D
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Oh gee, sorry Buck. How dare I even post an opinion.
TWU negotiations.........what?
- Thread starter Chuck Schalk
- Start date
strikeforce
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- Jan 18, 2011
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Bob, you keep preaching "release", but what are YOU actually doing...i.e. court actions, motions, or whatever is necessary, in order to get US released. The membership has been waiting patiently. You're being outnumbered by presidents that Don't want release, such as my president at ORD, so what are YOU really do to out manuever these guys so WE can get released??? Right now it's 9 guns against release and 8 guns for......
OP
Chuck Schalk
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- Nov 17, 2006
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Below is the scenario we could be faced with in the future.
Contract Negotiations With Ford Intensify as the Union Prepares for a Strike
By NICK BUNKLEY
Published: September 26, 2011
The deal is receiving widespread approval from entry-level workers, who earn about half as much as longtime workers and would get raises of several dollars an hour if the contract passes. At a parts processing plant near Flint where all 450 hourly workers earn entry-level wages, 88 percent voted in favor, according to a posting by Local 651 officials on Facebook.
Contract Negotiations With Ford Intensify as the Union Prepares for a Strike
By NICK BUNKLEY
Published: September 26, 2011
The deal is receiving widespread approval from entry-level workers, who earn about half as much as longtime workers and would get raises of several dollars an hour if the contract passes. At a parts processing plant near Flint where all 450 hourly workers earn entry-level wages, 88 percent voted in favor, according to a posting by Local 651 officials on Facebook.
OP
Chuck Schalk
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- Nov 17, 2006
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AMR currently is the worst performer on the 10-carrier Bloomberg U.S. Airlines Index in 2011, tumbling 55 percent before Thursday
Read more from this Tulsa World article at http://www.tulsaworld.com/business/article.aspx?subjectid=49&articleid=20110930_45_E1_AMRCor308588
What would you expect? The company refuses to acknowledge that poor moral affects production! There is a direct relationship between moral and performance. If we are not happy then the company is not happy! This inverse relationship of moral is costing millions of dollars. The company has not figured it out that the contracts can pay forn themselves with high moral and high performance.
Do not let time be the only thing that will sway you. There are alternatives than just giving concessions to get a contract. The company fails to explore any mutually benficial options.
The company is so tunnel visioned that they have not figured out that the best return on their investment would be investing in their employees!
Read more from this Tulsa World article at http://www.tulsaworld.com/business/article.aspx?subjectid=49&articleid=20110930_45_E1_AMRCor308588
What would you expect? The company refuses to acknowledge that poor moral affects production! There is a direct relationship between moral and performance. If we are not happy then the company is not happy! This inverse relationship of moral is costing millions of dollars. The company has not figured it out that the contracts can pay forn themselves with high moral and high performance.
Do not let time be the only thing that will sway you. There are alternatives than just giving concessions to get a contract. The company fails to explore any mutually benficial options.
The company is so tunnel visioned that they have not figured out that the best return on their investment would be investing in their employees!
eolesen
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- Jul 23, 2003
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Mr Red
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- May 11, 2010
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Just checked master list, 9591 title one which includes parts washers
A/C cleaners and OSM . 11000 number must have been before voluntary BK
When they can't even get that number right, you really can't believe anything
they say !!!
11000 includes Title II
E, what percentage was labor costs in 2002? Like I've said countless times before AA did not restructure like competitors and outsouce, which shifts labor costs elsewhere on the balance sheet. So any change in AAs percentage reflects a real change in costs and not simply costshifting. Keep spinning, FOX may have a job for you yet!
TWU informer
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- Nov 4, 2003
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I believe that you are an advocate for a Bankruptcy Filing by AA.
I no longer fear Bankruptcy and think AA should take that option but mostly due to the Pilot's sacred cow pension. And believe that M&R gave up too much to save the Pilot Sacred Cow Pension in 2003.
I just hope that your membership is fully informed and any negative impact has been thought out.
I'm not an advocate for bankruptcy nor do I resent the pilots for getting and holding on to what they have. We should try to follow their example.
I think BK is a scam.
What I am an advocate of is not panicing every time the company throws it out there. I feel we were wrong to accept concessions in 2003 and should have held our ground and that by doing what we did we doomed in house OH at all AAs competitors. We have no control over BK and we are not a big enough component in the equation where what we do would have any influence over that decision anyway. In other words they dont stand to gain much in BK from us. Wages are already so low that half the A&P schools in the country have closed, and despite the slow economy people are leaving the industry faster than they can be replaced.
eolesen
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- Jul 23, 2003
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Yes, you've said it countless times, but while those with the union-blinders might believe you, the outside analysts aren't quite as convinced in your hypothesis.
In 2002, they were around 40% of operating expenses. Fuel by comparison was 12% and is now 29%.
If it were just cost shifting, that is easily adjusted. Similar adjustments already take place when comparing airlines who tend to own more of their aircraft vs. those who lease.
But it's not just wages/salaries/benefits on a whole that's alarming. Those costs keep increasing. The guys who outsource their overhauls are able to better keep a lid on those contracts. They don't necessarily go up by 1 to 3% per year. It's usually a fixed rate for 3-5 years. And when the MROs try to increase their costs (like AA tried with G4), it is a much more difficult proposition since there will always be someone like AAR willing to match the previous rate.
I am not advocating the outsourcing of overhaul, but that ability to keep the cost under control is where your cost-shifting argument starts to fall apart.
Nor am I focused on the 30% vs 40% figure -- It's the total cost per head which is killing AA slowly.
In 2002, wages, salaries and benefits divided by employees came out to around $76.569 per FTE (this is for all of AMR, including Eagle). That fell to $72,900 in 2004.
You might note that 2004 is only about 5% lower from 2000, nowhere near the pay cut percentages. Not a shocker -- wages were cut, but the guys laid off weren't making as much, and also weren't as likely to be using healthcare to the same level the more senior people do, nor were they having as much contributed towards retirement.
In 2010, it was $87,501.
That's up about 15% from where it was BEFORE the concessions. Same aging workforce story as 2004, and only getting worse.
I know it's not going in your pockets, but salaries have never been the only concern.
How about throwing out there how much revenue per employee has changed since 2002.? You leave out the fact that for the 15% increase in costs per worker the company nearly doubled the amount of revenue per worker. In other words they got a bargain, what businessman in their right mind would not be ecstatic about seeing their revenue per employee nearly double for just a 15% increase in cost per employee?
Your attempt to spin is easily dismissed. If you have two employees and pay them $50k then your average pay per employee is $50 k, if you lay one off and have the other one work 60 hours a week your average pay per employee will jump up to $ 87500 Does that mean that your labor costs are killing you? You are still saving $12500 and your worker didn't get a raise either. Overtime is not a substitute for a raise. The fact is despite your misleading numbers we are getting paid less per hour than we were then. Another thing also distorting your number is the fact that the company had the rise program where supervisors were re-titled as managers, they did the same thing but got paid more money for it and let's not forget executive compensation. The fact that they had very few new hires in 2010and had been on a hiring spree in 2000-02 also distorts the figures.
The fact is that labor at AA has become a smaller part of the costs than ever before, and those numbers are real numbers, not the result of shifting labor costs into other categories through outsourcing.
Nice try but even with blinders on its easy to see that your argument is weak and figures misleading. When you consider the fact that you are a cubicle guy, one who works with numbers for a living, and I'm just a grease monkey, one who works with his hands and back for a living, a match up which you and FWAAA are quick to frequently cite as one sided in your favor, and I can trash your argument so easily, that can only mean you can't produce anything better or you greatly overestimate your sales ability or our gullibility.
eolesen
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- Jul 23, 2003
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Revenue per employee (a measure you've apparently made up) is up, but so is overall expense per employee.
I don't work with numbers for a living (nor do I work in a cubicle for that matter). My job is to identify areas where companies could improve revenues and processes, and quantify that for them. That means being on the hangar floor, in the call centers, on the ramp. Very little of my time is spent in an office, thank God...
And for the record, while I think you're an ass, I've never criticized your abilities as an AMT or as a union president.
What I do question is your grasp of finance. Go spouting off stuff about revenue per employee to a PEB, and I say you're perpetually screwed. You can't even speak the same language as the guys you're negotiating with, so how can you ever expect to make your point in a way they can't dispute?
That's why I've said (for several years now) that you guys need independent professional negotiators. Going it alone is how you got "bamboozled" in 2003, and why you guys continue to shoot blanks when it comes to advancing the wealth of your members.
I don't work with numbers for a living (nor do I work in a cubicle for that matter). My job is to identify areas where companies could improve revenues and processes, and quantify that for them. That means being on the hangar floor, in the call centers, on the ramp. Very little of my time is spent in an office, thank God...
And for the record, while I think you're an ass, I've never criticized your abilities as an AMT or as a union president.
What I do question is your grasp of finance. Go spouting off stuff about revenue per employee to a PEB, and I say you're perpetually screwed. You can't even speak the same language as the guys you're negotiating with, so how can you ever expect to make your point in a way they can't dispute?
That's why I've said (for several years now) that you guys need independent professional negotiators. Going it alone is how you got "bamboozled" in 2003, and why you guys continue to shoot blanks when it comes to advancing the wealth of your members.
With your obvious superior knowlege of AA's finances and all of the salient issues, why have you and your other TWA "negotiators" been such a dismal failure at negotiating pay and benefit raises for your members?
If "revenue per employee" was a relevant statistic, I gotta wonder why Jamie Baker and all the other blowhard Wall Street analysts don't harp on it the way you do?
I try to avoid nitpicking on spelling and grammar and even on labelling mistakes on this website (as some of the posters here are basically functionally illiterate and pointing out their ignorance borders on just plain mean), but this one is symbollic of your unbridled ignorance of basic corporate finance: Revenue and expenses are reflected on the income statement not the balance sheet. You really should learn the difference. As I've posted before, your members would be well-served if you had even a rudimentary understanding of corporate finance, since your worthless union doesn't believe in hiring professional negotiators but instead insists on relying on mechanics to negotiate away their future.
