I was told that Evie Rodriguez told guys at JFK that the line needs to vote for this so the company can outsource enough OH to make the line the majority and in Tulsa they are telling them they have to vote for this to keep Tulsa the majority. Jim Ream told the guys at LGA they need to vote for it so they can outsource more OH work that they can get done cheaper and then told the guys at JFK that the company would like to pay their line mechanics what competitors pay their line mechanics but pay OH what competitors pay for overhaul but "unfortunately" the 6500 people in OH control the discussion. (The fact is that our competitors pay their OH mechanics nearly or exactly the same as their line guys, they just have less of them-the guys did not bite and had no interest in Tulsa bashing and instead hit upon the deficiencies of the offer and their treatement of mechanics. ) In other words he was saying to the line guys that if AA didnt have the base that the line guys would get what their peers get and thats why they need to vote YES, because the LBO-2 would allow the company to outsource that work and eventually(in three years) bring the line guys up to the average of the bottom three.
Look at the language, neither is completely true, headcount will go down, possibly by 4000 by 2017 whether we vote this in or not, but I doubt they will decrease the Bases to the point where the line outnumbers the base. AFW may close in a year or so but DWH will expand, Tulsa will probably shrink but so will the line. The question before us is not about saving jobs, its whether or not we explicetly put in langauge allowing them to outsource in addition to the lowest compensation and worst work rules in the industry (wage adjustment included) for at least 6 more years.
Right now there are around 6500 in the bases, 3000 in the line and 2000 in Title II. So thats 11500 total, 35% of 11500 is 4025, The language allows 35% outsourcing, now thats maintenance spend, because its "spend", including parts and materials, it would allow more than 35% of the jobs to be outsourced, not less.
So Tulsa is running around telling their guys that if they vote YES they are saving their jobs, that instead of losing 4000 jobs they would only cut 2000 jobs, but in the language it says that they can outsource 35% of the "maintenence spend", and 35% of the jobs would be 4000. So how does voting yes save jobs when a YES vote explicitly allows them to outsource at the very least 4000 jobs?
If you want to save jobs dont work OT. Why take a paycut to save jobs? Paycuts dont save jobs because jobs are primarily driven by demand for labor, not primarily the cost of labor,so if you work fewer hours and demand stays the same you help create more jobs. If you make fewer hours available then more people will need to be hired to accomplish the same amount of work. If two people agree to work 60 hours a week they are doing three persons work and eliminating one job. If wages go down to where you need to work more hours then what you are doing is eliminating more jobs. great for the company, not so good for the workers, the ones who keep working or the ones who no longer have a job.
AA's business plan is built around us being willing to work double digit percentages in OT, in other words several hundred hours per year.So if everyone refused OT they probably could not lay off anyone right now or in the near future. Attrition would absorb the fall in demand.
