Dismissing AMFA
By: Joe
Alston, 18-year UAL mechanic,
In February 2007, four mechanics and I filed a grievance for a violation of our contract and the established overtime procedure. What should have been a simple grievance has turned into an exercise in futility. The issue of the bypass was brought to the attention of management and AMFA. Instead of ensuring that the contract and agreed upon procedure were followed, AMFA, in effect, sided with management in allowing this violation of the overtime procedure to continue.
The AMFA Area Rep reasoning for this was, “Who’s it going to hurt?” It hurt myself and the four other mechanics who were denied the opportunity to work the overtime that another mechanic improperly took. The grievance was denied by the Local 9 Grievance Committee due to their inability to understand contract language. As the violation continued, a second set of grievances were filed which once again showed that the contract language and the company procedure were being violated.
Our AMFA representation turned a “blind eye” to the situation and turned away from its duty and obligation to enforce the contract and ensure that management follows it. I was finally notified in May 2007 that the second set of grievances was accepted by the Grievance Committee and would go to the second step hearing.
By August, we were still waiting for our grievances to be heard. In a union meeting in the cafeteria at that time, we were told by AMFA officers that they were still handling grievances from 2005 and 2006 and we needed to “stand in line.”
As of today, our grievance hearings are still unscheduled. In a recent AMFA Local 9 Airline Rep report (October 29, 2007) it states in reference to the delay in the grievance processes that: “The hold up has not been by the union.” Supposedly it’s due to United’s HR offices being reorganized. AMFA doesn’t seem to want to give us a straight answer. First we had to “stand in line” because of a backlog of one to two years and now it’s because United is moving its HR offices. Which is it? Excuses, excuses.
When AMFA first became our representative in July 2003, I was informed by AMFA that “you must pay dues or get dismissed from the company.” Well, I feel I’m not getting representation for my dues, so who will dismiss them? The Teamsters will uphold our contract and ensure that it is enforced. It’s time to dismiss AMFA and vote the Teamsters in.