That about sums it up. Bottom line is, he was not fired by SWAPA, period.
Larry Pike of 567 FIRED ?
- Thread starter odie01
- Start date
Wrong. besides, like I said the company made up the numbers, they undervalued outsourcing, using domestic costs then deciding to send it overseas. Did their non-union workers give up as much as we did? Did management? They have steadfastly refused to reveal what they were giving up.
Believe it. Go to the twubkfacts.org page and look at Article 47 of the contract. I had informed management that I did not want my name listed in the book. So what did they do? They not onlt put it in there but they put it at the top!! The company has this on Jetnet as well.
Are you saying that you are an ATD Official?
40% of the work would be measured in hours, 35% of the spend could easily be more than 50% of TWU hours becuae the spend includes more than labor. They changed the wording from work to spend and that changed everything. The market already provides a sort of cap on line maint, thats why Delta and Jet Blue, who both pay more than AA do most of their Line Maint in house. There is no cap on OH outsourcing at AA. When the current fleet changes over to Aircraft that we did not traditionally work on, 787, Airbus's etc the TWU will have to negotiate for that work. the company did say that AA mechanics will work on everything that AA flies but they never said we would do all the work on everything AA flies. If we are workiing those Aircraft on the line and they outsource the OH the TWU will file a grievance and they will lose.
My dream? I voted NO, you are the one who made this possible with your YES vote. Tell the truth, you are simply in favor of giving AA whatever they want arent you?
Bob, Alot of people don't understand the full meaning of 35% of spend. Almost all are thinking it's 35% of all maint is ok to farm out. What they also don't know is the huge picture of "spend". Spend is all money spent to get the entire fleet of A/C their required maint. And it can and will go even further. Unless it is spacifically addressed already this can include the down time (loss revenue) while A/C are grounded until repaired. Example; the MD80 wiring fiascoe you guys had to face not long ago. Other cost most people do not think about is the cost to fly each and every A/C to the maint facility including fuel, flt crew wages and bennies cost, ect... These numbers can be huge when it comes to outsourcing out of the country. All of a sudden this 35% of maint spend becomes more like 40-60% of outsourcing and eventually looking more like SWA's 70-75% not too far down the road.
Bob, this is how I take the 35% of spend allowed to outsource. Am I correct? If not please correct me...I think by allowing the company to change the one word in the contract that the co was trying to slip by, has made huge changes in the companies favor big time...
777 fixer
Veteran
- Jul 21, 2004
- 4,792
- 900
I'll say it before and I'll say it again. If things are that bad and everyone elese has as a better deal why do you stay?
.
Overspeed
Veteran
- Jun 27, 2011
- 3,245
- 1,065
No just a well informed member.
The 1113c ask provided for 40% of man hours on top of existing work of about 10% with no cap on line. BCs were even slated to be outsourced. Do you know how many MHs AA does in work each year? They don't either and that number is easily manipulated. Who is going to audit that time? Do you track man hours in your station? No. No line station does. If they did they would know how guys are slapping bones every night. Another distortion.
The new scope language refers to direct labor and material because it is a number harder to manipulate. It is audited by an independent firm and reported in F41. Also new aircraft are part of the equation. Always have been. Was the 95 agreement signed when F100 and MD11s showed up? What about 737s and 777s? The 2001 agreement wasn't signed either and the language you cite was in there at that time too. Another lie Bob?
Your dream of overhaul becoming smaller than line is coming true according to your Gless quote. You are mad because you were hoping Judge Lane was going to abrogate and let AA impose the 3/22 term sheet with 50% outsourcing. Now the overhaul group has some protection. You can't wait to cast them off. You even posted you want separate contracts for base and line. You are dying to slice off overhaul. Maybe we should have separate contracts for each Class I while were at it. Then you and Chuck can take JFK on strike!
Overspeed
Veteran
- Jun 27, 2011
- 3,245
- 1,065
The MD80 is a bad example. DL had close to 150 MD80s and they had similar wiring issues. FAA allowed DL to get an AMOC granted while AA got shafted. Why? Could it be that the Feds have long been arguing outsourcing is safer and now here comes AA with its in house maintenance and they slam AA but let DL slide who had their stuff done by an outsourcer.
The new TWU language is actually better considering the sources of information. The maintenance spend noted in the TWU contract has to do with direct labor and materials. The maintenance spend you refer to is the total spend which includes all management, lights, rent, heat, and other non-labor related expenses. The formula was tweaked because MHs varies so greatly and is not a good external measure. Why? Because if the MRO does a 5,000 MH C Check at $50/hour and AAwould have to do it with half the people at $100/hour. The better measure is cost because who cares how many people the. MRO puts on it, it's the total cost of their check versus the I house check. The other stuff like late out of check and delays matters but that is only if the airline wasn't smart enough to figure in service level guarantees. Southwest is good at outsourcing evidently, they aren't falling all over themselves to get AMFA mechanics to do it. AMFA needs to put its, only where it's mouth is and bring in more work at southwest.
More like a well positioned member.
Correct, and Line work usually isnt the main target of outsourcing.
The language is still in there, but they arent having much luck. In Boston they had to use students from a Local A&P school to act as scabs, that didnt work out so well did it?
But you voted in favor of doing away with System Protection, something thats easy to identify and switch from hours to "spend", a figure thats even easier to distort than hours. Spin away as much as you like, 35% spend can easily be a lot more than 50% of the hours because the cheaper the hours(overseas) the more hours they can outsource before approaching the 35% figure. All of that 35% can come from OH if they choose and if they are getting hammered for OT on the line then they can outsource even more OH. If our wage gets brought up in three years from the Wage Adjustment clause, if AA makes it that long, that would allow even more jobs to be cut at AA. You voted this in place yet you come here and try to spin it by saying that I'm hoping for the demise of OH.
As far as the hours, thats not as hard as you claim, just audit the work cards, ask your buddy Oryano he's been helping the company figure out how many hours the company needs to cover and how they can cut heads for years.
System Protection was in place as well. The company agreed to bring that work in house because we had system protection, they couldnt lay off the workers as the 727s and DC-10s went away so they brought the work in house. Now we have documentation via the Gless letter that our headcount will decrease below 8000, so when they start outsourcing the 787 and Airbus OH the company will claim that the union knew there was no committment by the company to do the work in house. If the Union cites that the company agreed that we would work whatever AA flies they will cite the same thing they did when they took Title 1 out of Bradley, Buffalo etc, that they have satidfied the contract, in this case by having the Line Maintenance done by AA/TWU mechanics. They can bring the OH in if they cant get it done cheaper, but under the condition that it no longer becomes "our"work as the prior language had. So unlike before when we had system protection that would prevent them from outsourcing new work, such as on NEW type aircraft, which would then become "our " work after a defined period of time they could have OH done in house until they find someplace to do it cheaper, and the cheaper they get it the more work they can outsource and the more heads they can cut. Great Job Overspin!!
If you recall we had 747SPs that we used to send over to TWA. Dont forget the 727s we sent to Delta, or the engine we sent to MTU, or the APUs we sent to Garrett, they did that because they could, the only thing stopping AA from outsourccing work we never did, even work we did do, was system protection. Don asked Burdette about the new airplanes, Burdette never said we would do the overhaul. According to the esteemed Art Luby we didnt need to revise Scope, all we needed to do was keep updating System Protection, because if they have to keep the workers they have to keep work for them to do. He said that to me in a Hotel lobby by JFK in the Summer of 2001.
Who should I believe, Overspin or Art Luby?
System protection brought the work you spoke of in house, but thanks to you its gone, so is the language that would make any new work OUR work in the future.
OP
odie01
Veteran
- May 11, 2010
- 1,321
- 473
- Thread Starter
- Thread starter
- #129
As the mother of an aspiring transportation writer (cars, unfortunately, not airplanes) I'm all for on-the-job-training. But I've got to wonder just how much supervision some airplane mechanic students are getting while working on American Airlines airliners.
The students, hired by Timco Aviation Services were part of the work force doing contract maintenance and seat re-pitching as I report in Saturday's edition of The New York Times. They are participants in "carefully managed, highly structured, continuing education programs not unlike other learning arrangements in quality critical fields" according to Leonard Kazmerski, an executive with Timco.
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-knnCsW9gNZY/UKZ4emyP6-I/AAAAAAAAEQo/GNQqot8WNqA/s1600/imagejpeg_2+(1).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto;">
American's pesky saddle clamp
Let's consider the striking coincidences associated with last month's rash of loose airplane seats on American's airplanes. I'll start with a previously unreported case of improperly installed seats on three rows of a Boeing 767 in August.
And all these events follow the decision by American to take seat installation work from its own unionized and licensed mechanic work force and subcontract it to non unionized and only partially licensed contract maintenance workers, where at least one company is using students who are enrolled at National Aviation Academy, a school for aviation mechanics with a branch in Bedford, Massachusetts.
One would have to be extremely naive to believe these things are unrelated.
I am told by people in the know that the Federal Aviation Administration has opened an investigation into the case of the slippery saddle clamp and it has more than the bankrupt airline in its sights. Here's why.
As anyone who has ever flown on a plane knows, where one puts ones' tushy is just part of the passenger seating area. Moving seats means re positioning the overhead reading light, flight attendant call button and oxygen mask compartment, or what's called the passenger service unit. Wiring to the arm rest also has to be moved.
Several people who have seen the troublesome 757s say these modifications were poorly performed. Holes were punched in the sidewall of the arm rest to run the wires and the protective grommet which is designed to keep the wire insulation from being damaged by the rough plastic was not installed.
"The wires were pulled and crimped where the wire meets the plastic," I was told by an experienced mechanic who viewed the airplane the day after its arrival in Boston and who did not want to be identified.
Overhead, the PSU covers also showed signs they had been removed carelessly. "Removing the overhead panels takes a special technique," my mechanic friend said. "These passenger service units, they can frustrate the hell out of you," it takes some finesse to loosen them correctly, he said.
Keep in mind that in an earlier post, Bart Crotty, an aviation safety consultant, told me that installation of seats is boring, repetitive work often given to the person with the least seniority. Timco and CAS and any other MROs doing this work must balance the peculiarities (boring versus finesse) of the tasks. But it should go without saying that when using students and other non licensed mechanics, supervision is critical as is a thorough final inspection.
American and Timco have told me six ways to Sunday that all work is supervised, inspected, checked, scrutinized, yada, yada, yada. Tell that to the passengers headed from Boston to Miami on Flight 685 who found the row of seats in front of them collapsing into their laps.
Two weeks later American's engineering department produced a full color, illustrated advisory for workers.
DON'T assume tightening screws will secure the seats if the clamp is not properly installed, is one tip. DO refer to the documentation for proper installation is another. To these, I'd add one more.
When your workers are unfamiliar with the assignment or the parts, inexperienced, unlicensed or currently matriculating in mechanic school DO follow common sense and federal regulation and check that their work is performed correctly.
The students, hired by Timco Aviation Services were part of the work force doing contract maintenance and seat re-pitching as I report in Saturday's edition of The New York Times. They are participants in "carefully managed, highly structured, continuing education programs not unlike other learning arrangements in quality critical fields" according to Leonard Kazmerski, an executive with Timco.
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-knnCsW9gNZY/UKZ4emyP6-I/AAAAAAAAEQo/GNQqot8WNqA/s1600/imagejpeg_2+(1).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto;">
Let's consider the striking coincidences associated with last month's rash of loose airplane seats on American's airplanes. I'll start with a previously unreported case of improperly installed seats on three rows of a Boeing 767 in August.
- American decides to have outside contractors re-pitch seats on its Boeing 767 and Boeing 757 airliners.
- On the very first plane it touches, Certified Aviation Services, a contractor in California reports to American that it has incorrectly installed three rows of 30 seats on an airplane already returned to service and flying in South America.
- Two of the airline's 757s which have seat re-pitching performed by Timco have seats come dislodged during flight.
- A re inspection of forty eight 757s turns up more than a dozen airplanes with incorrect seat installation.
And all these events follow the decision by American to take seat installation work from its own unionized and licensed mechanic work force and subcontract it to non unionized and only partially licensed contract maintenance workers, where at least one company is using students who are enrolled at National Aviation Academy, a school for aviation mechanics with a branch in Bedford, Massachusetts.
One would have to be extremely naive to believe these things are unrelated.
I am told by people in the know that the Federal Aviation Administration has opened an investigation into the case of the slippery saddle clamp and it has more than the bankrupt airline in its sights. Here's why.
As anyone who has ever flown on a plane knows, where one puts ones' tushy is just part of the passenger seating area. Moving seats means re positioning the overhead reading light, flight attendant call button and oxygen mask compartment, or what's called the passenger service unit. Wiring to the arm rest also has to be moved.Several people who have seen the troublesome 757s say these modifications were poorly performed. Holes were punched in the sidewall of the arm rest to run the wires and the protective grommet which is designed to keep the wire insulation from being damaged by the rough plastic was not installed.
"The wires were pulled and crimped where the wire meets the plastic," I was told by an experienced mechanic who viewed the airplane the day after its arrival in Boston and who did not want to be identified.
Overhead, the PSU covers also showed signs they had been removed carelessly. "Removing the overhead panels takes a special technique," my mechanic friend said. "These passenger service units, they can frustrate the hell out of you," it takes some finesse to loosen them correctly, he said.
Keep in mind that in an earlier post, Bart Crotty, an aviation safety consultant, told me that installation of seats is boring, repetitive work often given to the person with the least seniority. Timco and CAS and any other MROs doing this work must balance the peculiarities (boring versus finesse) of the tasks. But it should go without saying that when using students and other non licensed mechanics, supervision is critical as is a thorough final inspection.
American and Timco have told me six ways to Sunday that all work is supervised, inspected, checked, scrutinized, yada, yada, yada. Tell that to the passengers headed from Boston to Miami on Flight 685 who found the row of seats in front of them collapsing into their laps.Two weeks later American's engineering department produced a full color, illustrated advisory for workers.
DON'T assume tightening screws will secure the seats if the clamp is not properly installed, is one tip. DO refer to the documentation for proper installation is another. To these, I'd add one more.
When your workers are unfamiliar with the assignment or the parts, inexperienced, unlicensed or currently matriculating in mechanic school DO follow common sense and federal regulation and check that their work is performed correctly.
comatose
Senior
Because senority is nothing more than an anchor around your neck and anchors is exactly what will be given in return.
Overspeed
Veteran
- Jun 27, 2011
- 3,245
- 1,065
Ill mind my member you mind yours.
Line work isn't usually the target? Tell that to NWA. What about DL? They closed down line stations and outsourced. Again you don't know what you are talking about.
BCs are not still in there but the cap is in there for line at 15%. So you like protection and now you don't like it you are willing to trust the company on the line.
System protection protects a lowest seniority date but not work. If AA buys out senior mechanics they do not have to rehire unless the scope language requires it. You know this. Stop lying. The CR Smith letter and its agreed upon interpretation kept the work in house not system protection.
The new aircraft are covered under the new scope clause. Ask Burdette yourself. Work is work. If you can't see that in the language you shouldn't be a union rep.
So you are claiming that the new language is better than system protection?
The formula was tweaked because if they included total maint costs it would have been so high that they never would have been able to fool Tulsa into selling themselves out. The formula was tweaked to allow the company to outsource as much OH as they wanted and get OH to vote for it. People like OS were as much a part of this charade as the company. the 35% Spend figure allows more outsourcing of OH (due to the availability of cheaper labor overseas) than the addtional 40% of work they were asking for in their original ask. Typcally a vendor would use more hours for the same work, but do it at lower rates. Its not hard to see how Spend vs Hours plays perfectly into the hands of the company.
Who uses more materials, Line or OH? OH, the more material they use in OH the more hours (heads) they can outsource. If they buy material then have a vendor use the materials its still a part of the formula thats part of inhouse spend. The 35% can be purely outsourced labor, while the 65% is mixed labor and materials purchased by the company.
Where do they pay more for leases New York JFK or Tulsa Oklahoma? New York.
Add in hangars in BOS, MIA, ORD, DFW, LAX and SFO and you have a huge number that never would have been sellable to Tulsa. By excluding them from the figure it allows more of the 35% of the OH work to be outsourced. Switching from a 40% of work to 35% of spend was sold as a reduction of the ask when at the companys sole discretion, can be an increase, if they chose to. There are many ways to manipulate the spend which would expand the companys ability to outsource OH well byond 50% of the work they do now.
The Line is capped at 10%, but they can outsource less than that, and by doing so outsource a lot more than 35% of OH. If the labor costs on the line increase-through increased OT or even materials they can outsource even more OH. Even doing 3p work on the line for other carriers allows the company to increase OH outsourcing by driving up the in house cost figure.
You voted to make all that possible.
Do that, rumor is you guys need to work on that.
Selective editing again to suit what you want to say?
"Main target"
got it?
Yes we know this, never said system protection was great, but its the best we ever had but like I said thats what Art Luby told us when we were pushing for Lockharts Scope language back in 2001. Luby said the system protection was the best we would get. Remember that we used to go for two year deals, update system protection every two years and you keep the work, we saw a six year deal in 1995, thats why we were pushing for better scope, we never got it.
Wrong, the CR Smith letter specifically allows outsourcing. Luby said that system protection brings new work in house by keeping the workers on payroll. But thanks to you its gone.
Spin , spin spin. We had language in the M&R agreement for years on station staffing, yet there were plenty of stations where we had no AMTs. Why? Because the company claimed that if they had anyone from the contract group, such as Title II staffed at those locations- they have satisfied the contract. The company did say that TWU would work on the new aircraft, he didnt say which work they would do , Line maint is work.
Burdette made it clear that AA/TWU mechanics would work on AA aircraft, he refused to say they will do all the work. So in other words if we do the line maint on the 787s and Airbus and outsource all that new OH work that we never did in house, they are not in violation of the agreement. Sure we will grieve it, and we will lose. The same people who knowingly put this in place will feign dissapontment in the arbitrators decision.
Overspeed
Veteran
- Jun 27, 2011
- 3,245
- 1,065
Yep got it. Line work could be outsourced unlimited under the 1113c 3/22 provisions and you believe that line work is safe most of the time. You were willing to trust AA management when we went to abrogation. Got it.
We now have better scope that UA/CO who has no cap. DL which can do whatever they want and now have unlimited unlicensed mechanics in DL Tech Ops and temp workers from DGS. WN caps at four lines of overhaul with no cap on anything else. Using all of their scope clauses we would let all of PALM, CRO, TAESL, and all but four bays of HC. Okay Bob.
Again system protection protects a date, not jobs. Also, no other union working under BK has ever maintained any kind of protection for ground workers. No union. The TWU scope language keeps more jobs in house than any other union contract bar none. Work load always fluctuates due to new aircraft, you know that. You quote Gless but you leave out that the work load will increase over time and that new spend is protected under the TWU contract. It is not protected under the AMFA, IBT, and IAM agreements. Keep distorting the facts Bob.
The CR Smith letter limited the practice to work that AA traditionally performs in house. That letter is gone.
And overhaul work is work too and labor costs money. 65% of that money spent on labor and materials is going to be done in house. It's really easy to understand Bob. If AA spends $1B this year on labor and material and then when new aircraft get old the cost increases to $2B, then AA must insource $650M in labor and material spend.
Right, you said that we need to renegotiate for that work since our existing CBA does not cover work on new aircraft. Burdette stated the obvious, 65% does not guarantee type of work but work, that's it.
777 fixer
Veteran
- Jul 21, 2004
- 4,792
- 900
I've heard that excuse before that's exactly what it it, an excuse. Especially since have seen guys with 20-25 years leave AA.
