Why Not Restore and More?

[frontline]

Personally I'd like to see some numbers that I could really take as "objective". Not from AA, not from TWU, not from any surrogates for either side.

I've already weighed in on the idea of "restore and more", so I won't rehash that. What I want for all workgroups are new contracts and raises that give us back some of the '03 concessions, but not to the point that we lose the whole damn company and have to hit the unemployment line.

 

[WeAAsles]

In 2002 there was approximately 36000 TWU members at AA , today its down to around 25,500. So you are off by around 30%. So it would only be around $765 million to give every TWU member a $30,000 a year payraise. If you figure the average airline worker was paid around $65000/yr then they slashed another $683 million from the TWU payroll by getting rid of all those jobs that our concessions were supposedly saving. So the company would only have to dip around $82 million into that $6billion of increased revenue.

TWU Headcount Oct 2002 Dec 2008

Title 1 14039 9955
Title 2 2544 2068
Title 3 17174 11983
Title 4 161 93
Title 5 1825 1320
Total 35743 25419

Despite the elimination of over 4000 Title 1 mechanics the recall list appears to be empty because the list indicates new hires with seniority dates of Nov 2008.


One would expect that with so many jobs eliminated there would be thousands on Recall, but there arent. Under the TWU contract the recall list is for 10 years so that means that everyone who wanted to come back already came back.

I've been told that in New York there are no step raises for Title II, new hires are hired in at top pay because they cant get anybody.

There arent qualified people out there waiting to take our jobs.

Bob

Thats because all the US airlines have eroded your profession so much that it's just not attractive to go to school for it anymore. I think kids today would rather go for auto mech or AC repair. It pays more and has just a little more stability. Not to mention that they wouldn't be stuck on midnights for 10 years.

We have the same problem in fleet and you don't even have to go to school for our profession. We have 5000 less people than 2002 and yet we have tons of new hires systemwide. They're trying to hire 50 part-timers here in DFW. In Miami they had to screen through 100's of applicants just to be able to hire what they got. Everyone kept failing the drug test! Does that tell you what kind of people are looking for this job?

You need to redo your math though. In fleet we lost about $10,000 a year. For restore and more let's just say that we'd like about $15,000 for someone at top pay to restore some purchasing power. I'll go with your math over Eolsen and Fwaa though. If they're dreams hold out they'll be on a plane together and wonder why an engine fell off and there bags ended up in Alaska if the junior inexperienced pilot can even land the bird and the ousourced attendant can open the emergency slide?

 

[Chuck Schalk]

Personally I'd like to see some numbers that I could really take as "objective". Not from AA, not from TWU, not from any surrogates for either side.

I've already weighed in on the idea of "restore and more", so I won't rehash that. What I want for all workgroups are new contracts and raises that give us back some of the '03 concessions, but not to the point that we lose the whole damn company and have to hit the unemployment line.

I agree that we need unbiased information to make an informed decision. I support an independent hired by the members to provide us with raw unbias data for negotiations may reveal valuable information that can be used in negotiations to our benefit.

 

[Bob Owens]

Bob


You need to redo your math though. In fleet we lost about $10,000 a year. For restore and more let's just say that we'd like about $15,000 for someone at top pay to restore some purchasing power. I'll go with your math over Eolsen and Fwaa though. If they're dreams hold out they'll be on a plane together and wonder why an engine fell off and there bags ended up in Alaska if the junior inexperienced pilot can even land the bird and the ousourced attendant can open the emergency slide?

The $30k was just a number that came up for discussion purposes between FWAAA and I. (Did you include the real dollar value for lost VC, Doubletime, Holiday pay, Medical increases etc? The VC and Loss of Holiday pay was worth at least $5K) But if we can show that $30k is reasonable and affordable then anything less is downright charitable!