line vs o/h issues

[texasreb]

And working off work cards backchecked by an inspector or crew chief. When was the last time he signed a log book and an Aircraft Release at that? Not too difficult signing your name and number,,but don't forget all the good stuff that goes with should something go wrong.

I sign logbooks all the time. I have to sign off your mel's and fmr's for work that you deferred and we had to fix.

 

[Bob Owens]

View attachment 8845

American financier Jay Gould said "I can hire one-half of the working class to kill the other half."

Keep it up and you will prove that the reason why we are going backwards is you refuse to learn from history.

Line guys, talk to you friends at UAL and USAIR and ask them how much they have benifitted by having OH outsourced and having to deal with the junk that gets sent out from those chop shops that do the work. Shedding OH didnt mean that the coffers were opened. They both make even less than us. Most of you have probably done some time with the fly-by-nighters and non=scheds and remember that when they came back from OH they may have had a new paint job but they were mechanically in worse shape than when they went in. When we get them from AA OH they are as good as when we got them from Boeing (Douglass). Those guys get deeper into systems than we normally do and we often rely on their expertise to fix things that we dont have the time to dive into. I've seen these guys come in and split a top case, replace some blades and put it all back together again in short order.

Base guys need to realize that there are challenges and sacrifices that come with working on the line due to conditions and locations which need to be recognized.

 

[787nightmare]

Good post, Hopeful and on point. Geo as well as retro pay should be on the table. You are correct tulsa does have a lower cost of living, but as the old tired twu saying goes "a loaf of bread cost the same for all of us" or something to that effect. I think the heartburn comes in when the 24/7 for overhaul comes up making overhaul essentialy a "line" station but with no "line premium"or line perks. As I have said before,if it was my company and I truely wanted to compete for the MRO market, then absolutely you need to make overhaul a 24/7 operation. Yes I know that comment will make me unpopular but that is a fact. I recently worked a 4 over on second shift doing some ops checks. I was sitting in the cockpit, in the hangar looking at the idle shops in front of me. I thought what wasted potential. If those shops were staffed this place could surely churn out some work.Godspeed

I tend to agree with you "dvlhog" regarding the TULE base being a 24/7 operation. I kind of thought about that when I was there...kind of a waste it seemed.
The "line premium" is paid to line maint mechs because of the wx aspect. Which, TULE or AFW is "not applicable".

If TULE & AFW were to go 24/7, seniority would have to buy you your best days off...or, as another idea, devise some kind of "utility crew"4/10 covering weekends...F,Sa, Su, Mo(TWT off)..or T,F,S,S(MTW off-day shift, you'd want this one-1/2 of Sun off), or S,S,M,T(WTF off-if you're on 2nds, this is the one you'd want-1/2 of Sat off), thus covering the weekends for the base. Not going to be popular, but something the company would probably be open to for 24/7 ops. CAL does this at it's base maint, to cover weekends-making it a 7 day op. I'm sure this isn't appealing to anyone with weekends off. But if 24/7 op is on the table, and AA is firm about it...

Food for thought...

 

[Runwaysticker]

I tend to agree with you "dvlhog" regarding the TULE base being a 24/7 operation. I kind of thought about that when I was there...kind of a waste it seemed.
The "line premium" is paid to line maint mechs because of the wx aspect. Which, TULE or AFW is "not applicable".

If TULE & AFW were to go 24/7, seniority would have to buy you your best days off...or, as another idea, devise some kind of "utility crew"4/10 covering weekends...F,Sa, Su, Mo(TWT off)..or T,F,S,S(MTW off-day shift, you'd want this one-1/2 of Sun off), or S,S,M,T(WTF off-if you're on 2nds, this is the one you'd want-1/2 of Sat off), thus covering the weekends for the base. Not going to be popular, but something the company would probably be open to for 24/7 ops. CAL does this at it's base maint, to cover weekends-making it a 7 day op. I'm sure this isn't appealing to anyone with weekends off. But if 24/7 op is on the table, and AA is firm about it...

Food for thought...

If you want in 100% ? in house maint, this is 2010 and you might want to bend on that and keep $ in pocket, but thats just me, working holidays , Mids, and mid week off, are the fish a good bit this time of year?????????????????????????????????????????????????

 

[Duke787]

That should end the debate. But rather than argue who has it tougher, the reality of our situation at AA is the geographical aspect. It is obviously less expensive living in Tulsa than most of the line stations. Since geographical pay was shot down earlier in negotiations, an increased line premium emerged instead.
My concern is that there are a few opinions on why the TA was voted down.
One school of thought is that the TULE base guys voted no because of 24/7 and NOT getting the line premium.
This may or may not be factual, but I would tend to believe that all of us who voted no did so because we want restore at least. Let alone not giving anymore concessions be it a pension or retiree medical,
What remains to be seen if and when another TA is brought to a vote, will TULE get more and the line less?

I don't wish to debate line vs overhaul as it shows a great division.
But I do believe the line premium is fair, not so much because line mechanics deserve more, but simply because geography makes it harder for us to live on the same salary.

Well said, I couldn't agree more.

 

[Duke787]

Duke, my apologies. I had you confused with 787 in regards to the scheduler comment, now back to your regular programming...

I have not said anything negative about the quality of maint from OH, I have not said line mechs have more responsibility then OH. Yes, some of my comments have been snarky. I don't think we deserve more money because of wx or working outside (that's like a pilot complaining about being out of town when they go to work). I do think that line mech deserve higher shift differential 20% for nights and 15% for afternoons. I do think our line pay should significantly higher then it is. bravozero@afw said
"We do NOT want a 7 day operation. That is why they left the LINE!" My ONLY point is that I do not want to sacrifice pay or anything else so that OH can keep their life style, as line stations will always be 24/7 operation.

Bickering amongst ourselves isn't going to fix anything. These are issues that our negotiating team needs to address. As far as the staffing and lack of AA using us to do contract maint, that's just the management being lazy or not aggressive enough to drive the contract maint company's out of business, we could easily do that at ORD if we had management try and get those contracts. We can get the man power if needed, we have a lot of good mechs on layoff.

 

[paul1]

duke787 our negotiating team as of right now, they don't know how to address anything. I'm holding my bated breath for the Oct. meeting.

and in chicago AA could contract in alot of work instead of having our own guys working for the other contractors

 

[Duke787]

duke787 our negotiating team as of right now, they don't know how to address anything. I'm holding my bated breath for the Oct. meeting.

and in chicago AA could contract in alot of work instead of having our own guys working for the other contractors

Well Paul the ORD local didn't even ask any of the members why they voted against the TA, the executive board says they know. I think they are going by their own personal feelings, then what the members want. I think Gilboy voted to bring the TA back to us. So based on that Gilboy must have thought the TA was good, but yet he says he knows why people voted against the TA.

With the ORD mechs needing second jobs to give their families the little extras, AA mechs are working for contractors on their daysoff, Those mechs could make more money working 6th days for AA, working on other airline aircraft, that is a win win for both AA and the mech, everybody makes money.

Maybe AMP will be better...........but who knows, I'm not seeing a whole lot of postives out of the TWU right now, all those years of a good working relationship between AA and the TWU doesn't seem to matter, with Brundage saying the TWU is not getting a sweeter deal, and then comparing labor's wage's to a brick in a back pack. That makes me feel all warm and fuzzy on the inside.........not to mention the loyalty feeling I get when I read that stuff.

 

[paul1]

let me make this clear even if there was every to be a spin off of are base maint. operations. Don't think for one mil sec. that AA is going to pay better than or equal to SWA. Its just not going to happen. Back years ago crandell told maint. I would pay you guys more but. you know where I'm going.

I'm all for and want to keep o/h maint. in house, but I think the bases need to understand we need a 24/7 operation and the company in return needs to secure us a better future. The bases need a better understanding of working in a MRO environment full time

 

[Deleted member 14439]

let me make this clear even if there was every to be a spin off of are base maint. operations. Don't think for one mil sec. that AA is going to pay better than or equal to SWA. Its just not going to happen. Back years ago crandell told maint. I would pay you guys more but. you know where I'm going.

I'm all for and want to keep o/h maint. in house, but I think the bases need to understand we need a 24/7 operation and the company in return needs to secure us a better future. The bases need a better understanding of working in a MRO environment full time

Paul1, I agree. While an unpopular view, AFW/TUL/DWH, should be a 24/7 operation if the company wants to either compete in the MRO market or lower their costs. The first problem however is staffing. The company just will not, in my opinion, hire anywhere close to what would be required. I`m not speaking of just AMTs/ Stores. We would need engineering support, back shop support, facilites maintenance,automotive it goes on and on. Sure we could spread the current manpower out again to cover the weekends but it would fail just as it failed the first time. Why? To start with they staffed with a bare bones crew. It was hardly worth it. Second, no engineering support. Thirdly it was mostly junior and inexperienced guys/gals. Here is an example for you, directly as a result of that weekend crew we now have , in regards to landing gear, multiple work cards that either duplicate tasks, have them out of order or are just plain impossible to do as written.
Furthermore, the schedule of that crew was ever changing. 5/8 with f/s 5/8 with s/m or a combo of 4/10s. No bidding here either, its all rotation. Then when you consider no engineering here or facilities folks, well it just got silly. I do not have faith in the leadership to establish a feasible plan and execute it. Heck we can not even get adequate engineering support on dayshift during the week !!! We start at 0600, they come in at 0800 PROBLEM. We go to lunch at 1100-1130 they go to lunch from 1200-1300 PROBLEM.We secure at 1430. Then they secure down around 1730 or so. Second shift and mids uncovered. I keep hearing how unproductive we are as employees. Well if I don`t have the support I need to do my job whose fault is it? We all know the "verbatim compliance" on ADs, right? Well when we run into a issue with AD paperwork on a weekend or off dayshift we come to a screeching halt. Is that the AMTs fault? NO !!
People here will do the work. All they ask for are the tools/support to do it. Whether its on days,afts or mids 7 days a week. In going to a 24/7 operation the perk or benefit so many came to overhaul for is gone. So what to do? A line AMT get xxx premium for being 24/7 while the base AMT gets nothing for the same 24/7? That folks is where the heartburn is. How do we get around that? Godspeed. and a big welcome to all the new faces here at AFW.

 

[Rogallo]

Paul1, I agree. While an unpopular view, AFW/TUL/DWH, should be a 24/7 operation if the company wants to either compete in the MRO market or lower their costs. The first problem however is staffing. The company just will not, in my opinion, hire anywhere close to what would be required. I`m not speaking of just AMTs/ Stores. We would need engineering support, back shop support, facilites maintenance,automotive it goes on and on. Sure we could spread the current manpower out again to cover the weekends but it would fail just as it failed the first time. Why? To start with they staffed with a bare bones crew. It was hardly worth it. Second, no engineering support. Thirdly it was mostly junior and inexperienced guys/gals. Here is an example for you, directly as a result of that weekend crew we now have , in regards to landing gear, multiple work cards that either duplicate tasks, have them out of order or are just plain impossible to do as written.
Furthermore, the schedule of that crew was ever changing. 5/8 with f/s 5/8 with s/m or a combo of 4/10s. No bidding here either, its all rotation. Then when you consider no engineering here or facilities folks, well it just got silly. I do not have faith in the leadership to establish a feasible plan and execute it. Heck we can not even get adequate engineering support on dayshift during the week !!! We start at 0600, they come in at 0800 PROBLEM. We go to lunch at 1100-1130 they go to lunch from 1200-1300 PROBLEM.We secure at 1430. Then they secure down around 1730 or so. Second shift and mids uncovered. I keep hearing how unproductive we are as employees. Well if I don`t have the support I need to do my job whose fault is it? We all know the "verbatim compliance" on ADs, right? Well when we run into a issue with AD paperwork on a weekend or off dayshift we come to a screeching halt. Is that the AMTs fault? NO !!
People here will do the work. All they ask for are the tools/support to do it. Whether its on days,afts or mids 7 days a week. In going to a 24/7 operation the perk or benefit so many came to overhaul for is gone. So what to do? A line AMT get xxx premium for being 24/7 while the base AMT gets nothing for the same 24/7? That folks is where the heartburn is. How do we get around that? Godspeed. and a big welcome to all the new faces here at AFW.

Sounds like the only logical thing to do is shut it down!!!

 

[Deleted member 14439]

Sounds like the only logical thing to do is shut it down!!!

Ah, a 10%er chimes in. Rogallo, do you not have anything constructive to add to this discussion?

 

[Duke787]

Paul1, I agree. While an unpopular view, AFW/TUL/DWH, should be a 24/7 operation if the company wants to either compete in the MRO market or lower their costs. The first problem however is staffing. The company just will not, in my opinion, hire anywhere close to what would be required. I`m not speaking of just AMTs/ Stores. We would need engineering support, back shop support, facilites maintenance,automotive it goes on and on. Sure we could spread the current manpower out again to cover the weekends but it would fail just as it failed the first time. Why? To start with they staffed with a bare bones crew. It was hardly worth it. Second, no engineering support. Thirdly it was mostly junior and inexperienced guys/gals. Here is an example for you, directly as a result of that weekend crew we now have , in regards to landing gear, multiple work cards that either duplicate tasks, have them out of order or are just plain impossible to do as written.
Furthermore, the schedule of that crew was ever changing. 5/8 with f/s 5/8 with s/m or a combo of 4/10s. No bidding here either, its all rotation. Then when you consider no engineering here or facilities folks, well it just got silly. I do not have faith in the leadership to establish a feasible plan and execute it. Heck we can not even get adequate engineering support on dayshift during the week !!! We start at 0600, they come in at 0800 PROBLEM. We go to lunch at 1100-1130 they go to lunch from 1200-1300 PROBLEM.We secure at 1430. Then they secure down around 1730 or so. Second shift and mids uncovered. I keep hearing how unproductive we are as employees. Well if I don`t have the support I need to do my job whose fault is it? We all know the "verbatim compliance" on ADs, right? Well when we run into a issue with AD paperwork on a weekend or off dayshift we come to a screeching halt. Is that the AMTs fault? NO !!
People here will do the work. All they ask for are the tools/support to do it. Whether its on days,afts or mids 7 days a week. In going to a 24/7 operation the perk or benefit so many came to overhaul for is gone. So what to do? A line AMT get xxx premium for being 24/7 while the base AMT gets nothing for the same 24/7? That folks is where the heartburn is. How do we get around that? Godspeed. and a big welcome to all the new faces here at AFW.

It sounds like you care about the product that OH provides, but none of the manning is your responsibility, this is all managements problem to do deal with. As far as losing the perk of 5 days a week day-shift, that is why I'm in favor of shift differential, being paid at 20% nights and 15% afternoons.

At ORD we have rotating days off every month, except B-check with fixed days off but 7 day coverage.

Does anyone know how DFW and MIA handle their days off?

 

[Rogallo]

Ah, a 10%er chimes in. Rogallo, do you not have anything constructive to add to this discussion?

I do not.

 

[paul1]

Rogall are you part of management or twu negotiations committee. no wonder we can't get anything done.

dvlhog212 you made a very good point about needing the support to run 24/7 and that will be a problem that AA has to adderess. Maybe this time around will be different but I doubt it. We have been bitching for years about vehilces and radios and still waiting . on a side note finally we may be getting vehilces, but only because det and msp are closing up

I know of several cases where we need to get something redline and it like pulling teeth to find someone. For all the managment they have you would think they would have those guys on 24/7 and able to make a decision on there own