Us Air Mechanics
- Thread starter PRATT4056
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NeedForSpeedNFS
Veteran
- Mar 12, 2004
- 517
- 0
easy there dell, think he has a valid point.........we are the only mechs represented by the IAM, Not saying our situation is their fault, but just reminding you of that point!!!! GOOD DAY!!!!delldude said:
local 12 proud
Veteran
- Mar 5, 2004
- 4,265
- 4
at least the I.A.M. is making a stand thus far, the same can't be said about the Tottally Worthless Union (twu) we were sold out here at AA without ever facing the judge! AMFA may not be the answer, but they sure can't be any worse than the industrial catch all due's collection agency unions who are selling out the AMT's.
- Banned
- #6
An article in today’s New York Times discusses the possible termination of
United Airlines employee pension plans. This is not the first, nor will it be the last,
article to speculate on the future of pension plans.
During negotiations for the 2002 IAM-UAL agreements, the IAM proposed that
our members participate in the IAM National Pension Plan. The Aircraft Mechanic’s
Fraternal Association (AMFA) poisoned our efforts to provide a secure retirement by
spreading lies about the soundness of the plan. If not for AMFA’s selfish efforts, there
would be no question today about the funding or stability of the pension plans for
IAM members at United Airlines.
In today’s Times article, AMFA is advocating the demise of pension plans.
“You’ve got to gut the pension plans,†said O.V. Delle-Femine, AMFA’s National
Director. “I don’t see any other way.â€
AMFA is suggesting a move that United Airlines has never proposed to any
employee group.
“How AMFA misrepresents its own members is their business,†said District 141
President Randy Canale. “However, the IAM has members working under five
agreements that share the same pension plan as AMFA’s Mechanic & Related members.
AMFA’s zeal to destroy their members’ pensions has the potential to affect ours as well.â€
With his foolish statement, Delle-Femine is putting all UAL employee pensions at
risk. “It is the job of employee representatives to preserve benefits, not tee them up so
management and/or the bankruptcy court can take a swing at them,†said Canale.
During retiree insurance benefit negotiations, AMFA eagerly reached a secret
tentative agreement with the company that dramatically lowered the bar for all other
employee groups. The Union Coalition was forced to regain what AMFA had already
willingly given away.
Once again, AMFA is setting United’s employees down a dangerous path.
United Airlines employee pension plans. This is not the first, nor will it be the last,
article to speculate on the future of pension plans.
During negotiations for the 2002 IAM-UAL agreements, the IAM proposed that
our members participate in the IAM National Pension Plan. The Aircraft Mechanic’s
Fraternal Association (AMFA) poisoned our efforts to provide a secure retirement by
spreading lies about the soundness of the plan. If not for AMFA’s selfish efforts, there
would be no question today about the funding or stability of the pension plans for
IAM members at United Airlines.
In today’s Times article, AMFA is advocating the demise of pension plans.
“You’ve got to gut the pension plans,†said O.V. Delle-Femine, AMFA’s National
Director. “I don’t see any other way.â€
AMFA is suggesting a move that United Airlines has never proposed to any
employee group.
“How AMFA misrepresents its own members is their business,†said District 141
President Randy Canale. “However, the IAM has members working under five
agreements that share the same pension plan as AMFA’s Mechanic & Related members.
AMFA’s zeal to destroy their members’ pensions has the potential to affect ours as well.â€
With his foolish statement, Delle-Femine is putting all UAL employee pensions at
risk. “It is the job of employee representatives to preserve benefits, not tee them up so
management and/or the bankruptcy court can take a swing at them,†said Canale.
During retiree insurance benefit negotiations, AMFA eagerly reached a secret
tentative agreement with the company that dramatically lowered the bar for all other
employee groups. The Union Coalition was forced to regain what AMFA had already
willingly given away.
Once again, AMFA is setting United’s employees down a dangerous path.
local 12 proud
Veteran
- Mar 5, 2004
- 4,265
- 4
i dont think any union has much power when the company is using the threat of going chapter 11, yes they can stand their ground but the judge will decide, however UA mechanics fared better in bk court than the AA mechanics did outside of court :huh:
“You’ve got to gut the pension plans,†said O.V. Delle-Femine, AMFA’s National
Director. “I don’t see any other way.â€
********************************************************************
700UW: Funny but I read that same article and I do recall the above statement by Delle-Femine simply as elaborating on the COMPANY'S OPTIONS. NOT advocating or suggesting (as you imply) going after the pensions. Nice attemp to skew the reputation of the AMFA.
I know the IAM has some very hard feelings about getting kicked out by most mechanics that they once misrepresented. But that was ENTIRELY the IAM's own doing. "A baggage handlers job is directly related to that of a mechanic." Remember that famous quote by Ken Theide to the NMB during the class and craft hearings at UAL by the AMFA????? Why don't you paste that quote too as long as you are prevaricating about unions??????????
Your attempt to tarnish Delle-Femine by EDITING the article to suit your own interests is exactly what got the IAM voted out at UAL, NWA and AK. And the only whining I ever hear is from diehard IAM members under the AMFA. Yessiree!!!
SORE LOSERS!!!!
Make NO mistake about it. The IAM WILL strike a deal when provoked with another $1.2 Million bribe
oh I mean administrative costs reimbursement.....you know the one that was only granted IF the re-vote was past :down: :down: You should quit while you are ahead.
Wow.......I'm still so confused !!!! Just like Vinny Barbarino 
Director. “I don’t see any other way.â€
********************************************************************
700UW: Funny but I read that same article and I do recall the above statement by Delle-Femine simply as elaborating on the COMPANY'S OPTIONS. NOT advocating or suggesting (as you imply) going after the pensions. Nice attemp to skew the reputation of the AMFA.
I know the IAM has some very hard feelings about getting kicked out by most mechanics that they once misrepresented. But that was ENTIRELY the IAM's own doing. "A baggage handlers job is directly related to that of a mechanic." Remember that famous quote by Ken Theide to the NMB during the class and craft hearings at UAL by the AMFA????? Why don't you paste that quote too as long as you are prevaricating about unions??????????
Your attempt to tarnish Delle-Femine by EDITING the article to suit your own interests is exactly what got the IAM voted out at UAL, NWA and AK. And the only whining I ever hear is from diehard IAM members under the AMFA. Yessiree!!!
SORE LOSERS!!!!
Make NO mistake about it. The IAM WILL strike a deal when provoked with another $1.2 Million bribe
oh I mean administrative costs reimbursement.....you know the one that was only granted IF the re-vote was past :down: :down: You should quit while you are ahead.Wow.......I'm still so confused
!!!! Just like Vinny Barbarino I'm afraid this is going to become an AMFA vs. IAM pissing match (again). Unfortunately its time for one of these unions (the IAM in this case) to stand up and say enough is enough. By capitulating with the management we saved a few hundred jobs today and thus kept dues rolling in, but unfortunately, its costing the entire industry jobs on a much larger basis. Sooner or later somene has to fall on their sword for the good of the profession in general and show that if you push too far you are going out of business chapter 7 style; even if this costs several hundred IAM jobs.
- Banned
- #14
The article I posted was from Randy Canale.E-TRONS said:“You’ve got to gut the pension plans,†said O.V. Delle-Femine, AMFA’s National
Director. “I don’t see any other way.â€
********************************************************************
700UW: Funny but I read that same article and I do recall the above statement by Delle-Femine simply as elaborating on the COMPANY'S OPTIONS. NOT advocating or suggesting (as you imply) going after the pensions. Nice attemp to skew the reputation of the AMFA.
I know the IAM has some very hard feelings about getting kicked out by most mechanics that they once misrepresented. But that was ENTIRELY the IAM's own doing. "A baggage handlers job is directly related to that of a mechanic." Remember that famous quote by Ken Theide to the NMB during the class and craft hearings at UAL by the AMFA????? Why don't you paste that quote too as long as you are prevaricating about unions??????????
Your attempt to tarnish Delle-Femine by EDITING the article to suit your own interests is exactly what got the IAM voted out at UAL, NWA and AK. And the only whining I ever hear is from diehard IAM members under the AMFA. Yessiree!!!
SORE LOSERS!!!!
Make NO mistake about it. The IAM WILL strike a deal when provoked with another $1.2 Million bribe
Wow.......I'm still so confused
If you read the full version of the NYT article the quote is there:
It is even on some of the AMFA's locals web page, I did not edit any article.
http://www.heraldtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll...NYT01/407020732
United's Pensions on Increasingly Shaky Ground
By MARY WILLIAMS WALSH
New York Times
As United Airlines prepares to ask workers for a new round of cutbacks, its pension plans look increasingly vulnerable. The airline has four big plans, and shedding any one could lop off more than $1 billion in debt.
Such a drastic step could nudge other airlines to trim their pension plans as well, to keep their labor costs competitive. The long-term prospect could be a series of failed pension plans and lost benefits reminiscent of those in the steel industry, a costly outcome for the government.
Which workers' pensions at United are most at risk? Those with the biggest pensions - the pilots - might not, in fact, be first in the cross hairs.
Because the pilots' fund had good returns during the stock market boom, it built a big reserve of credits for funding purposes. That cushion has allowed United, a unit of the UAL Corporation, to contribute less cash to that plan than to the others since entering bankruptcy, even though the pilots have been promised by far the most benefits.
The most recent data suggest that the pension plan for United's mechanics has been consuming the most cash in the last two years. United's plan for administrative workers and managers appears to have required the second-largest amount of cash, followed by the plan for flight attendants.
As long as this pattern continues, United could conserve more cash in the short term - and make itself more attractive to lenders - by chopping one or more of its skimpier pension plans. It could either freeze the benefits at their current level, or terminate one or more plans outright - a far more drastic step that would require approval by the bankruptcy court.
A termination would save the airline more money but also cause an uproar in the workplace. To minimize the backlash, United might start with the plan that has promised the smallest benefits - the flight attendants' plan - because government insurance would cover more of those promises. The flight attendants have already agreed to pension reductions, and they are bitter about a new plan to cut retiree health insurance. United might ease the pain by giving them other retirement benefits, like an enriched 401(k) plan.
United declined to discuss any aspect of its pension plans, and officials of the unions that represent its employees said the airline had not yet contacted them for discussions. Just a few weeks ago, United said in a bankruptcy court filing that it viewed its pension plans "as untouchable unless there was no other choice." But that was before the government denied loan guarantees to United. O. V. Delle-Femine, national director of the Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association, said he now feared the worst.
"You've got to gut the pension plans," he said. "I don't see any other way."
Whatever United does will be closely watched by the other major airlines and their employees, who have substantial pensions of their own to worry about. If United ultimately revives itself by terminating one or more of its pension plans, other airlines may also try to shed pension debt, to remain competitive.
This would not happen overnight. Pension terminations are difficult and costly. But over time, the industry could find itself in a long, slow race to the bottom - a succession of bankruptcies and pension defaults similar to those in the steel industry over the last quarter of a century. Steel maker after steel maker went bankrupt, and the only ones to bounce back were those that scuttled their pension plans.
In the process, the government had to take over $9.4 billion worth of pension obligations. Because pension insurance has limits, many steel workers had their benefits reduced.
A replay of those grim events in the aviation sector would be painful for airline employees, and ominous to workers in other mature industries, like automaking, where the pension obligations are also large and growing faster than revenues. And it would probably swamp the government's insurance program.
In May, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation disclosed that it was beginning to stabilize after two years of losses, but it warned that it had just classified $23.4 billion worth of airline pensions as "reasonably possible" to default.
The agency did not specify how much of that amount was owed to United employees. But last year it calculated that if United terminated all four pension funds immediately, they would be $7.5 billion short.
In earlier rounds of cost-cutting, United scaled back some of its pension plans. The flight attendants, for instance, are building their pensions at a slower rate than before the bankruptcy filing, saving United a reported $43 million a year.
Mr. Delle-Femine of the mechanics said that the unions might be able to form a coalition to negotiate pension cuts. But the employee groups' interests diverge, and Mr. Delle-Femine said that if full-blown terminations were coming, as he expected, the unions would be unable to stick together.
"Everybody's crying that they're not going to take it out of my hide," he said.
United has disclosed that it has contributed $127 million to its four pension funds this year. It must still contribute $598 million, some by July 15 and the rest by Oct. 15. A United spokeswoman declined to specify what portion applied to each plan, or to provide up-to-date information about the plans' financial strength.
Despite the sums at stake, the airline is not required to disclose current, detailed information about its pension funds. No company is. Some pension data must be disclosed in financial reports, but companies with several funds, like United, usually provide aggregate figures.
More detail on individual plans can be found in the annual reports filed with the Labor Department. But the filing deadline is seven months after the close of the year, and companies are given ample extensions, so the information is out of date - particularly in rapidly changing situations.
United's most recent pension reports are dated Dec. 31, 2002. Since then, the stock market has turned up, some plans have been reduced, and Congress has relaxed the pension-funding rules. But the numbers offer a rough sense of how the termination of any one pension plan might affect United's finances and workers' benefits.
Not only has the pilots' plan promised the most benefits, but it has promised them to the smallest number of people, meaning very rich individual benefits are at stake. As of December 2002, about 500 active pilots had worked enough years to earn pensions of more than $100,000 a year. Sixty-four of them had earned pensions of $150,000 a year.
If United defaulted on that plan, the pilots at these levels could experience big losses. Government insurance generally covers a maximum of $44,386 a year. People who have already retired when a plan fails can sometimes get more, depending on the amount in the plan. But those too young to retire are often out of luck. Those who have tried to recover their losses in court, like the pilots of Pan Am, have found that the pension agency is a tireless litigator.
The average United pilot was about 44 years old in 2002 and had built up a pension of just $26,000, the records show. Such pilots would probably have full insurance coverage if the plan failed. But they would miss the opportunity to accumulate the six-figure pensions that were standard in the past, and would probably not back down without a fight.
When US Airways found it had to terminate its pilots' pension plan to emerge from bankruptcy, the pilots threatened to force the airline into liquidation. US Airways countered with a very rich retirement package that fell short of a guaranteed pension plan. That satisfied US Airways' lenders, but the cost of the new benefits canceled out much of the savings from ending the old ones.
All that makes the pilots' pension plan an unappealing starting point for United to look for savings.
The mechanics' plan has some similar issues. Its benefits are much smaller than the pilots', but a significant share of them were granted in 2002. The government does not fully cover benefits granted within five years of a pension termination. So part of the mechanics' most recent raise would disappear if the plan went to the government.
"They'd lose big time," Mr. Delle-Femine said, adding that if United gave notice of a termination, the union would try to block it in court. "If they said, 'Let's sit down and negotiate this stuff,' I'd say, 'Let's see what the bankruptcy judge says first.' "
The other two plans, for flight attendants and administrative workers, might be the most vulnerable. The administrative workers, managers and ticket agents are not represented by a union. Terminating their plan would wipe some $1.7 billion in unfunded pension debt off the books. These workers tend to earn pensions safely within the government's insurance limits. The 34 longest-serving employees in this category have earned pensions averaging about $32,000 a year, the records show.
Most flight attendants would also be fully covered by the government's insurance. The most senior had salaries of a little more than $40,000 a year in 2002. Forty-two had 39 years of service, entitling them to pensions of about $36,000 a year.
Last modified: July 02. 2004 12:00AM
I believe you owe me an apology.
TUG SLUG:tug_slug said:
I do realize the severity of the situation at UAIR and I am not making light of it. I will be in the same boat with you and the thousands of others..........
h34r: I cannot sit by while someone promotes falsehoods that will mislead the masses. Keep the debate clean and factual.....let the people decide what is better. But some people will do anything to protect their own interests.
What I posted to 700UW was factual. You can call Delle-Femine up and personally ask him about what he said. Can you do that with Buffenbarger???? "Ahhh, I'm sorry but we cannot divulge that info at this time." Gotta love those secrets!!!
Look up the NMB website and search the class and craft hearings and see for yourself.
Good luck to all of us.
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