Outsourcing at AA

[eolesen]

My plan is simple, consolidate , educate and use modern technology to enhance basic proven methods to secure fairness at the bargaining table and the courtroom. Its not rocket science, simply update the things that worked in the past, inform and educate the members as to how things were won in the first place and they will realize its the same way to get them back.  Not easy, not magic, not guaranteed but the other option is to keep giving back and allow the company to set wages and working conditions as they do in non-union places.

The flaw in that argument, Bob, is that worked in the past may have worked 20 and 30 years ago, but hasn't worked in the past 20 or 30 years.

Do you beat your wife or push your colleagues around to gain their respect?.... I suspect not on either.


Perhaps you need to stop looking in the rear-view mirror, and start looking out the side windows for a change.

Why has unionization worked well at UPS and Southwest compared to the rest of the airline industry?

Was it thru chest-thumping and strike threats, or was it thru mutual respect and realising that both sides need to benefit from an arrangement if it is going to be sustainable?

Seems to me you only want to look out the side window for pay and benefit comparisons. Perhaps you should look beyond that at their working relationship and their negotiating patterns & methods.


What's been clear to me is that something has to change in how both sides work with each other.

Are you going to take that step, or simply wait and expect for the other side to do so?

 

[MetalMover]

The flaw in that argument, Bob, is that worked in the past may have worked 20 and 30 years ago, but hasn't worked in the past 20 or 30 years.

Do you beat your wife or push your colleagues around to gain their respect?.... I suspect not on either.


Perhaps you need to stop looking in the rear-view mirror, and start looking out the side windows for a change.

Why has unionization worked well at UPS and Southwest compared to the rest of the airline industry?

Was it thru chest-thumping and strike threats, or was it thru mutual respect and realising that both sides need to benefit from an arrangement if it is going to be sustainable?

Seems to me you only want to look out the side window for pay and benefit comparisons. Perhaps you should look beyond that at their working relationship and their negotiating patterns & methods.


What's been clear to me is that something has to change in how both sides work with each other.

Are you going to take that step, or simply wait and expect for the other side to do so?

I don't recall ever being offered UPS or even SWA pay and benefits in exchange for their contracts and work rules...

 

[Overspeed]

I don't recall ever being offered UPS or even SWA pay and benefits in exchange for their contracts and work rules...

 
It's a negotiation process. The TWU could have always asked for that, and the company would also ask for the same contract as UPS and SWA. How would you sell the scope clause that UPS and SWA have to the membership?

 

[La Li Lu Le Lo]

 No cherry picking there but by all means feel free to pick out any cherries you see in this pile of pits you call a contract.

That was pretty funny Bob.

 

[La Li Lu Le Lo]

Now, Bob, look at this only as an AMT, not as a unionist. You would really rather a CC be selected soley on seniority or senority plus a basic test? Maybe straight interview and management selection isn't quite the answer either, see Joe Sagginario, Bob Nygard, Joe Daly, Mike Mckanna, Dave Richards, Virginia Nieves, Andrea Ferrara, Glen Risbrook, Tim Ahern, Brian Troy, Ginny White, and much more of JFK manaement alone, but these are leadership positions which can't just be handed out to the most senior AMT.
 

DB pensions are (and have been) a pyramid scheme that require more workers coming in than going out to collect. No different than Amway, "investment club scams", or Madoff. In a diminishing workforce, which is where we are now, they are not sustainable. Going back over 15 years it has been obvious that the DB plans, and frankly Social Security, won't be there for us so anyone that has not been saving and investing for their own future either is a fool or has accepted that our parents were the last generation that will retire. My belief is that we will be working to the day we die, but I choose to save when I can and invest anyway so maybe I am fool too since I clearly chase the dream. In fact back in 2010 I seem to recall you saying yourself that the company would find a way to dumnp the pension either way as one of your reasons for being against the deal. Since you wisely knew this was coming why is a shock now? Haven't you been preparing for this inevitability?
 

As much I usually don't support unions or strikes, why didn't everyone, or even half of the M&R group, just quit then? OK, your right PFAA has the curent case law that in bankruptcy you can't strike so just quit in mass. As far as I know slavery is still illegal so you can quit. Who knows, maybe it would've turned out differnetly.
 

No Bob, it is not, what bankruptcy law does is put the only priority maximizing the repayment of debt. Nothing else matters, not me, not you, not the shareholders, not the unions, and not the retirees, only the creditors. As a matter of law once a company files chapter 11 everything ele becomes secondary to getting as much back to the creditors as possible. It doesn't matter if everyone of us were let go, if our pensions get frozen, dumped on the PBGC (though then they become a creditor), we take massive pay cuts, nothing, we DO NOT MATTER, only the creditors do. Like it or not this is what happened. I didn't realy want this merger and I still don't think it's a great idea, but guess what? Every last penny will be returned to the creditors and even the shareholders will likely get their value returned so whether I like it or not this was the right way for it to play out. The process worked as intended, did I get screwed? Maybe. Did you get screwed? Maybe. Did the creditors get everything back? Yes, and that is the ONLY thing that matters.


The sad reality, and you have said the same thing many times yourself, is that we could all leave tomorrow and do much better. As you have agreed with me, we saw this at NW in 2005. As we have both seen recently, people are packing it in every day for greener pastures. So why are we still here? Frankly many of us still suffer from Shiny Jet Syndrome, I know I do. I have said it many times, we didn't get into this business for the money, let's face it the money hasn't been here in decades if it ever was. We got into this crazy game becasue we liked aviation, becasue we suffer from Shiny Jet Syndrome. Again, I say it every day, I'm not here for the money, never have been, I could walk tomorrow and double my income just as I am sure you could. Why are you still here? I don't know, but I suspect you also suffer from Shiny Jet Syndrome, you just don't accept that you do.

I like this guy.

 

[Thomas Paine]

The flaw in that argument, Bob, is that worked in the past may have worked 20 and 30 years ago, but hasn't worked in the past 20 or 30 years.

Do you beat your wife or push your colleagues around to gain their respect?.... I suspect not on either.


Perhaps you need to stop looking in the rear-view mirror, and start looking out the side windows for a change.

Why has unionization worked well at UPS and Southwest compared to the rest of the airline industry?

Was it thru chest-thumping and strike threats, or was it thru mutual respect and realising that both sides need to benefit from an arrangement if it is going to be sustainable?

Seems to me you only want to look out the side window for pay and benefit comparisons. Perhaps you should look beyond that at their working relationship and their negotiating patterns & methods.


What's been clear to me is that something has to change in how both sides work with each other.

Are you going to take that step, or simply wait and expect for the other side to do so?

 
 
John F. Kennedy — 'You cannot negotiate with people who say what's mine is
mine and what's yours is negotiable.
 
What has management given in the last twenty years? All they do is take.

 

[La Li Lu Le Lo]

You seem to forget that the Unions are creditors, in fact we are the only creditors who lost anything and the only creditors who are told that the court can abrogate (annul) our contracts, impose new terms and we are not free to act in our own best interests. Even the shareholders were spared.  To say "Oh you are not a slave you can quit" is BS. That would be the same thing as saying that Exxon had to agree to whatever terms AA wanted and if the owners of Exxon didn't like it they could sell their shares and walk away. The fact is we are both creditors, both organizations that represent the collective interests of many people but only the creditors representing Labor can be forced to accept terms going forward that they did not agree to. If I quit that doesn't change the fact that the courts forced a deal on the Union just as if they did the same thing to Exxon the facts would not be changed if the shareholder sold his stock, in both cases the future property of the collective body, the rightful owners,was stolen for the benefit and use of the distressed company.
 
And you are wrong about the priorities of Bankruptcy C-11 is, it dumps debt, dumps past obligations, and allows the company to negotiate new terms based upon current market conditions going forward or allow the old creditors to discontinue doing business with the distressed company, it was not supposed to be a means of forcing unions to accept below market rates and stop strikes.

I see a lot of good points here. I always wondered why AA paid it's employees two weeks in advance. I always assumed it had to do with drawing interest off of payroll.  Could it have to do with UNION dues and trying to keep the TWU from attaining creditor status? Now I wonder.

 

[Thomas Paine]

 
It's a negotiation process. The TWU could have always asked for that, and the company would also ask for the same contract as UPS and SWA. How would you sell the scope clause that UPS and SWA have to the membership?

Hmm, doesn't their scope language restrict how much OH can be outsourced overseas? Ours doesn't.

 

[MetalMover]

 
It's a negotiation process. The TWU could have always asked for that, and the company would also ask for the same contract as UPS and SWA. How would you sell the scope clause that UPS and SWA have to the membership?

I was responding to eolesen's comment about UPS and SWA relationship with their unions. We would all love UPS wages and benefits....Hell. we would settle for those of SWA...I could not tell you why the company never proposed it, But i can sure as hell tell you why the union would not....Eliminating OH would be required.

 

[Overspeed]

Hmm, doesn't their scope language restrict how much OH can be outsourced overseas? Ours doesn't.

 
I have yet to find one contract that caps outsourcing overseas.

 

[Overspeed]

I was responding to eolesen's comment about UPS and SWA relationship with their unions. We would all love UPS wages and benefits....Hell. we would settle for those of SWA...I could not tell you why the company never proposed it, But i can sure as hell tell you why the union would not....Eliminating OH would be required.

 
That is a true statement

 

[Thomas Paine]

 
I have yet to find one contract that caps outsourcing overseas.

Word games as usual, United, UPS and SWA all have language that restricts overseas outsourcing.  

 

[eolesen]

I was responding to eolesen's comment about UPS and SWA relationship with their unions. We would all love UPS wages and benefits....Hell. we would settle for those of SWA...I could not tell you why the company never proposed it, But i can sure as hell tell you why the union would not....Eliminating OH would be required.

Probably true on overhaul, but you might be missing my point: the unions at SWA and UPS seem to have found a way of working together in a away that benefits both sides, and not a way that only one side or the other unevenly benefits.

You won't get there by constantly pointing to what happened over the past 20 years. At some point, you've got to wipe the slate clean and start over.

You have somewhat new leadership taking over within the TWU, and you'll likely have new negotiators to deal with now that the management merge is taking place.

We don't imprison people for the sins of their forefathers anymore.

I'd suggest building on the trust that Parker & Kirby extended, as opposed to still trying to make up for whatever happened under Crandall, Carty, Arpey, or Horton.

 

[Overspeed]

Word games as usual, United, UPS and SWA all have language that restricts overseas outsourcing.  

 
After the fact..does that diminish the fact that all those carriers mentioned outsource more than 50% of their maintenance spend?

 

[swamt]

John F. Kennedy — 'You cannot negotiate with people who say what's mine is
mine and what's yours is negotiable.
 
What has management given in the last twenty years? All they do is take.

It's been well over 30 years (3 decades) and it's also been the TWU agreeing to all the concessions and bringing them (concessions) out to the membership for votes, and selling it to the membership for ratification, just pathetic...