JCBA Negotiations and updates for AA AMTS

[DallasConehead]

That boat sailed a long time ago. Remember the 1989 contract?

 
I don't, my memory sucks, please refresh?

 

[Kev3188]

I have been interested in the mechanics having a different representative for over 25 years, so I will most likely be biased.
 
However prior to 2003, I believe the mechanics allegedly had a separate contract within the umbrella of the TWU. With the voting in of the
Association, this falsehood of separate contracts disappeared. As long as the blog is about mechanics and the achievement of the other airline
mechanics during contract negotiations, the topic is about the compensation for mechanics it usually stays civil . It is when the coat tail
comments come up that the other work groups take offense and the solidarity becomes questionable. 
 
Even within this blog other work groups have taken offense, but the entire subject is based on the mechanic compensation at the other major airlines.
Doug Parker called for a percentage above the other majors mechanic wages and shortly thereafter the other work groups through the representative
methods of the Association become the subject of negotiations.
 
Separate contracts are not allowed to flourish under the AFL-CIO. Call it what you will, but the separate contract push has been alive and quashed by those
in the position of union leadership, not the membership democratically. MO.  Look at the new topic on a separate OH contract....

Many people conflate poor leadership with unionism in general. You have every right to be angry about how poorly you've been represented. So does everyone else. The problem is that it's a whole lot easier for the rank and file to blame each other than it is to come together and effect change...

 

[Buck]

Many people conflate poor leadership with unionism in general. You have every right to be angry about how poorly you've been represented. So does everyone else. The problem is that it's a whole lot easier for the rank and file to blame each other than it is to come together and effect change...

What the rank and file seems to forget is that when granting Unionism of the AFL-CIO type, it is the Constitution and By-Laws of these institutions that govern and not always democracy.
 
The TWU as well as the United States are representative in natural.

 

[Kev3188]

I know.

So work to change the system.

 

[Vortilon]

Companies will pit groups against each other regardless. Luckily for them, we do most of their work for them...

 
I can speak to the situation at AA from a 30 year line AMT perspective.  The company has screwed AMTs from before I started.  The union was ran by baggage handlers - do to shear numbers, and they voted on our contracts in the beginning.  So, if having baggage handlers and building cleaners voting on our contracts wasn't bad enough, the part timers were given a full vote as well.  Suffice to say the difference in pay for a topped out AMT versus a FSC  was less than $5.00ph.  Back then, the company would pay for a FSC to go to Aircraft Maintenance school. Did the company offer any of us who took the time and effort to go to school on our own, to pay off our student loans?  The list of offenses is long, and this POS union is as much to blame as the company for screwing the AMTs - make no mistake about it!

 

[Buck]

Not only has the TWU been a FSC ran union, but Bus and Train union members, havce held the ability to control the constitutional convention and therefore control over the International

 

[Boomer]

The TWU Airline Division was held and run by the FSC job classification except for TULE.
 
The numbers at the Line Locals were predominately all FSC,with very few Line Stations staffed with enough Maintenance&Related to make a difference.
 
The FSC job classification at Legacy AA was,and I believe still is, at the top of all other same job classifications for full pay & benefits.
 
The TWU predominately held control of the M&R classification through TULE and the fact that LAA performed more of the major OH work in-house than any other domestic airline: with the majority of the NMB Class & Craft of Maintenance & Related for the entirety of the TWU Union Members at LAA.
 
The movement and the election of TWU AMT Locals was an honest attempt by the TWU International to prevent the AMT job classification from leaving the TWU.
 
The process was aborted by the TWU Locals and the TWU ATD through the separation of the voting by individual job classifications instead of by class & craft: the Plant & Auto Maint. votes were separately held and tabulated with the vote by job classifiaction resulting in the split of contract groups being placed in separate negotiations while being subject to the same contract.
 
The TWU FSC Locals pursued the Facility & Auto Maint. by telling them that A/C Maint. would outsource their jobs in favor of an increase in wages; the Facility & Auto Maint. group bought into the program by mostly voting to stay with the FSC Locals.
 
Instead of the Maintenance & Related NMB defined classification being allowed to have their own Locals, through the so-called "Self-Determination" process; we ended up with the same cluster-flock, FSC Local Presidents in the negotiations for M&R and TULE telling everyone that the sole purpose of TWU Line Union Locals was to outsource everything but Line Maintenance.

 

[Kev3188]

I know the story of life at the TWU ATD. That's kind of my point; you guys are still conflating the poor way it's been run with the broader ideas of representation.

 

[Traymark]

I know the story of life at the TWU ATD. That's kind of my point; you guys are still conflating the poor way it's been run with the broader ideas of representation.

 
 
Kev,  If the representation has been poor, and there's plenty of evidence that it has been, how has it been "conflated", exactly?

 

[lineguy43]

I can speak to the situation at AA from a 30 year line AMT perspective.  The company has screwed AMTs from before I started.  The union was ran by baggage handlers - do to shear numbers, and they voted on our contracts in the beginning.  So, if having baggage handlers and building cleaners voting on our contracts wasn't bad enough, the part timers were given a full vote as well.  Suffice to say the difference in pay for a topped out AMT versus a FSC  was less than $5.00ph.  Back then, the company would pay for a FSC to go to Aircraft Maintenance school. Did the company offer any of us who took the time and effort to go to school on our own, to pay off our student loans?  The list of offenses is long, and this POS union is as much to blame as the company for screwing the AMTs - make no mistake about it!

^^^^^^^^^^^^^This^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ This was the exact thing going on at NWA under the IAM could never understand why the hell I went to A&P school if I wanted to make what the ramp makes I wouldn't have bothered or wasted my time and money and being on midnights forever. Industrial unions have screwed the A&P no doubt. Have to say one thing about AMFA at NW they raised the bar across the industry regardless of the consequences of our strike.

 

[conehead777]

^^^^^^^^^^^^^This^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ This was the exact thing going on at NWA under the IAM could never understand why the hell I went to A&P school if I wanted to make what the ramp makes I wouldn't have bothered or wasted my time and money and being on midnights forever. Industrial unions have screwed the A&P no doubt. Have to say one thing about AMFA at NW they raised the bar across the industry regardless of the consequences of our strike.

because all the afl/cio union see are union dues. They do not care if you got a license. All they see are numbers and money. Thats why I feel us amts it's time to take our profession back. At all the airlines and ups and FedEx. We're all licensed we all take responsibility for what we work on. The twu/Iam will never understand that. We all need to have are own union . Then you want have a union like the twu setting the bar backwards like they did after you amts at northwest with AMFA fought so hard for .

 

[Kev3188]

You should take it back.

And you should support any other work group-at AA or not- that wants to do the same thing.

 

[Real tired]

The TWU Airline Division was held and run by the FSC job classification except for TULE.
 
The numbers at the Line Locals were predominately all FSC,with very few Line Stations staffed with enough Maintenance&Related to make a difference.
 
The FSC job classification at Legacy AA was,and I believe still is, at the top of all other same job classifications for full pay & benefits.
 
The TWU predominately held control of the M&R classification through TULE and the fact that LAA performed more of the major OH work in-house than any other domestic airline: with the majority of the NMB Class & Craft of Maintenance & Related for the entirety of the TWU Union Members at LAA.
 
The movement and the election of TWU AMT Locals was an honest attempt by the TWU International to prevent the AMT job classification from leaving the TWU.
 
The process was aborted by the TWU Locals and the TWU ATD through the separation of the voting by individual job classifications instead of by class & craft: the Plant & Auto Maint. votes were separately held and tabulated with the vote by job classifiaction resulting in the split of contract groups being placed in separate negotiations while being subject to the same contract.
 
The TWU FSC Locals pursued the Facility & Auto Maint. by telling them that A/C Maint. would outsource their jobs in favor of an increase in wages; the Facility & Auto Maint. group bought into the program by mostly voting to stay with the FSC Locals.
 
Instead of the Maintenance & Related NMB defined classification being allowed to have their own Locals, through the so-called "Self-Determination" process; we ended up with the same cluster-flock, FSC Local Presidents in the negotiations for M&R and TULE telling everyone that the sole purpose of TWU Line Union Locals was to outsource everything but Line Maintenance.

 
Thanks for posting that.  As IAM, I never knew that happened at your company.
 
As a combined group, we have a long way to go, don't we?

 

[Real tired]

You should take it back.

And you should support any other work group-at AA or not- that wants to do the same thing.

 
We've tried.  Many times.
 
But coming from LUS, I know it can be done.  If you are united enough.
 
Look at our pilots.  They successfully left ALPA, and formed their very own brand new union.  And it worked.
 
All it takes is work, strength, anger, unity, time and money.  And a majority. 
 
So that tells me, we as AMT's, as a whole, are happy is what we have.  Otherwise as a majority, we would have made a change already.

 

[swamt]

 Have to say one thing about AMFA at NW they raised the bar across the industry regardless of the consequences of our strike.

Yes they did. And was the only mechanics union out there that would fight for it's members jobs instead of caving into the co's threats as all the other unions did.  The consequences of the strike were huge, but it has in fact made a better industry in the long run. A many thx to the brothers and sisters who stood up for their procession as well as the mechanics profession thru-out the industry...