Checking it Out said:
To the TWU membership,
I would like to express my gratitude to the members of the TWU and the voters of Tulsa who helped to improve our wonderful city and worked at keeping jobs at American Airlines. It would be a shame if a few miss-guided individuals destroy this by supporting an organization that openly believes the current language in our scope-clause is unenforceable with 100% farm-out capabilities. Think of the track record Amfa has at other carriers and what American Airlines would do with this.
Since Amfa has turned over most of their functions to the McCormick group in 1998,Amfa has been successful at organizing several mechanic groups in the industry. In return Amfa has been successful at keeping a good portion of their members Un-Employed at the major carriers. This shows an unquestionable lack of concern on Amfa’s part.
Amfa boasts about the members sending ten letters to the politicians in their district and they will pay attention. This is the farthest from the truth, you have to be willing to visit the Politicians in their office and have a face-to-face conversation. Reality is, without funds and legislative advocates in Washington and leadership and direction from the international level, that kind of thinking fails. As a member of the TWU we are affiliated with the AFL-CIO and active in politics in Oklahoma and the United States.
If Amfa were to come in, everyone who pushed for this organization would be encouraged about winning. When reality sinks in and they find out it requires 16-hour workdays and a lot of participation, the enthusiasm would quickly disappear. The majority of these individuals aren’t the ones who walk the floors of Congress-the floors of the work area or the streets of our community. These are the individuals that bellyache in the smoke boxes or next to their toolboxes and have never volunteered to participate in the betterment of the membership.
At United Airlines for example, Amfa won after receiving 39% of the eligible voters after the 3rd attempt. This means you have 61% of the members wanting no part of Amfa or not voting at all. This is more prevalent at Southwest Airlines, where the average mail-in ballots equal 318 on a regular basis with over 850 eligible members in the local! The TWU has one of the highest percentage of membership participation in the voting process than any union in the industry!
In Tulsa, the majority of the members believes in politics and is active in the community, from making signs to beating the pavement in support of our issues. At the TWU International level the money is well spent on helping the members thru the political process and support of our issues. At Amfa National approximately the same percentage of the membership dues are received, a good portion of the money goes into the pockets of the McCormick and Seham Groups with no accountability or political involvement. You need to wonder where the money is spent?
Do you want to be employed or increase the likelihood of hitting the street? It’s that simple!
In,Solidarity 🙄
Gary;
Not bad.
Tell us how all that political influence saved us from bearing the burden of 9/11 and the Bush economy?
Tell us why nothing was done about Part 145 for ten years?
Tell us how giving the company the exact number that they asked for, $610 million I believe, constitutes "bargaining"?
Tell us who brought the rate up to $35/hour?
Tell us, how did giving up vacation and rolling back system protection save jobs?
Tell us do you get the stock too? How much of a cut did you take?
Tell us how low would you go to keep the work "in house"? Why not just put it in the scope language instead of underbidding outside contractors?
Oklahoma is part of the United States.
I've volunteered and put in the time, unfortunately I wanted to improve things for the members, and you guys simply would not have it. You want to cut their vacation, benifits and pay in order to keep the dues flowing. The dues that pay for your six-figure salaries, your cars, your extra pensions etc. The fact is that when we are stuck in a recession there will be layoffs, thats why unions support unemployment benifits, and we still had layoffs despite the cuts, the trick is not to get stuck in a long term contract in the worst of times which is exactly what you guys did. But what do you care? You still get your pay, plus the stocks to boot right?
The fact is that things have come full circle. The TWU replaced a Company union and it in turn has become a company union, and now a new union is poised to replace it.
Too bad. Do you think that the International will keep you on if AMFA wins?
If they do, how likely is it that you will survive the next Convention?
If 16,000 M&R leave, and who knows we might even see the AGW take off too, that means 30,000 members, what would they do with you? Come to think of it, what would they do with Little, again, what happens at the next Convention? Maybe I'm jumping the gun, we will have to revisit this in January, when Local 100s elections are over and AMFA has 60%.
One thing that I do agree with is that AFL-CIO affiliation is desirable. However once the dust settles and AMFA has all the mechanics in one union do you really think the federation would refuse entry to a liscenced group of workers that could bring the air transportation system to a standstill? They let the Air Traffic Controllers in, many of them are scabs that crossed PATCOs lines. All that Craft union bashing probably wont sit that well with the Pilots, Flight Attendants, Plumbers, Carpenters and all the other Craft Union members of the AFL-CIO. Right now they are showing solidarity with the IAM, TWU and IBT because it costs them nothing. If AMFA is successful at getting all the mechanics who do you think the Pilots will side with, the mechanics who they entrust their lives to, or Sonny Hall, Buffenbarger and Hoffa?
