Outsourcing at AA

[Rogallo]

Eliminate all job protection. WTG!

WTF is a Union for!

 

[scorpion 2]

Not at all. The old language was keeping 90% of the work in-house when you count TAESL as in sourced.

The new language caps the spend at 35%. The point being made is the new aircraft have no overhaul work to apply outsourcing caps to. New aircraft drive down work load on the base side no matter what language you have. The best would be to have job protection with good scope language. They work hand in hand. One backstops the work going out and the other the jobs. Neither one on its own is best. The new scope language will flex as the fleet grows or shrinks.

At UA they negotiated only three lines regardless of fleet size and that outsourcing cannot drive layoffs. The AMFA agreement at least had a spend cap but the IBT chose to let that go in 2012. Now UA can increase outsourcing spend as long as it does not result in a RIF. All future fleet growth can now be outsourced under the IBT language. With the TWU scope future fleet growth maintenance spend on outsourcing is capped at 35%.

If the new aircraft have no overhaul work to apply outsourcing caps to then why would it matter if our cap was at 35% or the 40% that was threatened if the LBO was turned down. By your own logic no jobs were saved by voting in this pos. The maintenance base is going to be a wasteland when the MD80 goes away and the only reason we have that work is because no one has the capacity to take them on. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out new planes wont be showing up the next day for an overhaul. The new engines on these aircraft are flying more hours than the 219 engine on the MD 80 could ever dream of. Back shop and machine shop work will be decimated when the 219 goes away. For US air to gives us a two year window on no job losses was no gift on their part just the reality of knowing that the MD80 was not going out the door en masse for that time frame.

 

[Overspeed]

If the new aircraft have no overhaul work to apply outsourcing caps to then why would it matter if our cap was at 35% or the 40% that was threatened if the LBO was turned down. By your own logic no jobs were saved by voting in this pos. The maintenance base is going to be a wasteland when the MD80 goes away and the only reason we have that work is because no one has the capacity to take them on. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out new planes wont be showing up the next day for an overhaul. The new engines on these aircraft are flying more hours than the 219 engine on the MD 80 could ever dream of. Back shop and machine shop work will be decimated when the 219 goes away. For US air to gives us a two year window on no job losses was no gift on their part just the reality of knowing that the MD80 was not going out the door en masse for that time frame.

Wrong. The company in it's "ask" wanted to have the cap at 45% with no caps on line mx. They wanted to outsource line work up to and including BC's without limitations. The new cap of 35% of all, and 15% of line mx spend did save jobs significantly. If we had agreed or saw the judge abrogate our agreement, the company would have implemented the 45% and BC's - which are not driven by new fleet types - would have occurred. This would have driven line MX job losses. The 45% cap would have provided for the company to increase outsourcing well in to the existing 737's, 767's, and engine and component work that will be done under the 35% cap now regardless of new fleets. Over 2,000 M&R jobs are in-house as a result. LCs will still occur as the HC is one that drives the greatest headcount impact in the base.

Using my own logic as you say saved 2,000 jobs versus the 4,300 the company wanted to cut with the 45% cap. The base and line are much better off under the current TWU scope clause. With 30 docks working on LC, SPCL, HC, and Mods for 600 aircraft and over at UA/CO they have 6 docks working on 700 aircraft I would say the TWU scope is just a wee bit better.

Taking the UA/CO IBT contract in it's totality you would have 6 docks at AA and 2,000 to 3,000 people out of work. But hey, those out of work people will be ecstatic to know that you are making $38 and hour and have a few more holidays as a result of sacrificing their jobs.

 

[Overspeed]

From what I see the twu set the bar in 2003 out of bankruptcy for everyone else to shoot for in bk a few years later! Then we gave up the rest in bk 9 years later!
.

Hey, you could have voted yes on the 2010 TA and had a raise to UA/CO 2012 wages in 2010. The MCT's voted their 2010 TA in and still kept their industry leading wages even after BK. Yep, the TWU is so awful trying to force $38 and hour down your throat and keeping all but 10% of the work in-house. They should have given in to an awesome IBT deal like at UA/CO in 2012 and dropped all outsourcing caps for $38 an hour. Teamster power? NOT!

 

[comatose]

Hey, you could have voted yes on the 2010 TA and had a raise to UA/CO 2012 wages in 2010. The MCT's voted their 2010 TA in and still kept their industry leading wages even after BK. Yep, the TWU is so awful trying to force $38 and hour down your throat and keeping all but 10% of the work in-house. They should have given in to an awesome IBT deal like at UA/CO in 2012 and dropped all outsourcing caps for $38 an hour. Teamster power? NOT!

So you want to rehash all the concessions in that piece of trash again.
Still saying you're a D term mech?
You're about as truthful as a .......TWU int'l rep.

 

[Bob Owens]

Wrong. The company in it's "ask" wanted to have the cap at 45% with no caps on line mx. They wanted to outsource line work up to and including BC's without limitations. The new cap of 35% of all, and 15% of line mx spend did save jobs significantly. If we had agreed or saw the judge abrogate our agreement, the company would have implemented the 45% and BC's - which are not driven by new fleet types - would have occurred. This would have driven line MX job losses. The 45% cap would have provided for the company to increase outsourcing well in to the existing 737's, 767's, and engine and component work that will be done under the 35% cap now regardless of new fleets. Over 2,000 M&R jobs are in-house as a result. LCs will still occur as the HC is one that drives the greatest headcount impact in the base.

Using my own logic as you say saved 2,000 jobs versus the 4,300 the company wanted to cut with the 45% cap. The base and line are much better off under the current TWU scope clause. With 30 docks working on LC, SPCL, HC, and Mods for 600 aircraft and over at UA/CO they have 6 docks working on 700 aircraft I would say the TWU scope is just a wee bit better.

Taking the UA/CO IBT contract in it's totality you would have 6 docks at AA and 2,000 to 3,000 people out of work. But hey, those out of work people will be ecstatic to know that you are making $38 and hour and have a few more holidays as a result of sacrificing their jobs.

Wrong, they went from 45% of "billable hours" to 35% of "spend", two totally different criteria, which if outsourced overseas could easily be more than 45% of billable hours. They actually increased the "ASK" from OH but you sold it as a gain for us. The number may be lower but it went from "Hours" to "Spend" which includes parts. No caps on line maint? Wrong, it fell under the same cap as OH. They did win the right to do more Line maint overseas including B checks, even at UPS where they make over $50/hr and have all the Holidays, Vacation, sick Time etc that we gave up they are limited to only doing what could not be scheduled domestically on UPS owned aircraft overseas but at AA they can schedule checks, ECO's, SIC's, etc overseas, just like Delta who has around as many line mechanics per airplane as we do.

The UA contract which limits narrowbody outsourcing to domestic vendors is actually more restrictive than our language, plus they cant lay anyone off to outsource , AA can. So in fact UA has the scope you mentioned earlier where one "backstops" the other. AA so far has not even reached the 35% cap, why? Because they cant find a cost effective place to send the work out. And thats with the oldest most labor intensive fleet in the industry, in other words at maximum maintenance spend. As you admit when new aircraft come on line and the old labor intensive ones leave jobs will be eliminated without affecting where they are in relation to spend. They admitted in negotiations that they would have to pay a premium to vendors because of the lack of capacity, nobody wants to gear up and train their workers for MD-80 work when they have all the work they can handle already. So whether the number was 35% of spend, 45% of billable hours or even 100% of either the fact is the amount of job losses up to this point would be the same, our language does not change the fact that there is limited capacity. Delta is non-union yet they are hiring instead of outsourcing more. AA, despite the fact they have not reached the 35% cap has also been hiring. So if they were able to outsource more then why are they still hiring? Once the MD-80 work goes away so will the 2000 jobs you claim you saved, by then most of those losses will be absorbed through attrition, it wont be the language that protected them, just simple supply and demand, but thousands of jobs will be gone, along with our Vacation, Holidays, sick time, IOD time, Pension, retiree medical, Doubletime, etc, etc.

 

[Bob Owens]

Hey, you could have voted yes on the 2010 TA and had a raise to UA/CO 2012 wages in 2010. The MCT's voted their 2010 TA in and still kept their industry leading wages even after BK. Yep, the TWU is so awful trying to force $38 and hour down your throat and keeping all but 10% of the work in-house. They should have given in to an awesome IBT deal like at UA/CO in 2012 and dropped all outsourcing caps for $38 an hour. Teamster power? NOT!

There you go again.
Lets look at the facts of the rejected 2010 TA.
It was in the companys words a "Cost neutral" offer. In other words any gains in one area were offset by concessions elsewhere.
The only people who would have received pay comparable to UA/CO would be those line mechanics working within a narrow timeframe. All the company had to do was change the start times outside the window, which was narrow enough where they could still have 24 hour coverage and at best line A&Ps working nights would have been at least $1/hr less than them. The deal would have left our Overhaul A&Ps at around $4/hr less than their peers at UA/CO.

In my 30+ years in this industry Negotiations have pretty much followed the same path. If after NMB mediation a TA is rejected the Union immediately asks to be released and negotiations commence under a 30 day clock, after 30 days the President can form a PEB which will look into the dispute and render a recommendation based on what the industry pays, not on what the company claims they can pay.

When we rejected the TA we had already taken a strike vote, the International had everything they needed to progress to the next step, but they chose not to. Instead of demanding a release in August of 2010 there was silence. Complete silence. They called together the negotiating committee several months later, and asked the NMB to set up more meetings. We didn't meet with the company till December, four months after rejecting the TA. Had we progressed to release and pretty much a sure thing-PEB the PEB would likely have given us their recommendation by October of 2010. At that point we would have been voting to accept the PEB recommendation, which typically include full back pay and bring you up to industry standards, we may have lost System Protection and the company may have been able to outsource what they have anyway, or we could have voted NO to the PEB where its possible that they could have sent the dispute to Congress to settle or went on strike, or continued to meet with the company with the understanding that at anytime either side could walk away and we could call a strike. No more kicking the can down the road. This is when most deals are struck, when the company is facing the prospect of make a deal or face a strike, its why people join Unions, so they can act collectively and if necessary withdraw their labor to get better terms. The companies are always more than willing to wait year after year till you succumb to their demands if you are still helping them bring in billions of dollars a year while they kick the can down the road, (unless on those rare occasions they feel they can bust the Union and secure even lower costs like Lorenzo at Co/EAL or NWA with AMFA) it seems that you support their strategy of succumb or kick the can down the road.

But we never asked to be released. Instead we waited till December, then met with the company, spent 6 months on the 1/7th rule to keep Tulsa happy, once that was settled Tulsa turned around and said "well its time to do some nut cuttin and some feelings are going to get hurt around here". By June we were deadlocked again, the sub-committee voted for release then the International claimed it had to be brought back to the full committee, with several of Dons YES men on Vacation the vote to ask for release passed in July of 2011. In August of 2011 Little requested that the committee revote on the release request after his buddy, former executive of Airborne Express, former head of the Union Busting AIRCON and current head of the NMB Medation division Larrry Gibbons opined on asking for a release. As expected Gibbons, who didn't even know what we were asking for said we needed to give the company whatever they want. He, a Republican, claimed that Obama was in a political jam and would not allow us to be released, the thing is thats not the way the law was written, the President can issue a PEB, as far as getting released, when Gibbons claimed that he saw no point in wasting the governments money to provide us a mediator we had satisfied the law as far as getting released. The Union just needed to make it official. Tulsa and the Non-A&P members of the committee kept saying, lets meet another month, lets meet another month. Finally after rejecting a motion to ask to be released Tulsa made the motion to request a release if we don't make any progress by Nov 30, that turned out to be the day after the company filed for BK.


So don't come here and throw out half truths about rejecting the 2010 deal. The International, more specifically Don Videtich and Bobby Gless directed no doubt by Jim Little, aided primarily by non-AMTS and people who have been voted out of office by the members since, blocked any attempts at moving things forward despite the fact that the membership had given them everything they needed to do so. In fact the membership was sending a strong message through the slow process of removing their Locals reps who favored the 2010 deal yet the International kept dragging their feet until the company filed BK, by January 2012 the only A&P Don still had in his pocket was Charlie Meyers. The company would have filed BK in Nov of 2011 no matter what the mechanics did prior to that because the mechanics were a non-issue, we were already bottom of the industry-the Pilots were the target of the BK, we were just extra, handed over by the International.

The extra two years in negotiations, bottom of the Industry in nearly every parameter, many even prior to going into BK is not the fault of the overwheliming majority who voted NO in 2010, itrests squarely on the shoulders of those who blocked proceeding to the next step from August of 2010 till December of 2011 in a process thats been in place for 75 years, and those people are Jim Little, Bobby Gless, Don Videtich and those on the committee that followed their lead and prevented us from getting a deal that would have put us all on a level close our peers prior to AA going into BK to go after the Pilots. Most of those on the Committee who blocked progress have since been removed by their members through the electoral process. Little may face the same fate in September, Gless and Videtich are appointed and do not face elections, they just get to put crappy deals in place that we have to live under.

 

[Bob Owens]

If Little can be removed then there is a possibility that whoever replaces Little can replace Gless and Videtich and maybe completely restructure the AATD so AA workers have the same control and input as local 100 and other TWU Locals outside AA have.

The TWU Convention is in September. The odds are long, but at present its the only scheduled opportunity for change we really have. Tulsa carries a good chunk of Votes, enough to offset Local 591 who in my opinion will most certainly support an "anyone but Little ticket'. Hopefully Tulsa will put people in place who will support change in the International because change is definitely coming to Tulsa, and not in a good way for Tulsa.

 

[swamt]

From what I see the twu set the bar in 2003 out of bankruptcy for everyone else to shoot for in bk a few years later! Then we gave up the rest in bk 9 years later!
.

Yes. And both times, 2003 and 2012, the company union TWU "agreed" to and helped the company sell it to the members with scare tactics and threats. Only to find out later that the pilots voted theirs down and were able to get back to the table and improve theirs. And if you look now (2012) they lost all job protections for future as well job losses and head count lowered, riffed , they also will be lowering the head count down by 65% with the possibility of Tulsa being closed that they "agreed" to. At least AMFA fought for their members at NWA and went on strike. The TWU just keeps "agreeing" with AA concessions after concessions, and even for future concessions.

 

[swamt]

Hey, you could have voted yes on the 2010 TA and had a raise to UA/CO 2012 wages in 2010. The MCT's voted their 2010 TA in and still kept their industry leading wages even after BK. Yep, the TWU is so awful trying to force $38 and hour down your throat and keeping all but 10% of the work in-house. They should have given in to an awesome IBT deal like at UA/CO in 2012 and dropped all outsourcing caps for $38 an hour. Teamster power? NOT!

Just to have it all yanked away in 1.5 years later... Yea should have voted yes. You must be one of the TWU sellers for the past couple decades.

 

[FWAAA]

Yes. And both times, 2003 and 2012, the company union TWU "agreed" to and helped the company sell it to the members with scare tactics and threats. Only to find out later that the pilots voted theirs down and were able to get back to the table and improve theirs. And if you look now (2012) they lost all job protections for future as well job losses and head count lowered, riffed , they also will be lowering the head count down by 65% with the possibility of Tulsa being closed that they "agreed" to. At least AMFA fought for their members at NWA and went on strike. The TWU just keeps "agreeing" with AA concessions after concessions, and even for future concessions.

You really need to stop overstating what the pilots achieved, as they did not materially improve their financial position by voting no.

The pilots' improvements in the ratified contract compared to the rejected TA were minimal. No additional hourly pay raises, no additional equity and no additional retirement contribution.

The improvements included a reduction in permitted RJs from 79 seats to 76 seats and placement of the A319 in the same payband as the other single aisle narrowbodies (737, MD-80, A320/21).

They voted no, embarked on a work action that they were too cowardly to admit, cost the company hundreds of millions of dollars in lost revenue, and then signed essentially the same contract as they had earlier voted down. By costing the company hundreds of millions of dollars of revenue, they reduced the value of the company that they, FAs and TWU members were partial owners. Brilliant.

 

[Bob Owens]

You really need to stop overstating what the pilots achieved, as they did not materially improve their financial position by voting no.

The pilots' improvements in the ratified contract compared to the rejected TA were minimal. No additional hourly pay raises, no additional equity and no additional retirement contribution.

Minimal by your standards, but then again you are not a Pilot, or even an airline employee, but at least you admit they made gains. Had the Mechanics and Flight Attendants been standing next to the Pilots in court the dynamics would have been very different. Our Pilots were not at the bottom of the industry, did not end up at the bottom of the industry, yet by voting no they still made gains, even if they were according to you 'minimal'.

 

[Bob Owens]

They voted no, embarked on a work action that they were too cowardly to admit, .

Amazing how you fail to see the irony of you , while hiding behind an alias, calling the Pilots cowardly. You come here and pass all sorts of condescending remarks about people, their intelligence, etc etc while hiding behind an alias then call the Pilots cowardly for not admitting to something that could not be proven. Classic! How is what you are accusing them of any different than what you do on a daily basis? Besides, wouldn't it be in their best interests to reduce the value of AA prior to getting equity? Aren't you better off obtaining stock when its at its lowest point?

 

[Overspeed]

Just to have it all yanked away in 1.5 years later... Yea should have voted yes. You must be one of the TWU sellers for the past couple decades.

I'll give you a slide on this one. AA's Tech Specs voted in their deal in 2010 which made them the highest paid Techs in the industry. In BK AA did not "ask" for any pay cuts and they got the same 3% raise at DOS as M&R. That being said, if M&R would have taken the 2010 TA deal then the main argument would have been around pension, benefits, and outsourcing. Not pay.

I'm not selling anything. Just stating facts and assumptions based on facts.

 

[Overspeed]

Yes. And both times, 2003 and 2012, the company union TWU "agreed" to and helped the company sell it to the members with scare tactics and threats. Only to find out later that the pilots voted theirs down and were able to get back to the table and improve theirs. And if you look now (2012) they lost all job protections for future as well job losses and head count lowered, riffed , they also will be lowering the head count down by 65% with the possibility of Tulsa being closed that they "agreed" to. At least AMFA fought for their members at NWA and went on strike. The TWU just keeps "agreeing" with AA concessions after concessions, and even for future concessions.

So at NWA all those AMT's "fought" and what happened? If they had stayed at the table and kept working towards and agreement AMFA would still be there working for improved working conditions and pay. They lost the war instead of one battle. The nuclear option didn't work now did it?