Blaming the membership is pointless. Low self esteem drives Apathty. If the company AND the Union you pay to represent you are both in agreement that you should give concessions why would anyone bother? For nearly 30 years I've heard "Give the company this one, we'll get em next time". Fighting my own union has been the challenge, its blocked every attempt to fight the company. First they say "Step up and do something about it", then when you do they basically do everything they possibly can to make you forget about change and conform, if they cant do that they either remove you or do what they can to marginalize you. Our organization needs to change or we need to change organizations before we can expect to see an engaged membership. While I am glad that Little and his team are gone I'm dissapointed in the new regimes behavior toward M&R and the fact that they have pretty much ostracized line maintenance and 567 at AA from the Union. First there was the Convention, where we were seperated from the rest of AA and put in the back row, then were were not allowed on any committees, then there were threatening speaches obviously targeted at us, the choice of Gary Yingst as a speaker, then there was the fact they loaded up the ATD with all FSCs and appointed the maintenance guy with the least experience of all to an internatiopnal spot, (the only maint voice in the Intenational is Tulsa) there were promises made that were then forgotten and then they stopped Title II guys from joining Local 591 when even the Local that had them was willing to let them join 591. Clearly the Interrnational does not support allowing 591 to get Title II in all the line stations because that would upset the Fleet locals that are dependant on their dues.
As far as COPE I went there for several years, supported everything that was put across and sent the info out to my members. Even was able to get some members to go to rallys in the city. I still forward out whatever I get. However I was dissapointed at the lack of support I got when it came to addressing an issue that severely cripples airline unions, that was correcting the interpretation of 1167 which on the one hand allow the courts to abrogate our contract and on the other deny us the right to self help when the company unilaterally imposes new terms. Other than getting it on the agenda for NY it went nowhere. I was told by our Eboard which attended other state conferences that there was no interest in those conferences. According to Brendon Danaher there was zero interest at the International level at correcting this, instead I was told I had to support changes that would protect the pensions of public workers in BK and to me as long as this remains uncorrected we are screwed. I was told around a year ago to wait because the Unions were pushing for BK reform that affects all workers, not just airline workers and that I needed to support that and it would be out in a few weeks. I explained that this needed to be addressed first because what we are asking for are the same rights everyone else has, not asking for special protections or massive reform, just asking for the same rights that all other workers get. He was indifferent. I knew that it wasnt going to go anywhere despite the fact I'd already contacted a few Pilots Unions who said they would be interested as well. I knew I was wasting my time. Going to those meetings consumed a whole day, that meant I would have to try and catch up on my regular workload on the weekend. So I stopped going. I'll still support what COPE does, such as the push to get the Airlines included in the NYC sick time law but I'm not going to waste my time pushing for things that those in control dont care about. Without correcting 1167 none of the rest matters, the pilots tried to correct this but they packaged it incorrectly, they asked for special protections instead of equal rights. The Republicans shot them down, hard for guys making six figures to plead for special protections but not so hard to have a guy in Military style Uniform demanding the same rights as everyone else.
I agree that membership involvement is critical, but its up to the leaders to gain their confidence and get them involved, the damage done to the TWU brand at AA by Koziatek, then even more so by Little is severe, I think that Lombardo and Samuelson were shocked when they saw it first hand when they went to the floor at JFK. I'm not even sure it can be repaired any more but what they have done so far by giving FSC overwheliming dominance at the International level and maintaining the failed FSC Local structures within the AA/TWU and blocking the consolidation of M&R into the three primary M&R Locals has been dissapointing and time is running out. Asking the members to get involved without seeing real change first is unrealistic, most of us have been around a long time and seen faces come and go and they all say the same thing, get involved if you want change, then when they get involved they say forget about change you are an officer of this Union and you have to support what ever we decide no matter what. It really gets bitter when you put in 60 to 80 hour weeks trying to get stuff done and make the Local work then get branded and ostracized as a closet AMFA supporter.
