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

[Buck]

Hey Genius, what does every other major carrier pay for OH? $12-$14 an hour less than we do, some even more. If we going to compete and be profitable we need TO DO WHAT THEY DO. You don't do line maintenance because you like your no night shift, no weekends and holidays off. I'm glad you think you can do my job because one day your going to have to. OH may last a while here until the company comes to their senses. OH at line rates is not cost effective. That the bottom line.

As long as the TWU is here you are nothing. It is not about comparative compensation. It is about the relationship between the union and the company. If you cannot see that by now, maybe instead of OH going away maybe you should in the form of a career change.

Maybe the whole plan is to get the line at OH rates.

 

[Birdman]

Ahh, but compare the DAL, PHX and HOU(forget Aeroman, that's n/a to this discussion)WN operations to the magnitude of just AA TULE.... (let alone AFW, DWH). Quite a bit of difference in size, number of AMTs. Wouldn't you say?
Big factor in payroll. Just saying...

The only way to settle this argument is for AA to get their term sheet demands with the exception that they match heads, pay/benefits, and outsourcing to the average industry standard of the airlines listed on aanegotiations.com. The industry has provided a blueprint for success, how could they possibly screw that up?

 

[Birdman]

Hey Genius, what does every other major carrier pay for OH? $12-$14 an hour less than we do, some even more.

Your delusional.

de·lu·sion·al
 
adjective
1.having false or unrealistic beliefs or opinions:

 

[AV1]

Hey Genius, what does every other major carrier pay for OH? $12-$14 an hour less than we do, some even more. If we going to compete and be profitable we need TO DO WHAT THEY DO. You don't do line maintenance because you like your no night shift, no weekends and holidays off. I'm glad you think you can do my job because one day your going to have to. OH may last a while here until the company comes to their senses. OH at line rates is not cost effective. That the bottom line.

Hey Dumbs**t, Only thing I was saying is that everyone in overhaul can do your line job. It is not like you have some extraordinary skill to work the line you arrogant pos. Only difference where your at and the OH is that you got lucky enough to get your piece of paper (bid) at the right time. The OH people after twenty some years or so need a chance to go to the line if required and put you back in overhaul if your seniority is where that will land you. Take your $12 to $14 dollar an hour pay cut then. That the bottom line. Maybe some English class is due also.

 

[Mechanic]

As long as the TWU is here you are nothing. It is not about comparative compensation. It is about the relationship between the union and the company. If you cannot see that by now, maybe instead of OH going away maybe you should in the form of a career change.

Maybe the whole plan is to get the line at OH rates.

I agree I'm nothing with the TWU. But it is all about comparative compensation. How do we pay OH compared to 3rd party OH companies that all the other carriers use and how do we pay line maint compared to other airlines. One is an apple and the other is an orange.
Paying all of us OH rates would not surprise me at all with the TWU. They would sell all of us out to maintain their due's machine.

 

[Bob Owens]

Spin, spin, spin...

Dumped cargo, realigning your strategy is not dumping. Should a company stay involved in a business segment it is no longer profitable in?

If realigning your strategy is terminating service then thats dumping. Spin away Chris.

The money in the retiree medical trust can only be used for its intended purpose. You know that and were told that by attorneys who know the law. The MCTs still have the raise they got under the TA, that was the point and no the Company did not keep the retiree trust fund to do as they wish. It is still be used to pay benefits to retirees as it is required to by law.

The monies left in the fund by whoever opts out of Retiree Medical can only be used for medical, not necissarily for the guy who gave it up though. Just like the Supplimental Medical, however this is merely another spin. What you are leaving out is that those funds are in effect replacing funds that would have come from the General Fund so the net effect is exactly the same. Its as if someone said here's $100 to pay for gas, but you can only pay for gas with it, is that $100 still worth $100? Of course it is even though its earmarked for gas, it still frees up $100 that you would have spent on gas.

Yes management will be reduced with outsourcing. Your point is? The point of your holiday rant was that the line got screwed by the base (line lost 100 hours of pay). Whatever Delta reduced cost-wise through outsourcing allows them to pay more to fewer elsewhere while still realizing a cost reduction for maintenance. You can argue each piece but reducing the total maintenance cost is what Delta did through outsourcing.

No thats your spin, what rant, I simply stated a fact. You came back with the claim that Delta traded workers for Holidays but have not produced anything to back it up. If what you say is true, that Delta did this to reduce their maintenance costs well why did they need to do that, could it have been because outside of BK we had already given the company SRPs along with a 17.5% paycut, Holidays, vacation, sick time etc etc? How much did Delta actually save by outsourcing? UAL actually increased Maintenance spending when they outsourced.

Really? Not true DOT F41 data shows CO (outsourced after 1983 BK), WN (grew fleet and AA route overlay without bringing work inhouse), US (which almost went BK in the early 90s), and NW (which almost went BK) prior to the implementation of SRPs.

The big three, UA, AA and Delta.

The CR Smith letter describes outsourcing at current practice. If current practice is doing 90% of your work in maintenance spend in house and your hiring and compensation practices are based on your CBA then yes you have to hire more people to maintain the 90% inhouse maintenance spend. Also, their is a proviso that under the Baker letter that it must be discussed with the union first to see if we have the resources and ability to do the work inhouse, all the plans the union came up with apparently weren't feasible without putting cost saving mods or grounding aircraft. If the "bump" in work was long term, then the union could have made an argument that this was not temporary and AA was outsourcing TWU work.

Thats your interpretation but its not backed up by the facts. Perhaps you dont recall it but we used to ship out the Airbus engines. I recall getting them ready and putting them on the lowboy stands so they would fit in the guppy. Thats under the same language we have now. "Could have made an arguement" is not the same as saying "they cant" or "must".

Don't worry Bob, your plan of reducing overhaul is coming to fruition. You will be able to get your holidays and VC soon.

My plan? More spin from a company man. How low will you go every time they say "boo"? Funny how you like to disregard the fact that we used to make more than Fed Ex and around the same as UPS even though they always outsourced their OH. Now you come here and say we have to agree to work for less in order to keep work. Well how much less? $6/hr, $10/hr? $20/hr? At what point do you say we are not willing to give anymore and tell them you are willing to fight?

The fact is you do not know if it costs more or not. The company doesnt seem to know. Sure they can shoot across an estimate or cite what the Timco pays their guys but even if they had a bid in hand they would not know until all is said and done where they landed. Tell us, how much did they end up saving on those Timco airplanes? Are they back in service yet?

 

[lineguy43]

As long as the TWU is here you are nothing. It is not about comparative compensation. It is about the relationship between the union and the company. If you cannot see that by now, maybe instead of OH going away maybe you should in the form of a career change.

Maybe the whole plan is to get the line at OH rates.

That is the dream sheet for sure.. But in the grand scheme of things OH is going away I am sorry to say and Line MX isn't that much more secure. If you look at all the other airlines no one does in house MX anymore at least for C checks. I work for FX and we do an occasional C check but by and large we do B checks only. They also just adjusted the pay rate again so that new hires are screwed even though the top tier is doing very well. OH is going away if it hasn't disappeared already. Those of you at AA better get used to that idea real quick. Not to say those of you in OH are less valuable than line but fact is you will HAVE to work line to keep your job in the future because OH is going bye bye..

 

[Bob Owens]

Not less productive, higher cost than
They pay much less with lower benefits. NPR quoted AAR starting pay as $15 an hour so at 2X the AAR guy is still cheaper for like work. Unless AA can turn the plane faster and deliver better quality we are in trouble. I will say that the TIMCO debacle may make AA rethink the outsourcing and try some inhouse stuff first, I hope.

More spin, compare AARs starting wage to AA's top wage. Starting pay at AA is currently $14.74 plus license and premiums, so where do you get 2x? Its not what AAR pays their guys, its what AAR charges AA for the work and the quality of the work. Have you ever even worked for AAR?

 

[Bob Owens]

Once three full shifts and 7 day coverage is implemented in Tulsa, there is more than enough capacity. I know everyone wants to feel important and that AA cannot replace them or their work area. But when the facts are laid out on the table, that just simply is not the case.

You can thank the Line AMT's for the weekends off in Tulsa complaining for helping us all out by getting this brought to management attention. Tulsa will now be more effecient.

While nobody else does the scale of OH AA does most carriers do some OH in house including WN, UA and DL. Do any of those places have similar restrictions as far as working the weekends? I dont know of any. I agree with fighting to save the work but this is BK and if we have restrictions that nobody else has it makes it more likely that the judge would grant the companies request.

The company has been pushing for 7 day coverage all through negotiations. The fact that they still want it shows that they want to increase the capacity of the remaining bases, in a way it should be viewed as a good thing, it means fewer job cuts because 24-7 staffing would require more staffing not less. The 1/7th rule is something that the base has that as far as I know no other carrier has, in the meantime we all gave up stuff that nobody else gave up such as Vacation, Holidays, sick time etc.

 

[Buck]

That is the dream sheet for sure.. But in the grand scheme of things OH is going away I am sorry to say and Line MX isn't that much more secure. If you look at all the other airlines no one does in house MX anymore at least for C checks. I work for FX and we do an occasional C check but by and large we do B checks only. They also just adjusted the pay rate again so that new hires are screwed even though the top tier is doing very well. OH is going away if it hasn't disappeared already. Those of you at AA better get used to that idea real quick. Not to say those of you in OH are less valuable than line but fact is you will HAVE to work line to keep your job in the future because OH is going bye bye..

Ok so it's going away if that is what is to happen there is nothing the employees can do about it. The binding arbitration has literally taken the guaranteed vote of the membership, as promised by Jim Little.

I do not see it shutting down in the morning. When it does the membership will do what it must.

 

[Buck]

The company has been pushing for 7 day coverage all through negotiations. The fact that they still want it shows that they want to increase the capacity of the remaining bases, in a way it should be viewed as a good thing, it means fewer job cuts because 24-7 staffing would require more staffing not less. The 1/7th rule is something that the base has that as far as I know no other carrier has, in the meantime we all gave up stuff that nobody else gave up such as Vacation, Holidays, sick time etc.

The 1/7th rule is going away. My dock 1D in TUL is working 7 day coverage, however the company is failing because they will not man it fully and some of the supervision is set on destroying any morale the crew has left.

 

[Overspeed]

More spin, compare AARs starting wage to AA's top wage. Starting pay at AA is currently $14.74 plus license and premiums, so where do you get 2x? Its not what AAR pays their guys, its what AAR charges AA for the work and the quality of the work. Have you ever even worked for AAR?

Uh no I have not worked for AAR. Have you ever successfully negotiated a CBA?

The 2X wage was to illustrate the point that a topped out AMT at AA working straight time could have either two AAR AMTs or one working double time and still not make what an AMT does at AA. Remember, most of AA's AMTs are topped out.

Your right, it is not what AAR pays but what AA would pay for the work. So if the AA rate is about $100/hour with no profit margin (what AA charges itself) or $55/hour with a profit margin for the work at AAR which is cheaper?

 

[Overspeed]

It's not on their wish list because it's rubbish. A WN mechanic doing the same thing I do on a 737 is making over $40 an hour. The only ones bleeding this compAAny are the ones running it.

What do you do and what do WN AMTs do? There are about 1500 WN AMTs working on about 600 airplanes making $40/hour. I know they are not doing everything we do in-house. But they do have a base in PHX and DAL so at least 500 of them are working base type work. If most of those are line AMTs then they have 1.7 AMTs per aircraft. Let's apply that to AA on the line, 600 aircraft with 3500 AMTs or approximately 5.8 per aircraft. So that means we need at AA 4.1 more AMTs per aircraft to work on our aircraft. I know, we have widebodies so let's look at that. If approximately 400 737s and MD80s are run at the WN AMT per aircraft we should have 680 line AMTs working those and let's say 8 per aircraft for the 757s, 767s, and 777s for line work only, no BC. The 757, 767, and 777 would take 1600 AMTs. That's 2,280 AMTs on the line working like WN AMTs at $40/hour. The rest of the 1220 AMTs must be working BCs. If you man all 13 BC lines (I might have missed a few) and manned them all at 45 AMTs that justifies another 585 AMTs so now we are up to 2 AMTs working like WN at $40/hour.

So we would need to RIF 635 AMTs on the line and do the same amount of work to be like WN. That gets you about $55M but will the guys that stay really do the same work as WN? Hmmm...

 

[Rogallo]

Have you ever successfully negotiated a CBA?

Have you ever successfully negotiated a CBA......that wasn't concessionary?

Not much to brag about if you have!!

 

[strikeforce]

What do you do and what do WN AMTs do? There are about 1500 WN AMTs working on about 600 airplanes making $40/hour. I know they are not doing everything we do in-house. But they do have a base in PHX and DAL so at least 500 of them are working base type work. If most of those are line AMTs then they have 1.7 AMTs per aircraft. Let's apply that to AA on the line, 600 aircraft with 3500 AMTs or approximately 5.8 per aircraft. So that means we need at AA 4.1 more AMTs per aircraft to work on our aircraft. I know, we have widebodies so let's look at that. If approximately 400 737s and MD80s are run at the WN AMT per aircraft we should have 680 line AMTs working those and let's say 8 per aircraft for the 757s, 767s, and 777s for line work only, no BC. The 757, 767, and 777 would take 1600 AMTs. That's 2,280 AMTs on the line working like WN AMTs at $40/hour. The rest of the 1220 AMTs must be working BCs. If you man all 13 BC lines (I might have missed a few) and manned them all at 45 AMTs that justifies another 585 AMTs so now we are up to 2 AMTs working like WN at $40/hour.

So we would need to RIF 635 AMTs on the line and do the same amount of work to be like WN. That gets you about $55M but will the guys that stay really do the same work as WN? Hmmm...

forget about your math class. WN and AA run different maintenance programs. AA has extensive IFE systems that take up countless hours of manpower. Plus, the BOW differ between fleet types. I'm sure that WN amt's are very proficient on the 737, while AA amt's are somewhat proficient on 5 fleet types. Does anyone know the manhours dedicated to WN's 737 overall maintenance program compared to AA's 737?? Plus, ECO's??? Then, add in how many hours the 757, 767, 777 & MD-80 take up throughout the year. There's a valid reason why AA has 10K amt's on payroll, and that's because they need that many to satisfy their maintenance needs.