Checking it Out said:
Boomer wrote; In my opinion, Bob Owens and Chuck Schalk were hung out to dry because Sonny Hall felt threatened by the realtionship between Local 562 and Touissant and the electoral votes such a relationship could bring at the next TWU Constitutional Convention.
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Actuallly the truth is a good portion of the members were putting pressure on the Leadership of the TWU to force the Presidents and others to represent the members. These TWO Individuals choose not to support the members in they're best interest, Therefor were replaced. It was obvious the oath they took meant nothing in turn they could not honestly give 100 percent of their time to the membership.
The TWU Did the right thing to remove them from office and deserve a round gratitude. Bob has no morals or ethics in this matter and can not be trusted, By his own actions shows he will jump ship when the time gets rough. Same as many of the Amfa wantabes. Go ask how many of these Individuals are willing to put forth the effort on a daily basis to represent? Most here a begging for the TWU members who get involved to stay involved if an election should ever happen? Unlikely at this time.
CIO;
In your twisted mind the only "members" there are is those who cram into the Kremlin on Pine in Tulsa.
The fact is that "the members" who we represented picked us to represent them and it was Sonny Hall and Jim Little that had us removed. If you dont believe this then why not tell the International to remove the suspension and run another election?
The fact is that we both would be elected by an even higher margin this time than last time.
Who decides what is in the members best interests? The members or you?
Tell me more about your TWU morals as displayed by people like Dennis Burchette (apparent wife beater, adulterer), Bobby Gless (adulterer) and Kurt Wells (apparent thief).
I make my statements and accusations with my name on them, you on the other hand make yours from behind an alias. If you are going to make accusations be specific and be a man about it, put your name on it you coward.
The fact is we did represent our members, even the stores guys have been very supportive. The call for our removal came from Tulsa, who we never claimed to represent. Are you saying that only Tulsa should have a say in this Union? Or only those at Pine?
Now that I've been suspended it gives me more freedom to pursue the goal that I made Sonny Hall aware more than three years ago. A goal that he did not object to until three years later when he removed me from office.
The fact is that everyone admits that what we have is not working. The members admit it, and the leaders admit it. The only difference of opinion is where the fault lies.
The members blame the leaders and the leaders blame the members.
What does this solve?
Nothing.
Who bears the majority of the burden to come up with a solution?
THE LEADERSHIP.
Thats why we have leaders. We do not have leaders simply to lavish them with six figure salaries and perks. They are not supposed to simply be administrators either. They are supposed to be LEADERS. To lead implies forward motion.
The fact is that the structure and policies of the TWU discourage leadership. We have no leaders in the top posts. Many of the top positions of the TWU are occupied by people who the members would not re-elect but who were obedient servants of the International.
There are two things that airline workers need in order to combat the combined forces of the industry and the government. We need unions that are focused on our industry. We need a union that will unite us regardless of employer under one umbrella with the same objectives. We cant belong to a union that is willing to sell out the airline workers to get funding for AMTRACK. And we need democratic unions where we get to pick someone from our industry to represent us.
I was trying to get thse changes made from within. I'd written to Sonny Hall, Thomas Buffenbarger, Hoffa and Sweeney about merging the three ATDs into one union. Sweeneys office contacted me by phone right away and encouraged me to go forward with it. In the exchange between Sonny Hall and I he even admitted that it was a good idea and I quote; "I fully understand the positives of having every AFL-CIO Union that represents airline workers, under one Labor organization. Nontheless, leaders must understand the reality of such a goal. Your union would respond to any call from the AFL-CIO leadership to meet with all the unions involved and, at least, talk about it, but, Robert, our Lord himself may not be able to accomplish this goal".
Lets look at this quote from Sonny Hall concerning this issue. Before I start does anyone out there see any reason why the members would not benifit from an industrywide, unified labor force as opposed to the current structure which everyone admits does not work?
Sonny Hall said "Your union would respond to any call from the AFL-CIO leadership". This is a totally disengenous statement. John Sweeney, in a phone conversation stated that the AFL-CIO does not work this way. The unions come to it and they decide what actions to take. He said that such a movement by the AFL-CIO leadership is out of protocal and beyond the scope of the organization. Any such merger would have to be initiated by the unions invloved and not by the AFL-CIO.
Sonny Hall also said "our Lord himself may not be able to accomplish this goal". In a follow up letter I asked him "WHY? He did not respond. However this past MAY (3 years after the initial exchange-so much for jumping ship) I brought the issue up again in a face to face meeting at Sonny's posh Broadway office along with the VP of LAX Rick DeMarco. This time he said that he favors the idea. He said that he would do it, he knows that consolidation is needed in the labor movement and that he had tried to initiate a merger between the ATU and the TWU. According to him all the top leaders would go for it, it was the mid level guys who feared that consolidation could limit their potential to move up who were against it. I said "Scerw them, whats more important the livelihoods of hunreds of thousands of airline workers or the ability of a few union officials to move up?" At that point Sonny claimed to have a prior appointment and asked us to go and bring any other issues up with Mike Bakala.
That was just a few examples of the change from within that I sought in order to meet the first objective- uniting airline workers regardless of employer under one organization.
In order to meet the second objective- A democratic union I actively sought to get support for an accountable, accurate voting system for the Conventions. After observing the farce at the 2001 Convention as a delegate it was easy to spot a major flaw. The three hundred delegates were seated along with alternate delegates and the votes were conducted by a voice vote. This is wholly inappropriate. If someone could yell louder than someone else or was seated near the front he effectively had more of a vote than someone who was not as loud or sat in the back. Local 100 made strong objections to this process and called for all voting to be done by division of the house, Sonny called for and rejected the motion because the craps tables were waiting.
I also wrote to every President that I could find off the TWU website explaining my position on how voting was condicted in an E-mail entitled "Sonny's Party"and offered a solution. I included a link to audiencevoting.com. A company that offers a system where votes are calculated instanataneously, accurately and could give a readout of how every delegate voted on every issue to the membership. Only Local 100 responded in favor of it. None of the other Presidents wanted the membership to have this information. The question is WHY?
