TWU negotiations.........what?

[Hopeful]

And what checks are those, Bob? A checks? B checks? ETOPS checks? Are they being done by contractors or AA employees on international payroll?...

I have seen many a logbook with an A check being accomplished in various South American stations with both AA mechanics and Contract mechanics.

As far as ETOPS checks, other countries do the ETOPS 2 check. This is a necessary operational check to fly two motors over water. No one gripes about that. ETOPS 2 checks are a non issue.

The A check should not have to be done anywhere except on US soil. Routing can easily put the aircraft where it needs to be before the A check is due. We do A checks on turnaround Intl flight aircraft from time to time.

 

[Bob Owens]

The company has made no indication at all about or even hinting at UPS or WN wages and work rules.
What will always be hung over our heads is the fact is that we still do overhaul in house.
And even the pension will be used in their defense against a decent contract.

If AA secretly desires UPS and WN wages and work rules, why has the company NOT offered that?

Simple answer, as long as they keep our wages at the bottom of the heap, this will subsidize the pension and keeping most work in house.

They want the work rule changes but NOT the wages.

The pension isnt much of a weapon anymore now that its out that the DB is cheaper than a decent 401k. Recently the company claimed that switching from a DB to the DC they offered would be cost neutral over the long term but require more cash output at present. In other words switching would cost them money. Look at your total value statement and it will show you how much your pension cost them last year. Mine was $1200, less than 2% of wages. SSI costs them more. In 2009 they contributed nothing to the pension then made a big deal about the $500 million that was due this year. They claim they put in $2 billion since 2002, or around 1.5% of their revenue since 2002. At present the pension is no burden.

The fact is that we on the line do line maintenance and we should make it clear that if they want the performance of WN they will have to pay us like WN. If they want to pay us bottom wages we can and will put AA at the bottom of everything else as well. We work at the point of revenue and we can do it. Local 562 handles around 11% of AA's flights but that 11% makes up a large percentage of AAs most lucrative routes. We may only be around 3% of the total TWU workforce but our location, at least in this example, gives us more leverage than our numbers. To put it bluntly "we can hit em where it hurts".

 

[Hopeful]

The pension isnt much of a weapon anymore now that its out that the DB is cheaper than a decent 401k. Recently the company claimed that switching from a DB to the DC they offered would be cost neutral over the long term but require more cash output at present.

I am not going to dispute your figures as I know your do your homework before posting.
However, the company DOES use it as a weapon regardless of what it costs. They like to compare us to low cost and bankrupt carriers. thats their PR game.

And as for overhaul in house as an argument, I still see the company using it as a weapon because outsourcing would cost half the current membership their jobs.
More about threats affecting one major operation of AA maintenance.

 

[Bob Owens]

I am not going to dispute your figures as I know your do your homework before posting.
However, the company DOES use it as a weapon regardless of what it costs. They like to compare us to low cost and bankrupt carriers. thats their PR game.

And as for overhaul in house as an argument, I still see the company using it as a weapon because outsourcing would cost half the current membership their jobs.
More about threats affecting one major operation of AA maintenance.

The point is they arent the only ones who can make threats. We need to recognize that.

 

[Hopeful]

The point is they arent the only ones who can make threats. We need to recognize that.

Absolutely! But how do you get the OH bases to recognize it?

 

[Bob Owens]

Absolutely! But how do you get the OH bases to recognize it?

You cant.

You have to make it clear to the company that unlike the past, when we took it in the shorts and just moved on, that an agreement that doesnt meet our needs will result in performance on the line that doesnt meet their needs. We can no longer afford to just accept what the tyranny of the majority dictates. Remember that we work at the point of revenue generation, there's a lot of power that comes with that, its time we started to recognize that. The alternative is another 18% reduction in your wages, (thats what the company is offering), the majority of the negotiations committee has on two occasions voted to accept two 3% raises and not much else, last time for a three year term. Are either of these acceptable to you?

 

[TWU informer]

We can no longer afford to just accept what the tyranny of the majority dictates.

The TYRANNY of the majority?
Isn't that what the International thought about you and Chuck being elected by the membership and so you were removed because the tyranny of the majority was no longer tolerable?

Wow that sounds rather anti-democracy, anti-american, and anti-union.

So you propose that the minority be allowed to impose their will on the majority?

IS that how you see it Bob?

I am all for geo-pay for you guys Bob, but not if I have to subsidize it.

 

[Bob Owens]

The TYRANNY of the majority?
Isn't that what the International thought about you and Chuck being elected by the membership and so you were removed because the tyranny of the majority was no longer tolerable?

Wow that sounds rather anti-democracy, anti-american, and anti-union.

So you propose that the minority be allowed to impose their will on the majority?

IS that how you see it Bob?

I am all for geo-pay for you guys Bob, but not if I have to subsidize it.

Quite the opposite on all counts.

The conceptual challenge of a Tyranny of the majority goes all the way back to Platos Republic. Its one of the reasons why we have a Senate, two equal representative from every state regardless of population, so States like New York and California cant easily legislate their values into Oklahoma. Its why you can still carry a handgun if you like. Not always perfect but better than simple majority rule.

We should structure our negotiations process much like our government. The International is like the President, the negotiations committee should be like the Senate and the membership is like the House of Representatives.

All the members of the negotiations committee should have an equal vote. What we have now is undemocratic, anti American and Anti-union.

Right now one member can if he so chooses outvote the rest of the committee combined. Now lets look a little deeper into this. The President of Tulsa can outvote the rest of the committee combined. So he in effect he controls the outcome for 11000 members. The fact is that he got this power over 11000 with just 800 votes. Is that democratic? Did the majority of people who pay dues and vote give him this power? No. Its the outcome of a faulty structure.

I say one man one vote. Every Local should have their one vote, then let the individual members cast their votes to make the final decision. The stations with the majority will in the end have the final say, they should not also control what gets to be said. If the President of Tulsa doesnt like the outcome of the committee he has the resource of 6000 members to vote NO. If the agree they can vote as he says, if they dont he can vote as they wish. If I am a minority and have no say then I have no reason to act in concert with those who choose to use my abilities and not take into account my needs. You cant have unity where one party's needs are addressed but the others arent.

Nothing in my post indicated that we force anything on the majority. In fact the first statement was an answer to "how do you get the OH bases to recognize it?". I said "You can't". We cant force anything on OH, but we can make it clear to the company that if something is forced on us that is unacceptable that we will not accept it. We cant, not anymore.

 

[TWU informer]

Thanks for the explanation Bob.

Unfortunely I have more disdain for our Government than I do the Union so I am not sure I like the idea. What next 30% of our income in union dues.

 

[Hopeful]

Absolutely! But how do you get the OH bases to recognize it?

The reason I brought up OH was simply to refer to the threats that the company would always threaten to shut down TUL or outsource as a way of pushing through garbage contracts.

 

[FWAAA]

I see nothing wrong with paying mechanics $90k (UPS wages). But you'd have to be high to believe that AA would ever agree to pay thousands of TUL and AFW mechanics that same $90k. UPS doesn't insource a single heavy airframe overhaul and has just over four AMTs per airplane. The UPS ratio, if applied to AA, would equal about 2,600 AMTs instead of the 9,000+ at AA. Same exact situation at WN. 537 airplanes and 2,488 maintenance employees at 12/31/09.

The really good pay appears to be correlated with many fewer jobs. High pay or lots of union brothers?

 

[Hopeful]

I see nothing wrong with paying mechanics $90k (UPS wages). But you'd have to be high to believe that AA would ever agree to pay thousands of TUL and AFW mechanics that same $90k. UPS doesn't insource a single heavy airframe overhaul and has just over four AMTs per airplane. The UPS ratio, if applied to AA, would equal about 2,600 AMTs instead of the 9,000+ at AA. Same exact situation at WN. 537 airplanes and 2,488 maintenance employees at 12/31/09.

The really good pay appears to be correlated with many fewer jobs. High pay or lots of union brothers?

AA had its chance to file bankruptcy and chose not to because they took over a billion and half from us.
They should have went bankrupt, forced their will on us and pocket all the money for themselves,,,,,Oh wait, they already do that...silly me...

Any one notice AA's stock going up? Even with 3 labor unions in negotiations? Even with the unions asking for release to a 30 day cooling off period?

We must be getting close to April....AA EXECUTIVE BONUS/PUP TIME......YIPPEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[eolesen]

Instead of ranting about the executives, why not answer the last statement/question in FWAAA's post:

The really good pay appears to be correlated with many fewer jobs. High pay or lots of union brothers?

All the talk about executive compensation makes it too easy to ignore the real elephant in the room: having one contract covering both the line and the docks.

Absent the overhaul bases, I'm in agreement with FWAAA that you might have a better business case for wage increases. As long as the two are chained together, you're effectively screwed.

 

[Hopeful]

Instead of ranting about the executives, why not answer the last statement/question in FWAAA's post:

the answer is simple. This company has never offered the alternative. they have never came to the union and said, we'll give you UPS/WN wages if we outsource this and outsource that..I don't believe in one are of maintenance subsidizing another area.
You keep telling us why and how UPS/WN get the pay they get, bet yet this company has not once offered any alternatives. Why is that?

All the talk about executive compensation makes it too easy to ignore the real elephant in the room: having one contract covering both the line and the docks.

Absent the overhaul bases, I'm in agreement with FWAAA that you might have a better business case for wage increases. As long as the two are chained together, you're effectively screwed.

Does an executive of a certain level earn more in DFW earn more than the same level in TUL?

Does the MD of the NE maintenance get more than the MD in the Southeast because of location or personal worth?


My question to you is why has the company not come to the TWU and say if you give us this, we will give you that?

I'll tell you why, because they want low cost business models and work rules but not the wages associated with it.

 

[FWAAA]

My guess is that if the company offered to pay $90k to the most senior 2,600 of its line mechanics and outsource all overhaul, necessitating nearly 10k furloughs, several hundred airplanes would be out of service by the end of the day.

Didn't you just post a few minutes ago that you'd "kill" any airplane you could if the NG ordered you to work during an industry-wide strike? You don't think those who would be outsourced by such a proposal would do the same?