<_< ------ "Hope" for this group of AMT's? ------- Na! I don't think so!-------- They're too greedy, and too fragmented! Always one group afraid the other will get a bigger bit of the bone! TUL and Texas, where living is relatively inexpensive, don't what to see those living in places like New York or California get any more than they would. ------- Fragmented in who gets the most work, or O.T.! For a long time it was TUL/ AFW vs. MCI! ( AA vs.TWA) Now that's history.-------- It's now Overhaul vs. Line Mechanic! ------All the while AA Management is loving it! In fact instigating it! Laughing their a$$ off! And as long as the big boys at the TWU continue to collect their dues they really don't care! ------- So is there any "hope" for them? Not until some big changes in attitude happens! --------- Just one man's opinion!
The OH vs the line came long before the AA vs TWA BS, maybe you didnt realize it but you had the same thing at TWA, because like Tulsa you could afford to ignore the needs of the line out there in the low cost heartland. Thats what the guys from TWA tell me. Putting the majority of the workforce in low cost areas was a smart way of causing division. It even exists at Continental where the EWR guys are pissed that the Houston guys always vote yes and the Delta line Mechs are fustrated because they cant get a union because the bulk of the title group is in the heart of Dixieland. If anything the divisions at AA are more blurred than ever before, both line and OH voted the TA down and you had line stations and an OH station that passed it. DFW, LAX, NY1, AFW and TUL all voted against this, MCI and a few line stations passed it. With its last gasp MCI bent over and said "Thank you sir may I have another". So you had the high cost guys and the low cost guys both shoot it down as well. From what I've heard many in OH and low cost arent too resistant to Geo pay,especially any of those that had to live it. AS far as the International I think between the suprising NO vote and the appearance of a competitor, attitudes, or at least the apprearance of an attitude change, became compulsory.
The TA was a non offer to the line but an all out attack on the bases, for many years the Tulsa base gave AA a huge cost advantage over all their competitors. They could always count on Tulsa to give AA the lowest total costs in the industry. On the line we always made a little less, we had the longest progressions, lost the first year towards our pensions, gave up LTD, and company paid medical before anyone else, had less vacation, less sick time, everyone else was pretty much the same but when you added it all in we came up short. Now AA is trying to compete with carriers that pay their line guys a
lot more. Time waits for no man, no corporation either. As AA losses its line mechanics through attrition they wont be able to recruit experienced mechanics (look at how many refused recall) and they wont be able to retain the inexperienced ones the TWU said they have no problem with them putting directly on the line. This will inevitably lead to AA becomeing like Peoples Distress, the training ground where mechanics make their mistakes and learn before they go to carriers that are willing to pay. So thats what the company is facing, sure they can throw a bone to the bases and hope they vote yes, but do they honestly think that bottom of the industry wages are going to motivate us on the line to give any more effort than we are giving now? Do they think if they play a scam like an increased MRT that nobody will see with the shortened window and false "Wage opener" provision that the guys will just suck it up like they did in 1995 and 2003? These guys are fed up, and they dont feel like they have much to lose andthey dont want to play games anymore.
From what I've read a rival to the IBT for the mechanics at UAL materialized in Denver two weeks ago as well. That will undoubtably put pressure on the IBT to get them a better deal. They have to try and explain why an A&P at UPS needs more than $46.99 but an A&P at UAL and CAL should settle for $36/hr. $10/hr is simply too big of a difference to be pawned off as "Apples and Oranges", they have to basically convince the UAL guys that they are Pintos and the UPS guys are Lincolns. I dont think they will buy it especially when SWA will be making $45/hr soon. 2011 may be the lead in to another 2001. An industrywide uprising by airline workers with the unions leaders being pushed from behind, instead of leading like they should by a membership thats more militant than the leadership. Then again we were all ten years younger then ,and nobody's been coming in behind us since then. We can only hope we have a little fight left in us but if we dont its the carriers that will lose in the end. With their better paid, more motivated work forces, trained by us, the SWA and Jet Blues really will wipe us up.
