You undermine the organized labor at every turn. If the TWU is that bad then you should not "lower" yourself to be on the inside. I would not be surprise if bringing down this union is your goal.
You failed to bring up all the work that was lost to A&P mechanics but kept within the TWU, work that we consider the same as outsourced.
The TWU is fine, I'm proud of its heritage, not ashamed of Mike Quill and his IRA background either, and I think it does a great job over at SWA, in the Rails and Transit but most of the TWU-AA-ATD is an absolute disaster, and I'm not by any means the only one on the Inside that feels that way. My goal isnt to bring it, and us, down, it's to fix it. The lack of a coherant structure, elected central leader and presence of convoluted rules such as the weighted vote may have been OK when we could ride on the coat tails of other unionized mechanics but not anymore, not now where we will be the setting the standard for the other BK carriers mechanics to follow. Our structure is set up so control lies with the International but they in turn spin the blame onto Local leaders. Tom McDaniels is the elected leader of the Flight Attendants at SWA, his signature can change contracts. John Samuelson is the elected leader of Local 100, his signature can change contracts. Who is the elected leader of the American Airlines Mechanics? How about Stores? How about Fleet Service? The only workgroups at AA that have a single elected leader are the Pilot Instructors, Dispacters, Tech Services and Sim Tech mechanics. But when Bobby Gless signs a letter of agreement his response is not "Yes I signed it because I felt it was the right thing to do" and you cant hold him accountable because you did not put him there. His, and his predecessors inevitable response is, "The Presidents council approved it". Whats left out is what the International does to get it past the council and how the Council voted. Some may have been against it, but you claim that the members should not have the right to know who voted how. You dont even want the members to know how the whole thing is set up. You may claim that the Union should be seen as one, well then you are endorsing misleading the members. You may cite that the company should not be able to see what goes on, well they already know. Two people on the companys side of the table once sat on the Unions side of the table. How does it help the company and hurt the members when the company gets what it wants anyway? How are the members interests protected when they dont even know how their representatives voted? As a member of the other Locals cited if I dont like any of the letters that were signed by any of those Presidents I have the ability to vote that President out, we cant vote out ATD employees.
You have not said one thing positive about any union on this bulletin board. You talk trash about the AFL-CIO, IBT, IAM, TWU, and every other union affiliated with the AFL-CIO. Is this your form of leadership, to talk trash about your organization until what? You destroy it? And then what?
Who is lying now? I've often cited both Local 100 and 556 in a very positive light. My criticism is usually accompanied by remedy as well.
Bob I hope you enjoyed your junket on the west coast at the expense of your membership. You spent most of your time posting in this bulletin board or running to the beach I bet. Such a hypocrite, you belittle the others for what you do yourself.
Actually I made very few post last week and I had no say in picking the place where Negotiations were done. What are you saying, that I shold not have gone? You are so blatently two faced, everyone here knows that if I didnt go then you would claim I abandoned the Stores guys in Negotiations.
And Bob, seriously we are going to ride on the APA's coat tails. Didn't you read the APA PEB? The APA offered as a way to get paid more to have AA contract the maintenance work on the new fleet types. The APA interpretation of the TWU scope language was that if we didn't work on an aircraft type at the CBA DOS AA had the right to contract it out. Yeah, the APA had our back didn't they? Your delusional.
Where did I say the APA would fight for us? If AA went BK they would be the main target and they would be the ones to challenge the law. As far as scope, you said it yourself, "current Scope of work", so once we do it it becomes ours, but if we never did it, like the 747SPs we used to send to TWA then its not. The fact is the language is not as ironclad as you claim it is as far as new work. The way it was explained to me back in 2001 is that our "System Protection" is the key provision that secures the work because if they have to keep the workers then they have to keep the work. If we do not lock system protection into DOS then the company could simply allow attrition to reduce the workforce as old aircraft are retired and replaced by Aircraft we never worked, like the 747Sps from TWA. Why dont you talk about that Overspeed? Over a thousand workers would continue to not have system protection with the TA you endorsed and the number with it would shrink every year as those who have it attrit out.
On AA having industry leading concessions you must be eating some good mushrooms. So keeping work in-house with pay cut 17.5% was worse than having your pay cut 100% like the airframe overhaul mechanics at UA, DL, US, and NW? Okay, let's ask TUL and AFW if they are willing to do that so line can get up to $7/hourly more.
Prove to me that our in house OH is not cost effective and quit claiming to be a Union man while doing the companies job of lowering expectation by saying that unions are weak and workers should just accept whatever the company wants to give them.
Who was the first major unionized carrier to get B-scale?
Who was the first major unionized carrier to get employees to pay for their LTD?
Who was the first major unionized carrier to get rid of the half hour paid lunch?
Who was the first major unionized carrier to get to a 12 year Progression for mechanics?
Who was the first major unionized carrier to get to a 9 year progression for mechanics?
Who was the first major unionized carrier to get a a four year Junior Mechanic program (effectively agreeing to a 16 year progression for those workers)?
Who was the first major unionized carrier to get their mechanics to agree to split the cost of retiree medical between the company and the employee?
Who was the first major unionized carrier to not include the first year of service for the pension plan? The higher formula was sold for years as an achievement when in fact the loss of the year more than wiped out any gain from the higher multiplier.
Who was the first major unionized carrier to only offer one week of paid vacation?
Who was the first major unionized carrier to only give 5 paid holidays and only at half pay if worked?
Who was the first major unionized carrier to get SRPs, a permamnent low wage mechanic?
Who was the first major unionized carrier to cut their IOD time by nearly 90%.
Who was the first major unionized carrier to cut their sick time by more than 50%
Those are just some of the industry leading concessions that we are responsible for. Not just the leadership of the International who pushed Local leaders into supporting them but also the misinformed members who were often told things like "We got a me too clause", or "our pension is industry leading" or "the prefunding is guaranteed to be there when you retire, even if AA liquidates".
We have a bad history here at AA. We have lost much of what the people who came before us put in place, they sacrificed to put things in place, we cowered and gave it away without a fight. We need to set things right, not just for us and our families but for those who come after us.
