How Much Should An Airline Mechanic Be Paid?

[Buck]

Should all wage rates for the mechanics be comparable as well as those for the non-mechanic classification?

As a mechanic I should be able to be compensated as those at other airlines and the Fleet Service employee should be compensated accordingly.

You analogy of profit is fine, however when the profits were available, there was no move to correct the compensation disparity.

 

[Bob Owens]

Perhaps I was a little harsh about the perceived "pointlessness" of the thread. How much an airline mechanic should be paid is not a pointless discussion; comparing the billing rate for plumbers to MX W-2 wages seemed to go nowhere. My comments were directed toward that comparison. I apologize for the unnecessary harshness.

It would seem that a better comparison would be to the W-2 wages of other airline mechanics (or Mr Goodwrench employees, for that matter). Everyone knows that AA's mechanics make roughly $10k less than WN's mechanics. And WN just posted a profit of $26 million, so they could afford to pay more.

I am underworked and overpaid. As a self-employed professional, I determine my income and working hours.

If I want less work (it happens!), I simply quote a higher hourly rate (which eventually lessens demand) until I have as much work as I want at the income level I desire.

What is the proper wage level for AA's mechanics? None of my business, really.

If I were lobbying for you, I'd say, much higher than they currently are. Too bad the company isn't rolling in profits and can't afford to increase them right now.

The company line would be: No higher than it takes to get you to come to work. In fact, press them downward until some start to quit. Raise them if replacements refuse to start at the new lower wages.

If not for all the handcuffs (seniority, pension, etc) binding you to AA, if I were an AA mechanic, I'd seriously think about trying to get in on the ground floor of one of the profitable airlines rather than trying to squeeze the last drop from a dinosaur like AA (even though Bob Owens continues to think that AA's woes are just "temporary").

They may be, but if they aren't temporary, then the mechanics at WN, B6, FL and the other profitable LCCs are going to have good jobs (and very valuable stock) compared to AA's mechanics, out of work and complaining that their pension was ransacked.

Do you think if the oil companies asked the airlines if they "could afford" to pay more for fuel the airlines would say "yes"? Do they ask? No!

Should a union allow a company set pay rates at what the company claims they can afford? Why would a union want to help such a company? Over the long run all the workers would be better off if the airline that "could afford" to pay higher wages grew, while those that could not, shrank.

Do low wages really help a service company like the airlines? It didnt help PAN AM or the scores of other low wage carriers that have failed over the years. Remember Peoples Distress? Especially when you pay mechanics low wages? Even Gordon Bethune wrote about how it does not pay to tick off your mechanics. He put it bluntly that if you tick them off, you are not going to get your airplanes. They will work, they just wont produce.

This is an industry where the stakes are high. Savings in wages can be easily consumed by an airplane that sits in the hangar for a day or two simply because mechanics decide to put in their time by just throwing parts at it and have no real interest in fixing it, especilly since as long as its broken their chances of getting a little OT to make up for what they lost is increased.

Its a bad way to run a company. All the old Pan Am and EAL guys say it deja vu.

Sure some of the guys in Tulsa and MCI might be happy. But if the money is not made in NY, MIA, ORD, CA and DFW, there will not be a Tulsa or MCI because there will not be an AA. For the guys in the big cities, they dont really have to worry. Those big city airports dont stay empty for long, the planes get a new paint job and millions of people come and go, as if nothing has changed.

 

[local 12 proud]

bob, its very smart and insightful leaders such as mr. bethune and mr. keller that know who can make or break you. i believe herb said "IF YOU TAKE CARE OF YOUR EMPLOYEES, THEY WILL TAKE CARE OF THE REST". its not rocket science, its fundamental logic. but yet we still have leaders who think you can beat the employees into submission and still have a productive work force. can't for the life of me figure out what makes them tick! :down:

 

[scorpion]

I've been trying to get AA's outsourcing percent per the scope clause of the twu/aa agreement from the international with no success but in the process of them playing runaround with me they sent some info on the line work that is traded between AA and other airlines including non airline maintenence contractors. There is a unilateral agreement that $79.00 per hour is charged.

Just this week I received a S/B on a fuel control that showed $100.00 per hour as the cost to repair the part if needed. I dont know if this number is used on all of AA's cost projections but it was used for this particular S/B.