mechanics may be free to strike by Sept 17th

[chipmunn]

N513AU:

In your response you did not answer my question. Would you mind responding to the following comment and reworded questions?

1. N513AU, the 85 percent agreements are required by the ATSB to obtain the loan guarantee and TPG, CSFB, & BOA or the DIP financing credit facility and emergence financing will not be available. Do you agree with this statement?

2. Again, it's not the company setting the limit of the concessions, it's the investors and the ATSB who are willing to provide help if the unions meet their requirements. Do you agree these are the requirements of the investors & ATSB?

Chip

 

[exjetgurl]

Chip,
Sometimes you just have to zip it.

A vote is a personal decision. Respect the decision whether you agree with it or not.

My husband is a pilot for this company and voted NO. He called it - said the company would go bankrupt regardless. Gee, one-week after the pilot tally they announce the deed. As for the spouse, he's one of the 700 pilots who took the biggest hit - that being bumped from Capt. to F/O - approximately $80,000 pay cut a year ~ no big whoop. He's giving to the US Airways senior pilot survival fund (a pilot's Corvette is a terrible thing to waste.) {Sic}

Thank god we don't live life on the edge: million dollar house, driving exotic automobiles, owning airplanes, gallivanting all over the country to visit Tony Robbins.

Chip, let the mechanics be. They have enough to deal with.

Sincerely,
The IRO's Wife

 

[jettek]

This is not about making Siegel blink. On the contrary, he will abrogate the contract and make the headcount cuts that we should have made years ago. We still operate with regulated industry rules due to the fact it has been easier to appease than correct the ills of these contracts

 

[Lakeguy67]

[P]It is in the international constitution that the international can accept the contract or reject it no matter what we vote.[/P]
[P] [/P]
[P]We were informed this morning the District 141M Negotiating committee told the company on friday to pond sand, the membership voted, the company's response was we are gonna hold the vote ourselves then. DL 141M's lawyer is checking into the legalities of it all.[/P]
[P] [/P]
[P] [/P]

 

[ClueByFour]

[blockquote]
----------------
On 9/10/2002 1:57:16 AM N513AU wrote:
Pissing off the mechanics is a bad, bad idea. We buried Eastern and we will bury Little "Davey" Lorenzo and this company if they can't come up with a reasonable package!!! I think I'm layoff bait anyway, so if I must go, let the whole ship be damned!
[/blockquote]

Couple of things:

Just out of curiosity, how many airlines are hiring mechs these days? Much less a couple of thousand? And, how many are in PIT, CLT, TPA, etc?

We buriend Eastern. Indeed, there is something to be proud of. I'd love to see just where you guys end up when this is said and done, and how many of the franternal brotherhood of the IAM-M are better off than they were WITH US Airways.

Of course, I don't really understand it; then again, in my line of work you don't usually see a large group of people willing to cut off their nose to spite their face.

 

[t-man]

One thing to think about people.
We allready have a binding contract till 2004 so unless the judge decides to shread it up this contact is still good.
If we vote no,our current contract stays in affect until the judge makes his decision.
That's the reason we cannot strike.

 

[N513AU]

[blockquote]
----------------
On 9/10/2002 2:27:38 AM chipmunn wrote:

N513AU:

In your response you did not answer my question. Would you mind responding to the following comment and reworded questions?

1. N513AU, the 85 percent agreements are required by the ATSB to obtain the loan guarantee and TPG, CSFB, & BOA or the DIP financing credit facility and emergence financing will not be available. Do you agree with this statement?

2. Again, it's not the company setting the limit of the concessions, it's the investors and the ATSB who are willing to provide help if the unions meet their requirements. Do you agree these are the requirements of the investors & ATSB?

Chip

----------------
[/blockquote]

1. It's not the infamous 85% that I have a problem with. It's where its coming from. There is plenty of other places where U can find money from the mechanics and related, instead of implementing policies that ruin lives and families. For example, cutting people down to five days vacation a year and eliminating holidays. There ARE areas where cost savings could be realized, such as using mechanics more productively by getting rid of pushbacks, compressed work weeks and so forth. I'm rather convinced that neither the IAM or the company seriously examined all the options in regards to cost savings. We can save money, we need to save money - but the way they propose to do it is unacceptable. As I've said before, I'm not opposed to an agreement - but this one is unacceptable. I know as a pilot, you have tons of time to fart around the house and spend with your family. Many of us mechanics don't have that luxury. Many of us have to look down the dismal reality of 15+ years on midnights with midweek days off. The company needs to address these issues and quite frankly, doesn't want to - EVEN WHEN IT SAVES THE COMPANY MONEY. I am dumbfounded that our corporate culture is so stoned that they can't see it. I find it funny that we have no problem with having management work compressed workweeks, but seem to reluctant to give that to the grubworms. I guess they see it as their little special perk.

2. Again, my problem isn't with givebacks. It's with this agreement. Giving up half my vacation time isn't going to save the company anything, especially when I'm forced to use sick time to make up (or exceed) the difference. Let's do some original thinking here. I'm trying very hard to manage the family/friends/work thing and US Airways and the IAM seems to opposed to anything that would make employees lives better (AGAIN, EVEN IF IT SAVES THE COMPANY MONEY!!)

That being said, I have tried every acceptable option. I've expressed myself to union leadership, emailed Dave and crew, and so on - trying to get someone to see the light, but I feel like I'm pissin' on a forest fire. Dave claims he wants to change the corporate culture, but I see little evidence of that. I see the usual apathy when I deal with management and labor.

Management doesn't care, they've graduated to the nirvana of 9-5, MF where midnight work is somehow done by the airplane fairies. Labor gets my donation every two weeks and really doesn't care about me. At best, it guaruntees recall rights and reasonably enforces seniority rules.

I love my job. I really love my job. But I hate the associated BS.

Maybe someday I can find a job with a functional employer, rather than the Jerry Springer show of the airline industry. Seriously, guys, our company is like a bunch of white trash rag tag ******* children beating each other over the head with chairs. Toothless daddy is in his wife-beater, telling us how our financial problems are because of our allowance, when the reality is he blew it on booze and fancy cars. Slut momma is screaming at him that the children is his and that he stills owes child support from the Mohawk-merger and curses him out for sleeping with that whore called United. Meanwhile, us junior guys are starving in the cribs, rolling our own excrement. God, I hope I can find another job

 

[chipmunn]

N513AU:

N513AU said: “I love my job. I really love my job. But I hate the associated BS.â€￾

Chip comments: N513AU, I wholeheartedly agree with this statement. In regard to the proposed restructuring agreement, the company and the IAM negotiators agreed on most of the restructuring proposal maybe including the amount of vacation days. The problem is the parties did not reach a final accord. The company asked the IAM to send the deal out with S.1113 protection and it was rejected. In response, the company said it will ask the court to throw out the contract and considering Judge Mitchell’s track record during these proceedings and the company in default, I believe the “tea leavesâ€￾ indicate if the restructuring agreement is rejected a second time, you will see deeper cuts.

I know this whole situation is bad, but it’s about limiting pain. I believe a yes vote is a vote to reduce pain and let the company survive. Nobody including Dave Siegel wants to go in front of the judge in a S.1113 hearing.

Chip

 

[UAL777flyer]

wrenchbender,

If your union strikes, your airline is most likely toast. I know that probably doesn't concern you much, but I'm sure the other thousands of US employees will be grateful for your dedication. You will either be replaced and a smaller operation will be kept going (unlikely) or the company will shut down for good and be liquidated (more likely). Be very careful what you wish for. As I stated before, if you think the job market for airline mechanics is so robust these days, why don't you send out some resumes and cover letters and let us all know the offers that come in that are better in pay/benefits than what you enjoy at US.

 

[Bob Owens]

Can anyone at USAIR tell me who Rich Bushel is? Is he an AMT?

 

[Bob Owens]

Chip;
Over and over again I hear you say that a yes vote will save the company. Can you guarantee this? Past examples prove the opposite. EAL employees gave massive pay cuts yet all certain people remember is when they said NO to more concessions. Pan Am took cuts till the end. Both workers lost big in the long run. Their reduced wages did allow those airlines to limp along a little longer but the cost was severe. They not only earned less but they also lost on their pensions and helped lower wages industry wide. If they had said NO in the beginning they would have made more in the long run. We all would have.
If USAIRs strategy for survival is to simply go for pay cuts when will it end? Gordon Bethune said You can make Pizza so cheap that nobody will buy it.
If you are a pilot as your replies imply a 26% paycut would still leave you with a six figure salary. Maybe you cant afford the house that you feel that someone of your position deserves but anyone who is getting six figures working 80 hrs a month will have a hard time finding a sympathetic audience, unless of course the audience is full of pilots. I dont want to start a pilots vs mechanics debate, pilots are worth every penny they earn but for a pilot to come here and talk about sacrificing to mechanics is very distasteful. Pilots compensation is a far bigger expense for the company than mechanics wages.I'm a mechanic, and its true that I dont work for USAIR but I realize that what happens to my brothers at USAIR will effect me. I've gone the route of working for dying airlines, the lessen that I've learned is simple- GET YOUR MONEY.If you want to invest then buy stock. Concessions can never make up for poor structure and bad management.
You feel that you have the right to give an opinion because you work for the same company, I feel I have the right to give an opinion because we are in the same craft. I would say that I have more in common with the USAIR mechanics than you do.
Mechanics typically work 5 days a week which means that when they buy a house it has to be within a reasonable commuting distance to the airport. This usually puts mechanics in densely populated areas that tend to be expensive.If mechanics were making pilots wages this would not be a problem. But mechanics do not make pilots wages, the wages that we make can just about provide a reasonable lifestyle.Most of us are just able to become homeowners. Any reduction in pay would put us below the threshold. Thats unacceptable. The arrogant assumption that an equal percentage cut is an equal sacrifice is flawed.The hard times that you are willing to go through are better than our good times. I doubt that you will find six figures at 80 hrs on the outside. Mechanics wages only make up a small part of an airlines expenses, they can make their cuts elsewhere or do like AA and get their savings through productivity gains.
You claim that a yes vote will mean that the company will survive. Well if the pilots go back and lower their yearly income to a mechanics I bet that it would easily cover the difference.Over the last twenty two years I've realized a few things about this industry. Give backs are never recovered. Time is never recovered. Falling in Love with a corporate logo is a fools folly, it will not be recipricated. In the words of Robert Crandel This is a nasty rotten business. Be professional but never forget that.Dont ever give back what you have earned. One thing you can be sure of is that no matter what happens to USAIR, Dave Seigal will in his short tenure walk away with more money than any mechanic ever will.

 

[Jet Mechanic]

On 9/13/2002 8:18:32 PM Bob Owens wrote:

Can anyone at USAIR tell me who Rich Bushel is? Is he an AMT?


Bob,

Richard Buschel is a stock clerk. He is also the editor of Victory News, the monthly publication of the IAM Victory Lodge #1725 in Charlotte. I don't believe the publication is on the internet; the hard copy is rather rife with errors.

Jet Mechanic

 

[networking]

Well said Bob Owens.....It amazes me what this company is wanting to pay the majority of their work force. USAirways knows it has a senior work force and the only way to force a bunch of people to leave or work for less is with these RJ's...400 or so is their goal. Most will be doing the exact same type of work.....oh but it's an RJ. As our son has just finished a classic novel Animal Farm and we were studying the way Napoleon changed the rules mid-game and treated the lower animals with less and less respect I could not help but think of USAirways. In the end he changed his own ruling All animals are equal to All animals are equal but some are more equal than others. In regards to pay....you get what you pay for. Some day they will realize this. Unfortunately this company sees the unions people as simply numbers....how sad.

 

[Bob Owens]

Frugal Flyer;
The passengers may not care who worked on their plane but thier reletives might want to know after the fact-Valuejet, that golfer etc.

 

[Bob Owens]

pitguy;
What you should do is have NO vote parties. Everyone brings their ballots and votes NO for all to see. Obviously it would be voluntary but if it would still give you a good idea how everyone is voting.