Drippy Quill said:
The concessions did not affect the cost of fuel dummie...forget the strike is simply your way of stating you have no backbone...we knew that already.
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I read recently that adjusted for inflation the cost of fuel is around where it was in 1981. (Lets not forget that the high energy costs and reckless deficit spending of the early eighties resulted in the worst recession and highest unemployment since the Great Depression. In fact its looks like what we are going into now.)
No backbone?
Well look at what your buddy Cio has to say;
"The Unions are defenseless"
CIO is simply making excuses for the ineptness of the TWU.
Despite their AFL-CIO affiliation, or perhaps because of it, they have been able to do nothing but bring back concessionary contracts for the last twenty years.
AA has been one of the most profitable airlines over the last twenty years, nearly tripling in size. This expansion was financed by our concessions. While companies like TWA shrank, and thus extracted concessions as a means of sustaining life, much the same way the starving body will drain all the other organs to keep the heart pumping, the TWU gave more and more concessions to a continually expanding and healthy AA. Perhaps if we as a union sought to level the playing field instead of tipping into the companys favor, at our expense no less, then maybe TWA could have made it as a viable enterprise. Perhaps if the TWU had as much of an interest in maintaining the wage instead of increasing membership they would have.
It was not non-union Delta that led the industry in concessions but rather the TWU represented AA.
Long before the current downturn AA surpassed non-union Delta, and most other carriers in outsourcing by absolute dollars spent and percentage of work outsourced despite the fact that AA had the TWU create SRPs and then OSMs. Other unions also resisted the TWU policy of cannabalizing work from the top end and feeding it to the lower end of the payscale.
As a result of the poor economy other carriers had to seek to outsource because the only way that they could get the same labor cost structure as AA and keep the work in house would have meant that they would have had to cut some workers wages by 50%, something that their unions were not likely to accept. These other unions know that the TWU and AA are the ones killing everyone off,not the LCCs but the TWU uses the AMFA raid as an excuse to gag all the other unions. "If you guys blame AA for your problems the AMFA guys will use that and we will see the AFL-CIO lose more members".
Ironically an agreement that was put in place to strengthen the labor movement-No raiding, created the perfect enviornment for a company union to bring down living standards for the entire industry. This is one perfect example of the cure being worse than the disease.
Notice that the TWU does not represent pilots at any major airline, and the fact that their salaries over time has not lagged inflation like ours has. At the start of deregulation pilots made around double of what mechanics made, now they make around six times what we make. Are todays aircraft more difficult to fly than they were twenty years ago? The pilots will argue that their compensation, when looked at in its entirety has lagged inflation, and they are probably right, but if thats the case, when the gap between us has grown exponentially,what does it say about us? That graph of mechanics pay mainly reflects wages, not lost benifits etc.
You see AFL-CIO affiliation prevented a well financed raid that could have put a stop to all this twenty years ago. If Delta had tried to be the industry leader in concessions they no doubt would be union today, but with a union in place already, and one structured like the TWU where the top leaders are not accountable to the members and with a large concentration of workers in a low cost predominantly anti-union part of the country (Oklahoma and Texas-both RTW states) AA had situtation that was even better for them than having no union. They would get whatever they want as if there was no union and having the AFL-CIO affiliated TWU in place would eliminate the possibility of a more militant union coming in. This would allow AA, a "union" company to do what even non-union Delta could not do.
Despite the fact that you choose to deny it our concessions, combined with TWAs mismanagement over the last twenty years helped put your old employer out of business. Now you are part of AA with 4/10/01 or 25% if you choose to bump to the two most expensive areas of the country, yet you still back the TWU.
I agree with you about sticking together and if neccissary shutting down the whole thing, at this point its like shutting the barn door after the animals have run out but if we stay within the structure that you support, what has never yet happened, never will. Thats because AFL-CIO affiliation in reality protects the interests of the Sonny Halls, Thomas Buffenbargers and James Hoffas, not the workers. If anything it protects these people FROM us.
If you truly seek to have a better labor movement then you must agree that solidarity is a must. Well if you agree on that then how can you accept a structure that leaves us all spit up between unions that can only grow by offering companies a better deal instead of workers a better deal?(Remember within the AFL-CIO they cant take each others members by raiding but they can aquire them though mergers, buyouts or expansion.) Forget the letters A-M-F-A, just remember the goal of all mechanics in one union. The Democratic Constitution is in place so the opportunity for change is real and they have no qualms against stepping on the toes of a union of Machinists, truck drivers or transit workers, all non airline unions to achieve their goal of uniting all the mechanics in one union.
Now what is wrong with that? What future is there with the TWU? Are we to wait another 20 years until the TWU/AA alliance wipe out all the other carriers then hope that since they are the only game in town that they will work on restoring our wages? That will never happen. Besides who wants to win the race to the bottom?
