Another example of how you just don't understand what you are talking about. See the way things work is that someone at HDQ figures out how much headcount is needed at a particular station, terminal, etc....... That person really has no loyalty to other management employees, they're just trying to get costs down. So when you see management around, especially at the level that you interact with, there is probably a reason. Maybe that is scheduling, supervising, or union contract realated activities, yes, in fact union contracts create the need for added management. Another point, its much easier to fire a management employee, so most station managers will give up management and support staff before they let union people go. Point is, you aren't in a position to say whether is money spent for nothing or not.
What's Your Self Worth?
- Thread starter Man of the People
- Start date
Another example of how you just don't understand what you are talking about. See the way things work is that someone at HDQ figures out how much headcount is needed at a particular station, terminal, etc....... That person really has no loyalty to other management employees, they're just trying to get costs down. So when you see management around, especially at the level that you interact with, there is probably a reason. Maybe that is scheduling, supervising, or union contract realated activities, yes, in fact union contracts create the need for added management. Another point, its much easier to fire a management employee, so most station managers will give up management and support staff before they let union people go. Point is, you aren't in a position to say whether is money spent for nothing or not.
Oneflyer said:
So shared sacrifice is officially dead? According to the "Pull Together, Win Together" BS, I am in the position of lowering costs and pointing out wasted money is helping to lowering costs. Of course management bootlickers like OneFlyer only apply those concepts of lowering costs when it is the union folks whose salaries are reduced.
Do you not listen?
What part of
do you not understand?
You see about one tenth of one percent of the picture and somehow you feel capable of making decisions?
Its hard for you to understand, but I do not feel the same loyalty to management that you feel to others in your union. If we didn't need front line management AA wouldn't have it.
Hackman
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- Sep 30, 2003
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Then one tenth in my work area needs to be cut about six tenths. We have some of the most incompentent and inept management I have ever had the pleasure to witness. One can't even handle 5 people, so they had to move the lackey to "special projects" and hide him were he can't do anything too dumb, they should have canned his stupid a$$ long ago, but they won't. I see it over, and over, and over, and over.....for the better part of my nearly two decades of working for Arrogant Airlines. More waste and nonsensical BS then I can believe.Oneflyer said:
I had to put my hipwadders on for these two Oneflyer; "I do not feel the same loyalty to management that you feel to others in your union", and "If we didn't need front line management AA wouldn't have it", just simply stellar!!!! You my friend are not even close to a good liar. Do you get out of your cube at Centerport much? You really do need to get out in the trenches were the airline really runs, loosen up that necktie thats choking off your brains blood supply, and open your eyes wide Mr.-Ms. Naive, you really do.
This is precisely why Arpeys' "Pull together to Win Together" is a joke, it will not succeed in its present form, if at all. The compAAny is still a stodgy old "top down-top heavy" management system, and its not changing anytime soon. I see it every single day, along with many others.
Oneflyer said:
Thats right, they need all those managers to watch over the workers. Instead of paying fewer workers more money and letting them get the job done they would rather pay more workers less money and hire people to watch them, sure they can make sure they work but can they make them actually produce?
Gordon Bethune said it in his book, sure you can make them work all night, but that doesnt mean they are going to fix them, maybe thats why all those Airbus's are taking those twelve hour delays.
We used to see A-300s come in at 22:00, get a B-check, have an engine change and leave on a 10:00am flight the next day. Now, EC=24 hrs minimum, somethimes 3 days. Same airplane, same mechanics, 25% less pay.
Is this the mechanics way of fighting back? Hardly, its the result of a defeated demoralized workforce that no longer takes the initiative. If they were fighting back it would take a week, then get ferried to Tulsa.
Bob Owens said:
No wonder AA felt compelled to seek an injunction against the JFK mechanics in March, 2001.
May be time to do it again. Used to take 12 hours but now, post-concessions it takes 24 hours minimum? Sounds like a work slowdown to me. I hope AA agrees.
FWAAA said:
Well actually they could do it in as little as eight hours. Figure at least 2 hours from the time it gets in till Fleet service gets around to pushing it off the gate and it has to be on the gate at least one hour before the flight. Figure in at least 30 minutes each way for ground control.
Injuction? Fine, now let the Judge tell them which shortcuts they should take. Let the Judge tell them how to do their job. They like to tell airline workers that they should take pay cuts, let them tell them how to do their job!
The TRO they got last time resulted in a 777 getting trashed. A Supervisor took guys off a delivery (from a remote area to the gate) leaving a stair truck in front of the engine, the airplane was in an unfamiliar, unlit area and the crew taxiiing the aircraft was told to get the plane up to the gate right away. Normally the guy in the stair truck would pull away as soon as the guys who were taxiing it went on board but the Supervisor took him away and didnt tell anyone, leaving the truck in place. The crew could have called for the normal compliment of workers with the proper equipement but that would have been "going by the book" which the Judge, upon the company's request, said not to do. Well the guy who dispatched the aircraft apparently did not see the truck on the other side, the guys in the cockpit could not see it, and the airplane rolled over it, putting a hole in the side, destroying the engine cowling and, needless to say, the stairs truck.
Someone called the FBI claiming it was a deliberate act of sabotage. The FBI investigated and ruled it an accident.
During the Board of Inquiry following the accident management asked why they didnt go "by the book"(wands, headset, guidemen on each wing etc), to which they were told "We did it the way we have always done it, the supervisor screwed it up by taking the guy in the stair truck away without telling anyone, the company has a TRO against us instructing us not to go "by the book", if we had gone "by the book" it would have taken at least 20 miniutes to get guys and equipement over to the remote area. If we had done that you would have presented it to the judge as evidence that were violating the TRO and caused a needless delay by not doing things the way we normally did them." The hearing was pretty much over.
The effort to get a permanent injunction was comical. All the company had was a bunch of graphs as "proof" of a job action. The Judge threw it out. The fact is that mechanics put themselves at risk by not going "by the book" so the airlines can have "on time departures" and do more with less (contrary to popular belief the contract does not dictate headcount, company rules and regs and discretion does), when the company screws them over and throws the book at them they simply do the same back. Job action? How can that be? The company wrote the book! Thats what happened in Jan of 1999 after the "Hard Copy" incident. The mechanics did not decrease how much they worked or slow down, if anything they put out more work, they simply followed the book without any deviation whatsoever. Is that a slowdown? The mechanic can only write up what he sees, management decides whether or not to take the plane out of service, if they dissagree with what the mechanic thinks he sees they can sign it off. Well, after the company shut down JFK in 2001 and called all the planes out of service, even if they were ready to go, in order to seek an injunction to hogtie the militant Locals (NYC & LAX) they did fire one mechanic who they claimed wrote up too many items. The mechanic got his job back, with pay, in part because the arbitrator, who normally flew a lot, was not going to set a precedent where a mechanic could be fired for doing what his FAA liscence requires him to do-document any discrepancy he is aware of.
The fact is the company already did just about all they could to us. They not only stripped us of any disposable income we had, but they took away our holidays, vacation, sick time and forced us back into working second jobs just to get by. They (the company)elimated any chance we had of recouping the money we lost with a ban on OT. If it was broke it would have to wait. To us it was a pure spite move. They would rather cancel or delay flight than pay us OT. It seemed they wanted to make sure we suffered.
Around the time of the OT ban(by the company) I was working a live trip to LHR that required a first class seat change, one of those fancy $150,000 seats that we could not defer because of the way the paperwork was written. It was a tough job, for a seat, took us hours to change it with management,the Crew and passengers watching us and stepping over us as we worked. We requested they take the passengers off but the company refused. Our lunch break, the half hour that we are not paid for in our 8.5 hour day has to fall between our third and fifth hour, the Supervisor could not give us a paid lunch (OT ban from upper management plus the company demanded that it, the paid lunch language be removed from the contract) so we had to stop in the middle of the job for our lunch as everyone waited, we were willing to continue right through, but not on our own time, prior to the concessions we might have stuck with it anyway just to get it out, paid lunch or not. Is that a job action? Do I have to work for free just because I might have back when I was getting paid 25% more? Anyway the whole thing seemed dumb to me, if I were the Supervisor I would have paid the lunches, got the plane out and made my case to upper management later, they probably burned more money in fuel running the APU for the extra 30 minutes it took nevermind the extra time for the gate agents,crew and the couple of hundred people sitting there. They sent two guys up to relieve us for lunch but they couldnt get much done-turnovers are inefficient.
But thats the way it was.
The OT ban has since been lifted but its far too infrequent and sporadic to make much of a difference, most turn it down, they have to go to their second jobs or get home to take care of the kids so the wife can work. One day at the last minute something crapped out on a beautiful Saturday, the Supervisor was desperately trying to go through the list for someone to work OT on the airctaft as they were already short with a full workload before the plane crapped out, everyone was saying "No", the Supervisor turned to one mechanic who said "no" and said "I thought you guys needed the money" , the Mechanic replied, "I've learned to live without it. Its a beautiful day and there are other things I'd rather do than bail them out." Is that a "Job action"? Dont think so.
Right now we are defeated and demoralized, the company won, with the help of their lapdog union, we lost, getting an injuction against their lapdog could only liven things up a bit. If anything some guys would probably start a job action in the hopes that the court fines the crap out of the union.
OP
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Also, when we received a pay raise in 2001, AA said, since we were making more money now, they expected us to produce more. Sounds logical right? Well, guess what? Concessions came. Using the AA's own rationale, since we are making less now, that clearly must mean we should produce less. Makes sense to me.....
Wretched Wrench
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- Apr 21, 2003
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Bob, on the stairs truck incident, who gave the OK to taxi forward?
Was there any adverse personnel action by the company?
Was there any adverse personnel action by the company?
Wretched Wrench said:
The guy on the ground.
If I recall correctly the guy who was driving got 12 hours of OT, 10 days off with pay (waiting for drug test results) and a CR1, also had to go to a class on hand signals and taxi proceedures per ASAP. The other two, the guy in the right seat and the guy on the ground got the days off with pay too, I believe the guy on the ground also got a first step advisory.
Ken MacTiernan
Veteran
Stop the finger pointing and get to work saving the airline.
OK sword, right after I get my full revote I'll get right on saving the airline. On a side not, I sold 298 shares which were given to me in exchange for my roughly $120.000.00 (over 5 years) shared sacrifice. I am taking home $1400.00. I just helped with my part of saving the airline.
OK sword, right after I get my full revote I'll get right on saving the airline. On a side not, I sold 298 shares which were given to me in exchange for my roughly $120.000.00 (over 5 years) shared sacrifice. I am taking home $1400.00. I just helped with my part of saving the airline.
Hackman
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"The old adage that you get what you pay for really is true -- AA has never paid management employees equitably when compared to other industries or even to other airlines. Have you even gone to the street to interview for a management person? You get dregs. If the union folks are so smart at running the business, why don't they step up and fill vacancies? I don't see a flood of CDP resumes.... My guess is that most smart union employees know that management generally gets a raw deal.
Most management employees I've known that are still at AA are there because they genuinely love the airline and/or the business. Those that have left without being laid off have done so because they can easily net a sizeable salary increase. Sad, but very true.
That said, just like with every other workgroup you get good and you get bad. To hold all of management responsible for the sins of a few is just as bad as management holding the unions responsible for the slackers that everyone knows are out there.
Stop the finger pointing and get to work saving the airline."
Are you full of it or what? Get what you pay for is right, remember that, so don't expect us wage slaves to be exactly killing ourselves "saving the airline" when the management I know didn't up anywhere close to what the twu agreed to. (don't tell me we voted for it, the twu vote was a sham). AA Management still have the pay they had, no 17.5% cut, the vacation, the "comp time" or sick time, the holidays, and a laundry list of perks that goes on and on.
" My guess is that most smart union employees know that management generally gets a raw deal." HORSE HOCKEY! How is that?
Please explain Sword. I have to hear this nonsensical BullS*&^!! Make sure you lay it on thick.....
Most management employees I've known that are still at AA are there because they genuinely love the airline and/or the business. Those that have left without being laid off have done so because they can easily net a sizeable salary increase. Sad, but very true.
That said, just like with every other workgroup you get good and you get bad. To hold all of management responsible for the sins of a few is just as bad as management holding the unions responsible for the slackers that everyone knows are out there.
Stop the finger pointing and get to work saving the airline."
Are you full of it or what? Get what you pay for is right, remember that, so don't expect us wage slaves to be exactly killing ourselves "saving the airline" when the management I know didn't up anywhere close to what the twu agreed to. (don't tell me we voted for it, the twu vote was a sham). AA Management still have the pay they had, no 17.5% cut, the vacation, the "comp time" or sick time, the holidays, and a laundry list of perks that goes on and on.
" My guess is that most smart union employees know that management generally gets a raw deal." HORSE HOCKEY! How is that?
Please explain Sword. I have to hear this nonsensical BullS*&^!! Make sure you lay it on thick.....
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