LAX Maintenance Town Hall 2/24/15

[topDawg]

Dawg...Does DL have these MUE's or ASM's working interior items at a station like JFK?
And you are correct that an A&P in not needed to clean parts or work cabin times. The problem is that the TWU has agreed to giving many mechanic functions away WITHOUT getting anything substantial in return......Contract after contract after contract after...............

MUEs are the cleaner normally. They have some out on the line but they don't work on airplanes. (generally getting parts, maybe putting air in the tires) 
We had them in the hangar for a little bit but it was hard finding things for them to do so they cut them. 
 
Dept. 206 which is the cabin Maint dept has stations in ATL, CVG, SLC, MSP, DTW, LAX, SEA, LGA, JFK, BOS and MCO. 
Dept. 250/251 which is the Line depts don't have any ASMs that I know of. So other than the 11 206 locations anything that is done in the cabin will be done by the line AMTs. 
 
In the hangar, on my crew, we have 2 ASM and 8(i think it is) AMTs(6)/coneheads(2). For the most part ASMs do whatever an AMT does but generally work with a AMT and can't do some of the paper work. 
And like i said, we have backshops that are damn near all ASMs (generally leads are AMTs). wheel and brake comes to mind.  
 
and i agree with your problem with your union. Its a little bit of a joke that your pay is so low and you guys allow them to have about the same number of helpers that we do. 

 

[Bob Owens]

Thanks for the info.
So, 3 more holidays.
Vacation is the same.
The sick time and OJI time bank is , imo , a vast improvement to what we have.
8 days a year that can be used as vacation, or rolled into a long term bank.

I would be all for our sick time being changed to that.

At AA its only 5 holidays at half pay, so the net of working those five Holidays is only 2.5 days. So delta Gets 7.5 more Holidays than we do in terms of hours paid if worked. We actually have a Holiday penalty, if we have to work, which we always do, you have to work for half pay for the day. 

 

[Bob Owens]

How about getting training off duty paid at 1.5, return of double time, and 80 day ID pay? Company forces people to burn their SK time and VC while on ID. If the company paid they wouldn't keep our guys out so long on ID waiting forever to clear.

How about voting NO as far as giving that stuff away in the first place for a change? 

 

[Bob Owens]

 
MetalMover,
I see on the FAA Repair Station database the following about Delta.
 
http://av-info.faa.gov/repairstation.asp?certno=DALR026A
 
Certificated Mechanics: 4720 Repairmen: 103 Non-Certificated Mechanics: 703
 

So in other words, since according to you they don't do OH, they have hundreds more line mechanics than AA. 

 

[Bob Owens]

A good friend of mines' brother is a 20 year AMT at Deltoid, he makes $40.94hr and just got a $10,000 profit sharing check. I will find out more.

I'm sure the TWu International will never be able to match it, they have never led, always followed. Then the worst failure in the industry jammed record concessions up our collective a$$e$ with only the threat of bankruptcy, "without further ratification" Jimmy Little said. Record setting concessions for what 12 years now?

Unprecedented TWu concessions for over a decade!!!!

Now a union buster like Wroble is gonna just give the AMTs' 7% over the Deltiod AMTs???

With the weakness of the two worst industrial company unions in a spineless "Association"???

Pardonnez-moi pendant que je essuie la merde mes bottles....

Wasn't that the second payment? From what I was told they split the PS into two checks. Effectively the extra 10K increases their earnings to the equivilent of $4.80/hr. So he was making $45.74 an hour.
 
The figure I've seen for the FAs was $16,000. So our FAs are no longer Industry leading, but they are locked into their deal, where they will likely be at the bottom for the remainder of the term for five more years. 
 
They are trying to rush us into a long term deal like they did to the Flight Attendants, as you can see from the video they cant wait to deal with this "Association". IMO they cant wait to dump our pensions into the IAMNPF and a five year deal where we wont even be industry leading for the six weeks the APFA was. 

 

[Bob Owens]

  Never mind the fact that the AA AMTs only receive 5 paid holidays at 1.5 X pay, or about half as much as UAL % DAL.  
 
 

Wrong. Its not even half. Turn it into hours paid. Our worked Holiday pay, after working 40 hours of the contractually recognized Five Holidays, which is half of what most other companies recognize, and what we historically had, and even less than what AA recognizes for their non-union staff, only 20 hours per year. So if other carriers gave their employees 10 Holidays at half pay like us then we would be getting half, but every other carrier, even non-unio,  gives at least double time, so on other words they are getting at least 80 hours extra pay (up to 120) for working the Holidays compared to our 20 hours pay. They are getting four times as much as we are, not double. Thanks again to people like Overspeed who now complain about it even though he claimed that this concession, which effectively have the company two and a half weeks of free labor per person per year which allowed them to reduce headcount even more, "saved jobs".
 
They all went through BK but we gave this up way before BK and we were the only ones to give this away. 
 
A lot of people misunderstand that we gave away 100 hours of pay with a concession that not even Non-union companies imposed on their workers. What Little and his minions did is really criminal. 
 
Between the Vacation and the Holidays we gave the company nearly one month of free labor for every person under those concessions every year.  So in other words since 2003 those concessions alone had us give AA nearly one free year of labor per person. 

 

[Bob Owens]

I know! Where is our gain sharing program? Last I heard of it was the ATD filed a grievance over a year ago due to the company's stalling.

Shouldn't Don have finished the language before you voted YES for it?   How many times has this happened to us where they sell a contract with things we don't end up getting? 

 

[Kev3188]

Wasn't that the second payment? From what I was told they split the PS into two checks. Effectively the extra 10K increases their earnings to the equivilent of $4.80/hr. So he was making $45.74 an hour.
 

Correct. The first check was in October of last year. That represented 1/3 of what they thought each employee would ultimately receive (roughly equivalent to 5% of one's eligible gross earnings).

The 2nd check was issued on 2/13, and worked out to ~11.5% of one's eligible 2014 earnings. In the end the combined total each person received came to 16.5% of eligble earnings.

 

[Bob Owens]

If they want to do the right thing why not give us retro for the raise since the NMB is wasting time or is unable to make a decision. With all the political clout AA has why not tell the NMB to get off their arse and make a decision. I say because every month that goes by is another month they don't have to pay us and blame it on the union or the NMB they are full of sit.
 
The prefunding answer another BS excuse. If the retirees prefunded their own medical why the hell do they need my money. Liars and crooks but they promise you the world as they bend you over.
 
KEEP HELPING THEM OUT....
 
for the lowest pay in the industry 1990 wages....

What makes you think they want to do the right thing? They want to rush us into a long term deal that will bring our base rates slightly above Deltas rates non-inclusive of Profit Sharing. Then for the next four years they will take back the small annual increases by increasing what you pay for medical while Delta and United pass us by and get closer to UPS and SWA. 
 
PEOPLE YOU ARE WORKING FOR A VERY PROFITABLE COMPANY FOR HALF COMPENSATION!!!!!!!!!!
 
I agree the prefunding excuse was a lie. The company claimed in that Town Hall that our matching fund refund was based upon them getting out of having to pay the retirees. Thats absurd because the value of that is around $10 million per month, or $120 million per year. Plus the liability  for us, around another $500 million. The liability for the retiree medical, with us terminated would probably come out to around $1.2 billion by the time everyone who was entitled to it died off or used their $50,000. The costs for the plan were likely to soar over the next decade as huge numbers of us reached retirement age. If we were given credit for that then that concession alone would have covered our entire ask of $300 million a year with enough left over to let us keep our Pension. 
 
The company had to know that since the retirees paid for those benefits that they would not get to simply terminate them without it going through the 1113 process and those people becoming creditors, but they tried to squeeze them out of becoming creditors by attempting to take those paid for benefits away through the 1114 process.  
 
The company also knew that in order to get the concessions through that they won with us the Union was telling their members that they would be getting the matching funds and said nothing, in other words agreeing to what the Union was saying.  So now the company is claiming that the 1114 process is holding it up, but thats a lie, the 1114 process has been decided and as far as the retirees and the court are concerned its done. So 1114 has been successfully completed. Maybe not the way the company wanted it, but the company did not specify in the language that the only way we would get the matching funds is if they got to screw the retirees out of their money. So its only in the minds of AA management that the 1114 process is not complete and they are holding the money from us and depleting as much as they can in the meantime. Nothing is legally preventing AA from releasing those funds, its their choice and they choose to not release them. There is no requiremnet to keep the fund, except for the few guys under 65 who have a balance of contributions, but all the matching funds from those who have retired have already been released to AA, the only funds that remain are from those who have coverage and are under 65 and our matching funds. 
 
The fact is the Union could not negotiate away the Retiree medical from the retirees as it was a vested contract the day they retired and left the Union. All those people paid for the insurance they were promised, if AA wanted out of that contractual obligation they should have sought to do so during the 1113 process and made them creditors. 
 
Remember its not the retirees getting your money, its AA taking your money to pay their obligations. Obligations that they tried to get out of in an underhanded way and the courts denied. The retirees deserve their benifits, they paid for them, and we deserve our match back as well, as it is we are still getting screwed because for most of us the Total return of contributions and match comes nowhere near the value of what we lost. We each lost at least $50,000 worth of medical coverage and we were not even given the right amount of credit as far as the ask. (Tahnks to Videtich and Mark Richards and the YES voters once again). 
 
The fact is they lied by omission at the Town Hall in LAX on pretty much every response. 
 
Many don't realize why they have these town Halls. Sure they get hit with the pay issues, they expect that and have their BS answers all ready for that, what they are really looking for is to see if we are still engaged, if we are, then they know they don't have to give us squat nor do they have to take the Union seriously. The proper response at these meetings is to completely ignore and avoid operational issues such as training, equipment, even future plans, etc. They have scores of management people there for that and plenty of other ways to get that info such as delay and cancellation reports. Don't make them think that despite your complaints about pay you still really consider yourself so well paid that you are willing to do their job as well as your own. Let them know that the only thing that concerns you is compensation. Thats Wages, benifits and work rules. Once they get you to talk about operational issues, their issues, instead of compensation, our issue, they know that they have succeeded in what they came there for. When you talk about operational issues while our issues get brushed aside with BS they have won. They are laughing at you. 

 

[Bob Owens]

Correct. The first check was in October of last year. That represented 1/3 of what they thought each employee would ultimately receive (roughly equivalent to 5% of one's eligible gross earnings).

The 2nd check was issued on 2/13, and worked out to ~11.5% of one's eligible 2014 earnings. In the end the combined total each person received came to 16.5% of eligble earnings.

 
So our APFA Flight attendants went from "industry leading" to lagging Delta by around 5%, and they have five years left before the amendable date. Didnt the Delta FAs recently file for representation? How does Delta usually respond to a representation election, dont they usually give pay raises to keep the Union out?  
 
On average over the last few years how much have you guys seen in annual wage increases?  
 
So if agreed to Delta, plus 7% plus 4% on DOS and 2% thereafter like the Flight Attendants we would still be earning around 4% less than Delta not even counting Vacation, sick time, medical benefits, Holidays etc. 

 

[Bob Owens]

2ndGENAMT,
You should actually read the scope clause. What you believe is far from the truth. The language restricts outsourcing to 35% of the total of direct labor + material + outsourcing. Management is not included. Also, the language on outsourcing restricts AA to specific work that could be initially outsourced then only peak work can be sent out up to the 35%. AA is already at 25%. Most of the reductions now are driven by old aircraft being replaced by new ones. DL is better? Show the DL language that says they cannot outsource the remainder of engines? There isn't any scope or limits so if you are saying you want DL's heavy maintenance concepts in our CBA scope clause, Dougie will love you for it.

Delta is Non-union. Everyone knows that when you work non-union you get whatever they feel like giving you and they apply whatever rules they want, whats sad is that mechanics at a non-union company are getting more in wages, more in sick time, more Holidays and more vacation than dues paying members at AA. Thanks to you. 

 

[Kev3188]

How does Delta usually respond to a representation election, dont they usually give pay raises to keep the Union out?  
 

Yep. Workrule improvments as well, only to quietly take the latter away after the elections failed...

On average over the last few years how much have you guys seen in annual wage increases?  

Going off of memory, it works out to ~ 4% annually for TOS employees. Those not topped out usually get a smaller increase.
 

 

[WorldTraveler]

based on DOT data - which is absolutely valid in comparing average salaries WITHIN a carrier - DL's employees in total - have had a 10% increase in salaries every one of the last 3 years... and a large part of the reason is because of profit sharing. not just 10% in one year... but year after year.

 

[Overspeed]

So in other words, since according to you they don't do OH, they have hundreds more line mechanics than AA.

No they do have engine overhaul, they have extremely limited airframe overhaul. A DL mechanic has already stated that on this blog. A good size portion of the number works engines and components. I have no idea if the above number includes all AMTs systemwide or just those under their repair station certificate.

 

[Overspeed]

Delta is Non-union. Everyone knows that when you work non-union you get whatever they feel like giving you and they apply whatever rules they want, whats sad is that mechanics at a non-union company are getting more in wages, more in sick time, more Holidays and more vacation than dues paying members at AA. Thanks to you.

I didn't know I was that powerful with my one vote. better be careful....