There is plenty of money, well over $4 billion in cash and another $24 billion a year coming in, the question is what are we willing to do to get our share. Just because they filed BK that doesnt mean the money is not there, remember there is no means test for corporations in BK, do you believe they are broke? Boeing and Airbus are ramping up to build a lot of planes, do you think they would do that if they were not going to get paid? Sure BK presents a few more obsticles and risks but they arent insurmountable.
The Judge does not set wages or terms, but you knew that didnt you? He either rejects the deal or he doesnt. Why are you doing the companies bidding and spreading things that are not true? "Blame the Judge not the company "? If he throws out the contracts the company can impose new terms and we could immediately ask for release (we should have asked back in 2010) citing the fact that we have been in negotiations for over 4 years, rejected a TA, rejected a last offer or a subsequent TA and the company has chosen to impose new terms. If they made up some new reason to deny us then we should Wildcat. How do you think workers made gains in the past? Do you think they were all rich and "could afford" to go on strike or participate in "illegal" activities? Do you think that things got better because Labor supported the Democrats? It was the fact that enforcing those laws were causing more disruptions than they were designed to prevent that made them change the laws in the first place, the RLA was put together by the Railroads and the Unions under the direction of the government, well they altered things just enough to go back to their old ways of using the courts to do managements bidding, and if we ever want a fair shake we have to do what was done before., what drove the changes. You may want to sit on the sidelines and wait for another union to do it but the fact is we are at the bottom, and if we let the company get away with what they want the seperation between us and the rest of the industry will be permanent, we will always be at the bottom.
Lets say we dont fight, and we roll over to "save jobs". AA will increase capacity, lower prices and force competitors to lower their costs by going after workers wages as well, once they do AA will simply threaten to file once again, and you will be here saying that we need to give even more because we have so many mechanics, that AA cant pay us what competitors pay because we have so many mechanics, How do I know you will say that? because didnt you say the pretty much the same thing in 2003 that you are saying now? Give industry leading concessions to save jobs.
in other words arent you saying that because we have so many mechanics we have no leverage to increase wages up to what competitors pay then when the company makes the threat that if we dont agree to more cuts in wages and benefits that they will outsource jobs you spin around and say; "if we lose those thousands of jobs we will lose leverage'.Lose leverage for what? To get bottom of the industry pay? I think you may be a little schizophrenic, on the one hand you say that UPS mechanics have the leverage to get $50/hr and industry leading benefits because there are so few of them and they outsource all their heavy stuff ,then you say that if we did the same thing that we would lose leverage, so I have to wonder who are you saying would lose leverege, us or the company? Does having more workers provide you more leverage to get industry leading pay and benefits or does it provide the company leverge to keep wages low?
