TUL mechs
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La Li Lu Le Lo
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In the end seniority is nothing but a tool of the company and the UNIONS. Seniority will always be a double edged sword until it becomes portable, and that would take some doing. The companies and UNION's will fight that to the bitter end to preserve the "Golden Handcuffs (thanks Bob Owens)" because they know they will lose a lot of power if that ever comes to fruition. You think American Airlines would pull the crap they do if your seniority was portable?
Overspeed
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ThirdSeatHero said:
The truth is there. AMFA rolled in promising to do better than the IAM. They didn't, in fact the work that UA was demanding to get outsourced they got and then more when SFO was reduced to just a shadow of it's former self under AMFA. Then AMFA got booted.
What happened at AS OAK? They weren't even in BK and they shut down the overhaul base? Thanks AMFA.
Keep distorting the facts. It's the AMFA way. How else can you explain in matter of five years from going to the largest then the smallest mechanics union? Oh it that they were "fighters" and the evil TWU screwed them right?
He is not distorting the facts O/S, YOU ARE. It is in black and white. Can you read and comprehend? Obviously not. The IAM nego the contract in question. Contract was in effect when AMFA was brought in, therefore AMFA can only come in and enforce what the IAM nego in the contract. It's the IAM that agreed to all the outsourcing NOT AMFA. AMFA simply rolled in, with no promises what-so-ever as you stated, and was forced to take over what the IAM had already agreed to, now that is FACT and the dates of events prove this. AMFA could not stop it because it was already agreed to and in writing agreed to by the IAM and voted upon by the membership, AMFA had no control or say-so in the contract the IAM brought in at UAL. What AMFA did do down the road during the BK nego was get shops and head counts protected that were left wide open by the IAM's contract. Nice try little budding, it won't work anymore. Everyone is on to you and your lies to try and keep AMFA out at AA, not gonna work chief...Overspeed said:
He does not care, He will continue to post whatever he feels is going to get the job done in convincing the weak minded who will not verify the info for themselves. That is the problem we all have at AA. Just tell me the short version and the highlights.
La Li Lu Le Lo
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You are like a broken record.Overspeed said:
A lot of us post similar posts over and over (I am guilty of it myself) but you seriously have a one track mind.
Would it kill you to make a post about a good movie you saw, a classic car you purchased, a vacation you took, or ANYTHING non TWU/AMFA related?
You are like that annoying person everyone avoids because you talk about the same thing every single time they see you.
I would honestly rather read your grocery list then read another TWU GOOD / AMFA BAD post from you.
You come on here with intent, like you are being paid to do a job. Your motives are questionable at best. When you fill out your resume do the words blogger and forum troll appear on it?
The fact is most of us have been burned by TWU, some of us repeatedly, I know I have. We don't need you to tell us about the TWU, we either have lived it (and lost our jobs or quit) or are living it every day.
TWU is not going to get anything they did not have coming.
Overspeed
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swamt said:
The truth is that the IAM AMTs voted down the concessions deal at UAL. The deal that was passed under AMFA was actually the original IAM deal with more concessions. Notice that there was 13,000 in 2002 and then by the time AMFA got a deal passed M&R was down to 7,000. Where did all those jobs go? Thanks AMFA!
Step one IAM M&R reject 2002 contract.
http://money.cnn.com/2002/02/13/news/united/
NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Mechanics at United Airlines early Wednesday rejected a proposed contract that offered them a 37 percent pay raise and approved a strike as soon as Feb. 20.
Both management and the International Association of Machinists (IAM) will go back to the bargaining table on Friday, according to an airline spokesman, in an effort to reach a new agreement without a work stoppage.
The union said 68 percent of 13,000 members voted to reject the proposal, while 86 percent voted to authorize a strike if an agreement cannot be reached in the next week.
Then AMFA comes in
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/31/AR2005053100107.html
Members of the Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association ratified a five year contract that will include pay and benefit cuts, saving the carrier $96 million and heading off a threatened strike. A few hours later, the International Association of Machinists agreed in principle to a new contract, just beating a bankruptcy court deadline.
The mechanics union, which represents 7,000 United Airlines mechanics and cleaners, voted 59 percent to 41 percent to a 3.9 percent pay cut, among other concessions.
"It's a sad situation that we have to bear the brunt of mismanagement," said O.V. Delle-Femine, the union's national director. "We had to accept it or let the judge do it. This was the lesser of two evils."
The mechanics union had authorized a strike if the contract vote failed, but many felt voting against the contract could bring the company down and eliminate their jobs altogether. United has been in bankruptcy court protection since December 2002. More than 80 percent of its members voted as today's deadline neared.
Overspeed
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Saving ‘Our’ Airline or Saving Labor?
by Andrew Pollack
Andrew Pollack was a reservations agent at Pan Am and member of the Teamsters’ Airline Division and edited a rank-and-file airline workers’ newsletter, The Plane Truth, in the early 1990s.
Judge Wedoff is the same judge who on January 31, 2005, imposed “temporary” wage and benefit cuts on United Airlines mechanics. The pilots and flight attendants had already agreed to concessionary contracts, but threatened job actions should their pensions be cut—but those actions never materialized. After his May 10 pension-killing ruling, Wedoff moved right on to the next point on his agenda, holding hearings to terminate the mechanics’ and ground crews’ contracts if they didn’t knuckle under to management’s latest concession demands.
The mechanics, represented by the Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association (AMFA), and the ground crew, represented by the International Association of Machinists (IAM), who had not yet approved new contracts, also threatened strikes should their contracts be voided. But despite spending the days after the May 10 pension ruling making loud strike threats, AMFA’s leadership caved in on May 16 and gave United the concessions they’d been asking for. As of the writing of this article the IAM appears headed toward reaching a similar concessionary contract (and Judge Wedoff halted hearings for two days to encourage them to do so).
The May 16 cave-in by the AMFA leadership wasn’t surprising considering its reaction to the cuts imposed by the same judge earlier in the year. On January 31, Wedoff imposed a “temporary” 9.8 % pay cut and reduced sick leave benefits effective February 1 through May 31. The judge decreed in his order “a reduction in rates of pay by 9.8% in all pay factors for all longevity steps in all classifications; (ii) that all employees will receive 75% of the pay they would normally receive for sick days for absences of less than 16 consecutive days; and (iii) all scheduled pay increases during the period are postponed.” Thus contract language as the product of bargaining was replaced by judicial dictate.
AMFA’s response was to demand that management “take the remaining negotiating time seriously to help resolve major differences.” Said National Director O.V. Delle-Femine: “Because the provisions of yesterday’s 1113e ruling are temporary, we do not plan to pursue a strike or other form of self-help during this period.” (Self-help is Railway Labor Act jargon for strikes and other job actions; under U.S. law, airlines have been placed under the Railway Labor Act.) Temporary or not, the smaller paychecks were very real to members, and could have been the impetus for organized protests against them. Imagine the support mechanics could have garnered by appealing to the entire labor movement, asking their fellow unionists “do you want a judge setting YOUR wages or benefits?” And if the cuts were so “temporary,” then why couldn’t members have been organized to take “temporary” extra-long breaks, “temporary” sick days, etc.?
Ironically AMFA won over mechanics in 2003 at United when mechanics rejected temporary wage cuts and other contract changes and as a result a court imposed them. Now the exact same thing has happened, only under AMFA leadership. And knowing what was happening in bargaining wasn’t enough for members to stop even AMFA officials from making overnight decisions to go back to the table and work out new concessionary agreements, as it did in May. As democratic as AMFA may be, its leaders have not gone beyond the ideology shared by all airline union leaders, the belief that in the newly-competitive deregulated era unions must do all they can to save “our” carrier.
The blame on “mismanagement” and the “bankruptcy court process” shows why AMFA leadership is no more militant than that of the other unions. “Our” company can thrive, they believe, if only we get rid of unique obstacles like a rotten CEO or judge or law. They have no conception of (or at least no willingness to act on) the industrywide nature of the problem, or how the latter is just a symptom of the classwide attacks we’ve faced for the last 30 years.
by Andrew Pollack
Andrew Pollack was a reservations agent at Pan Am and member of the Teamsters’ Airline Division and edited a rank-and-file airline workers’ newsletter, The Plane Truth, in the early 1990s.
Judge Wedoff is the same judge who on January 31, 2005, imposed “temporary” wage and benefit cuts on United Airlines mechanics. The pilots and flight attendants had already agreed to concessionary contracts, but threatened job actions should their pensions be cut—but those actions never materialized. After his May 10 pension-killing ruling, Wedoff moved right on to the next point on his agenda, holding hearings to terminate the mechanics’ and ground crews’ contracts if they didn’t knuckle under to management’s latest concession demands.
The mechanics, represented by the Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association (AMFA), and the ground crew, represented by the International Association of Machinists (IAM), who had not yet approved new contracts, also threatened strikes should their contracts be voided. But despite spending the days after the May 10 pension ruling making loud strike threats, AMFA’s leadership caved in on May 16 and gave United the concessions they’d been asking for. As of the writing of this article the IAM appears headed toward reaching a similar concessionary contract (and Judge Wedoff halted hearings for two days to encourage them to do so).
The May 16 cave-in by the AMFA leadership wasn’t surprising considering its reaction to the cuts imposed by the same judge earlier in the year. On January 31, Wedoff imposed a “temporary” 9.8 % pay cut and reduced sick leave benefits effective February 1 through May 31. The judge decreed in his order “a reduction in rates of pay by 9.8% in all pay factors for all longevity steps in all classifications; (ii) that all employees will receive 75% of the pay they would normally receive for sick days for absences of less than 16 consecutive days; and (iii) all scheduled pay increases during the period are postponed.” Thus contract language as the product of bargaining was replaced by judicial dictate.
AMFA’s response was to demand that management “take the remaining negotiating time seriously to help resolve major differences.” Said National Director O.V. Delle-Femine: “Because the provisions of yesterday’s 1113e ruling are temporary, we do not plan to pursue a strike or other form of self-help during this period.” (Self-help is Railway Labor Act jargon for strikes and other job actions; under U.S. law, airlines have been placed under the Railway Labor Act.) Temporary or not, the smaller paychecks were very real to members, and could have been the impetus for organized protests against them. Imagine the support mechanics could have garnered by appealing to the entire labor movement, asking their fellow unionists “do you want a judge setting YOUR wages or benefits?” And if the cuts were so “temporary,” then why couldn’t members have been organized to take “temporary” extra-long breaks, “temporary” sick days, etc.?
Ironically AMFA won over mechanics in 2003 at United when mechanics rejected temporary wage cuts and other contract changes and as a result a court imposed them. Now the exact same thing has happened, only under AMFA leadership. And knowing what was happening in bargaining wasn’t enough for members to stop even AMFA officials from making overnight decisions to go back to the table and work out new concessionary agreements, as it did in May. As democratic as AMFA may be, its leaders have not gone beyond the ideology shared by all airline union leaders, the belief that in the newly-competitive deregulated era unions must do all they can to save “our” carrier.
The blame on “mismanagement” and the “bankruptcy court process” shows why AMFA leadership is no more militant than that of the other unions. “Our” company can thrive, they believe, if only we get rid of unique obstacles like a rotten CEO or judge or law. They have no conception of (or at least no willingness to act on) the industrywide nature of the problem, or how the latter is just a symptom of the classwide attacks we’ve faced for the last 30 years.
La Li Lu Le Lo
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- May 29, 2010
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Wow.... the very next two posts were you talking about TWU/AMFA. Unreal.
O/S you are so full of $hit. It is obvious when you lie your post get longer and longer.Overspeed said:
Point blank; IT WAS THE IAM THAT NEGO THE CONCESSIONS AT UAL. It was AMFA that had to come in and enforce the very contract that the IAM agreed to and pushed for a pass to it's members, period, end of story, get over it, and move the freak on, JFC O/S, you will never get ahead, nice try though...
- Banned
- #177
As you all know I am an IAM supporter, but Overspeed you are wrong, the IAM negotiated the close of IND and allowed outsourcing except SFO still did overhaul, shops and the engine shop..
AMFA lost the heavy and SFO only had C-Checks protected.
AMFA lost the heavy and SFO only had C-Checks protected.
ThirdSeatHero
Veteran
Overspeed said:
The truth is you're a L-I-A-R and a pathetic one at that.
Your first article from Feb 2002, was our rejection of the Presidential Emergency Board(PEB) recommendations. This set of negotiations was about raises, the title of your link even mentions that, do you even read the articles you post?
Feb 2002
http://money.cnn.com/2002/02/13/news/united/
AMFA didn't take over after this rejection, the new agreement - Still Under the IAM- was ratified less than a month later in March of 2002
March 2002
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/06/business/mechanics-approve-contract-averting-strike-at-united-air.html
In December of 2002 UAL files for bankruptcy and seeks union concessions
Dec 2002
http://money.cnn.com/2002/12/09/news/companies/ual_bankruptcy/
In April of 2003 the IAM agrees to concessions
April 2003
http://www.upi.com/Business_News/2003/04/30/UAL-unions-ratify-new-contracts/UPI-76851051689454/
Less than two weeks after the IAM agrees to concessions allowing the outsourcing of our heavy maintenance, UAL starts to close our overhaul bases in IND & OAK
May 2003
http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20030505/NEWS02/20008754/united-shutters-two-maintenance-centers
Again from the May 2003 article:
It was only AFTER the loss of our heavy maintenance under the IAM that AMFA was voted in at UAL in July of 2003.
Why do you even bother to prove this notorious loser wrong time after time when he apparently does not care about the truth. We all know he is a liar and is only concerned about the TWU no matter how many lies he has to post to make him and the TWU look good. You proved him wrong with facts and Bob Owens did the same but yet he persists. I think he does it for the attention.ThirdSeatHero said:
ThirdSeatHero
Veteran
700UW said:
Wrong - there were no aircraft overhauls being performed in SFO at the time of the 2003 CBA ratification.
