Outsourcing at AA

[Rogallo]

 
 
I was fine with whatever the membership decided.

 
 
Your recent posts sound like your a whipped pup? 
 
You were "fine with whatever the membership decided." What appointed position did you actually have?

 

[Tex-Mech]

 
Now that Bob and the new E Brd are in charge I look forward to the big raise we are getting. It's put up or shut up time. No one is there for them to blame. So we don't need AMFA. I'm totally fine with that.

 
You negotiated a contract that goes till 2018, and you want a big raise today. 
 
Why did you vote yes for the contract then?
 
But you are right on one part, I do expect better results with those guys in there when the time comes to negotiate 5 years from now thanks to you.

 

[Overspeed]

 
 
Your recent posts sound like your a whipped pup? 
 
You were "fine with whatever the membership decided." What appointed position did you actually have?

 
Whipped? Hardly. I am still working like I always have and it was always the member's decision. I actually would have profited just like Bob if the judge had abrogated the agreement. Like I have stated before, I have enough seniority to survive all of overhaul getting outsourced but I am not okay with sacrificing 4,000 plus jobs to get a big raise.

 

[swamt]

 
Whipped? Hardly. I am still working like I always have. I love the OT!

You are a typical industrial unionist.  Screw everyone else IGM overtime.  You suck, and very well represent the TWU.  You true colors are showing more and more pls keep posting, you are doing a great job. Fuking pathetic I tell you, PATHETIC...

 

[texasreb]

Whipped? Hardly. I am still working like I always have and it was always the member's decision. I actually would have profited just like Bob if the judge had abrogated the agreement. Like I have stated before, I have enough seniority to survive all of overhaul getting outsourced but I am not okay with sacrificing 4,000 plus jobs to get a big raise.

I hope you like New York because as we found out at AFW seniority means nothing in a layoff.

 

[Bob Owens]

 
Whipped? Hardly. I am still working like I always have and it was always the member's decision. I actually would have profited just like Bob if the judge had abrogated the agreement. Like I have stated before, I have enough seniority to survive all of overhaul getting outsourced but I am not okay with sacrificing 4,000 plus jobs to get a big raise.

No but instead you voted to sacrifice over 10,000 jobs, take a pay cut and wipe out benefits and work rules. In other words you voted to give the company everything they wanted and hid behind the lie that by doing so you were saving jobs, just like every other union buster for the last 100 years has tried to do.

 

[Bob Owens]

 It's easy. The 2,000 that was dropped YE 2012 was due to the new CBA language. The 300 to 400 is what we were told is forecasted based on future maintenance needs. Not because of the CBA. You can choose to believe it or not. The yes votes did away with the 757 and 777 plus peak work if you read the CBA. I'm not saying it is good that any outsourcing was agreed to. Tell me what you think we would have gotten from Judge Lane if we had voted no and gone to abrogation? Based on what happened at all other airlines I was expecting the same thing that had happened at UA, US, and NW. Did you expect better? I suppose you could argue that I don't know that and you would be right. I don't but the facts say BK does not treat labor well. Unfortunately, it's to about what's fair, it's about what the law says.

How can you say that its not the CBA that's allowing them to layoff those workers? That's a bold faced lie, of course its the changed CBA that allowed work that we did in house to be outsourced , if that work was still in house per the old CBA then those guys would not be looking at a layoff, that plus the loss of system protection is what's allowing the company to lay off those workers and continue to increase outsourcing. You claim that we are now up to 25% outsourcing, in other words if they want to they could outsource another 10% of the dollar value, and lay off even hundreds more. This contract allows that.
 
 
And what does the Law say? The law says that we need cause to reject the companies terms, which for AMTs were way below industry standards (going in to BK-unprecedented) and the company could ask for things that were "necessary" to reorganize. The law says that in order to abrogate our terms must be "onerous" subsequent rulings weakened the language, (the assumption being, as in the Printers case, that the terms of the contract contributed to the failing of the company, the law never envisioned that a company would file with over $5 billion in the bank and 500 new planes on order)but that's why we should have fought it, what was the intent of the law? Was the intent to screw airline workers? You claim to know what the Judge would have done, but even Sharon Levine who was being paid to get this deal in place could not answer the question of what would happen if we had voted NO and held that we would go on strike the minute the company imposed new terms on us, because the RLA does say that they cant do that and its never been fully challenged. The NWA Flight attendants didn't give up anywhere near what we gave up and they never brought the challenge up to the Supreme court and they failed to get the support of any other union. Maybe their terms were onerous compared to other carriers, ours was not, in fact the only thing they could have cited was the language keeping work in house which we lost anyway. So the fact is that the law is unclear and if we had stood with the pilots and challenged them as a team it would have been unprecedented and would likely have changed the outcome, but we will never know, what we do know is that we currently are the worst compensated mechanics out there, we have  the least amount of vacation out there, even less than Non-union workers at the same company, we have the least amount of vacation in the industry, the least amount of sick time, the least amount of IOD time and the worst work rules of any unionized workforce in the industry where training off shift is at straight time, no doubletime ever, the company picks the Crew Chiefs, and we even have language that says that in exchange for the worst of everything we have to commit to make AA the "best in class". Nobody, even in BK had to agree to such terms, the concessions we agreed to both in 2003 and 2012 were unprecedented. In 2003 we were told to give unprecedented concessions to save the pension, two years later we were told by Jim Little to support legislation that would allow the company to underfund the pensions that our concessions paid for, in other words pocket the money that we were giving them to fund our pensions, in 2010 we rejected a substandard offer and Jim Little and Don Videtich established another precedence, they didn't ask for a release to move the process forward, instead they conspired to punish the membership and drag out talks for more years, until the company decided they would declare Bankruptcy.  True, Don Videtich and the other Architects of this nightmare are gone, but they saddled us with the worst deal in the industry for five more years. The pilots went into this better off than we did and came out much better than we did, so did pretty much every other workgroup when compared to their peers in the industry.Youre right, its not about whats fair, if you want fair you have to be willing to fight for it. Maybe now that Little and Videtich are gone we can prepare for a long overdue battle, unfortunately our hands are tied till 2018, thanks to people like you.
 
The fact is that the Law has become a tool to screw over workers, and will continue to be just that until labor gets united and takes a stand against it. BK laws have a poor history with a tendancy of becoming corrupt, a series of articles hung on the wall in the BK court waiting room attest to this. The system has been abolished in the past because of corruption, looks like it has run its course again. Judge Lane is just another crook for the History books and we let him get away with it.

 

[Overspeed]

How can you say that its not the CBA that's allowing them to layoff those workers? That's a bold faced lie, of course its the changed CBA that allowed work that we did in house to be outsourced , if that work was still in house per the old CBA then those guys would not be looking at a layoff, that plus the loss of system protection is what's allowing the company to lay off those workers and continue to increase outsourcing. You claim that we are now up to 25% outsourcing, in other words if they want to they could outsource another 10% of the dollar value, and lay off even hundreds more. This contract allows that.
 
 
And what does the Law say? The law says that we need cause to reject the companies terms, which for AMTs were way below industry standards (going in to BK-unprecedented) and the company could ask for things that were "necessary" to reorganize. The law says that in order to abrogate our terms must be "onerous" subsequent rulings weakened the language, (the assumption being, as in the Printers case, that the terms of the contract contributed to the failing of the company, the law never envisioned that a company would file with over $5 billion in the bank and 500 new planes on order)but that's why we should have fought it, what was the intent of the law? Was the intent to screw airline workers? You claim to know what the Judge would have done, but even Sharon Levine who was being paid to get this deal in place could not answer the question of what would happen if we had voted NO and held that we would go on strike the minute the company imposed new terms on us, because the RLA does say that they cant do that and its never been fully challenged. The NWA Flight attendants didn't give up anywhere near what we gave up and they never brought the challenge up to the Supreme court and they failed to get the support of any other union. Maybe their terms were onerous compared to other carriers, ours was not, in fact the only thing they could have cited was the language keeping work in house which we lost anyway. So the fact is that the law is unclear and if we had stood with the pilots and challenged them as a team it would have been unprecedented and would likely have changed the outcome, but we will never know, what we do know is that we currently are the worst compensated mechanics out there, we have  the least amount of vacation out there, even less than Non-union workers at the same company, we have the least amount of vacation in the industry, the least amount of sick time, the least amount of IOD time and the worst work rules of any unionized workforce in the industry where training off shift is at straight time, no doubletime ever, the company picks the Crew Chiefs, and we even have language that says that in exchange for the worst of everything we have to commit to make AA the "best in class". Nobody, even in BK had to agree to such terms, the concessions we agreed to both in 2003 and 2012 were unprecedented. In 2003 we were told to give unprecedented concessions to save the pension, two years later we were told by Jim Little to support legislation that would allow the company to underfund the pensions that our concessions paid for, in other words pocket the money that we were giving them to fund our pensions, in 2010 we rejected a substandard offer and Jim Little and Don Videtich established another precedence, they didn't ask for a release to move the process forward, instead they conspired to punish the membership and drag out talks for more years, until the company decided they would declare Bankruptcy.  True, Don Videtich and the other Architects of this nightmare are gone, but they saddled us with the worst deal in the industry for five more years. The pilots went into this better off than we did and came out much better than we did, so did pretty much every other workgroup when compared to their peers in the industry.Youre right, its not about whats fair, if you want fair you have to be willing to fight for it. Maybe now that Little and Videtich are gone we can prepare for a long overdue battle, unfortunately our hands are tied till 2018, thanks to people like you.
 
The fact is that the Law has become a tool to screw over workers, and will continue to be just that until labor gets united and takes a stand against it. BK laws have a poor history with a tendancy of becoming corrupt, a series of articles hung on the wall in the BK court waiting room attest to this. The system has been abolished in the past because of corruption, looks like it has run its course again. Judge Lane is just another crook for the History books and we let him get away with it.

So blaming the law now? So you agree the system does not favor us which is exactly what I have been saying all along. If you know you are about to get your own ass kicked then go ahead, fight. But you are talking about fighting with other peoples jobs in a battle you acknowledge you can't win under today's laws. Thank you for finally telling the truth.

 

[La Li Lu Le Lo]

From what I have seen Overspeed you manufacture your own truths to put the TWU in the best light possible.
 
TWU is not a UNION. It is a business. It does what all businesses do. Seek profit.

 

[MetalMover]

 
 
Your recent posts sound like your a whipped pup? 
 
You were "fine with whatever the membership decided." What appointed position did you actually have

He's very nervous because the good old days are gone for him. Being in the minority doesn't sit well with him.

 

[Overspeed]

He's very nervous because the good old days are gone for him. Being in the minority doesn't sit well with him.

 
Yawn...oh did you say something?

 

[TWU informer]

So blaming the law now? So you agree the system does not favor us which is exactly what I have been saying all along. If you know you are about to get your own ass kicked then go ahead, fight. But you are talking about fighting with other peoples jobs in a battle you acknowledge you can't win under today's laws. Thank you for finally telling the truth.

Why hasn't the TWU, or powerful AFL-CIO changed the system? We pay alot of money to be protected and represented to both. So why? I have been hearing we will get 'em next brother for years now. Next time never comes because we are paying a failing strategy and philosophy to represent our interest, and nothing changes. The leaders take their loot, and nothing changes even though you and everyone else knows the strategy is failing us. Read a little labor history and tell me where pussys trying to buy access ever changed a damn thing in workers favor.

 

[Jacobin777]

What do you guys think will happen with Parker & Co. taking over? Ostensibly, it seems he has no qualms about "hosing" employees over.

 

[swamt]

What do you guys think will happen with Parker & Co. taking over? Ostensibly, it seems he has no qualms about "hosing" employees over.

That's easy.  If the TWU is still on property they will continue to agree to, push, and sell more concessions. 

 

[bigjets]

At least the USair guys with the IAM, get a 3% raise every year, even when the company is dragging it's heals, unlike the TWU who push for a concession contract after 4 years of foot dragging. Please correct if my info is wrong.