Actions Speak Louder Than Words—AMFA!
By: Rob Rendler, UAL mechanic, San Francisco
I have been at UAL for 22 years, so I have pretty much witnessed the expansion and contraction of maintenance here at United Airlines. Today, we mechanics find ourselves with a choice: Do we choose AMFA or the Teamsters? Let’s look at just a little history of how mechanics have fared thus far.
Remember: Actions speak louder than words. Everything UAL has done has had a willful disregard for us as mechanics and employees of UAL, Inc. Remember the EFLOP—where managers and above received bonuses in the tens of thousands, while we sacrificed and were only offered a 3 percent mid term wage adjustment.
July 2003: AMFA is certified as OUR representative. UAL is still in bankruptcy and needs approximately 180 million dollars in annual savings from the AMFA-represented employees. Simultaneously, UAL is crafting THE financial plan; Gershwin 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8… which puts a cap on AMFA mechanics at about 5,600. (Advantage: United)
Bankruptcy and the pension termination: UAL, Inc. could not possibly survive with such a large pension burden? In fact, annual payments were around $500 million. So after a very soft travel market in 1999-2000 and the 9/11 tragedies, United closed down the Indy & Oakland maintenance centers. They also stopped making payments to the pension plan that were required by law under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), knowing that the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) would have to step in and assume the pension liability at UAL. (Advantage: United)
777 & 747
HMV’s are allowed to leave the
Utility and Computer Techs wiped out! Entire classifications are gone. Again, it’s about cost savings. (AMFA negotiated; Advantage: United)
PW2000/4000 piece parts farmed out to Chromalloy Pratt &Whitney. I was Jet Shop Area Rep at the time that the PW4000 deal was made and AMFA was included. I was trying to assure that no one in the unprotected areas would be involuntarily laid off. But there was no strategy and no fight from above in AMFA. (Advantage: United)
Greg Hall/AMFA Local 9 preached the core competencies we would concentrate on: Engines, Components & Line Maintenance, but where’s OV? OV is stuck at the three C-checks called out for in the CBA.
The Transport Workers Union (TWU) and American Airlines seem to have an unprecedented union/management partnership. Their members still have their pensions. Remember, actions speak louder than words. Sorry Local 9 leadership; you can talk about us being an MRO all you want but that doesn’t make it so; if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s a duck.
Blending begins at LAX, ORD, etc. AMFA National says it’s “a local issue”? Former ALR Dave Frizzel goes to LAX to investigate, but that’s it. What happened to the grievance? (Advantage: United)
In early 2006, UAL signed a contract with Panasonic
for in-flight entertainment (more
blending).
Local 9 President Joe Prisco implies in his report that unions that stand rigid and don’t adapt become extinct, further implying that we must allow the takeover of the base. Our CBA covers sales/leasebacks, BUT UAL and New Co must have a different plan since we are being primed for a vote from both sides…collective good, more LEAN leads at SFO?
Prisco tries to make a point, implying in his
report that ALPA & ILWU did not stand rigid, but were receptive to
change at their respective time of industry change. In ALPA’s case, the
battle was two-man versus three-man crews. At the time, in the
seventies, ALPA lobbied the FAA hard to reject the two-man flight deck
as unsafe, and because of this the 737 was put through unprecedented
testing by the FAA to certify a two-man cockpit (Delta just got their
pilots to agree to a two-man DC-9 flight deck). ALPA even picketed in
ALPA negotiated a LOA with UAL, Inc. in March 2007, getting back for their members some of what was lost in bankruptcy. AMFA at the same period was negotiating its own LOA with UAL—not to get back for its members, BUT to give back. The “apprentice technician” (AMST) that would top out at $18.00/hr, is a C-scale.
It seems AMFA is listening to UAL’s woes since UAL only has 5 billion in the bank! AMFA feels compelled to help by creating a whole new class of cheap labor, and unlike the original apprentice language, these so-called apprentices will never see mechanics’ scale, nor does UAL want them to. Why would anyone even entertain this idea?
Haven’t WE helped enough? Wasn’t LEAN supposed to be the silver bullet to get customers knocking down our doors with work? AMFA’s mantra of Stability, Trust & Cooperation must have fallen on deaf ears.
Remember: Actions speak louder than words. AMFA will tell us that we’re lucky to have jobs.
It’s time for a change…it’s time for the TEAMSTERS!