. That should be a quite a show.

 

[DNTULSA]

I see it's business as usual out at TULE.....

 

[La Li Lu Le Lo]

DNTULSA may I ask where you are stationed at? Your name suggest TUL or TULE but I do not want to assume. What does the DN mean in your name?

 

[AA89]

Its the same everywhere., in every area. Its the image the public has of unions and it is accurate. But whose fault is it?
It would have been nice if the company would have made the effort to improve efficiency instead of outsourcing jobs but between managemant and the union this dysfunctional crap is allowed to happen.
Jim Ream stated at his TAESL meeting that outsourcing will save 30% of the 777 OH cost. I would imagine if you fired the blatant dead wood at AFW and had people actually work close to an 8 hour day we could get close to that improvement. The airplanes are going out on time but the cost is too high. The majority of guys at AFW and I would imagine Tulsa are good workers and it sucks that the company got greedy after 2003 and ruined our good will.
Sometimes it seems that we were set up by managemant. Make us angry, fatten the payroll, then blame us for our high costs. They are supposed to manage labor but they failed yet will be rewarded obscenely in the end.

 

[furp]

A fleet service clerk as the local president over 5000 mechanics??? That is funny ####!!!
Even funnier is Sammy holding a vote YES sign in front of the base gates!
He's a ramper and already has his concessionary contract! And he Does not get to vote on the mechanics contract !!!!!!!

 

[La Li Lu Le Lo]

furp what does that have to do with the original posting? Please don't use my thread to launch a personnel agenda. If you have something to say about the standard of work and organization (or lack thereof) then please comment. Otherwise, please post somewhere else.

 

[La Li Lu Le Lo]

I wish to retract my original statement. I am working with Airline forums.com to delete that post and possibly this thread. Without going into details I made this post out of a lot of resentment and anger. This bankruptcy has us all on edge and very stressed. Most of what I said was a sort of a retaliation for a perceived wrong. I would say for the amount of aircraft fleet service (hanger, drop ins, and layovers) works we do very well. I wish to make a formal apology to company and workers if they will accept it. As stated most of the complaints I made were due to stress, retaliation, and resentment.

Please dismiss this post and others as a "lashing out" of a stressed employee. I was using this outlet to relieve stress and was not considering or thinking about my post or damage it could do to company or employee. This post was childish and short sighted.

This will be my last post. It is obvious I am letting my stress due to bankruptcy stain every post I make on here.

AMR has been good to me and I am proud to have worked for them. I was well treated and very well paid. They have been a much better employer than I have an employee.

Please note everyone makes mistakes and this was a big one for me. If you have made a mistake in the past please show forgiveness and realize that people are not perfect.

Again, I ask my employer and fellow employees for forgiveness if they will have it.

Thank you.

 

[Just the Facts II]

I don't know you and do not work in your area. I understand your position and respect the fact that you have the integrity and the humility to apologize for a mistake. If only others could follow your example.

 

[AA89]

LaLi, you may have been a little too specific in your post. But what's wrong with speaking the truth and expecting the company to run their business properly and the union to make sure that we are perceived as an asset and not a brick?

Just another example of this dysfunctional company.

 

[Frank Szabo]

I agree with AA89 - there's really no need to apologize when one tells the truth. One might apologize for the sharp edges about the truth, but not for telling it as it is.

AA allowed the fox to guard the henhouse for too many years, not paying attention to the very basics of operating a business - now, for that, we all get to pay for that malfeasance - in some cases, quite dearly.

 

[La Li Lu Le Lo]

As stated before I will not make any more post. If you have a message to send me please do so through the forums private messaging system. I think my post have done enough damage. Thank you.

 

[Kev3188]

I'm in the same boat as the others; no need to apologize for calling it like it is, and good on ya for doing it. We (labor) need to recognize that often our worst enemy is ourselves.