The TRUTH about
Continental Airlines
By:
Throughout this organizing drive, the Teamsters have made a point to take the high road. We’ve provided the facts and offered our vision for representing UAL mechanics. It’s been a difficult task for us not to respond to misleading materials that have been put out by the AMFA, but we know we’ve done a good job in focusing on what really matters—what we bring to the table for UAL mechanics.
The following issue, however, is one we simply could not ignore because of its gross inaccuracy. It hits close to home because, in past issues of the Committee for Change newsletter, several Continental Airlines mechanics submitted personal accounts about the benefits of having a Teamster contract. Solid scope (job protection) language is a big part of this contract, and something they—and we—are quite proud of having accomplished.
A recent AMFA flier pointed to Pace Airlines gaining a contract to perform heavy maintenance checks on some of Continental’s 737-300 and 737-500 aircraft, suggesting that the Teamsters are allowing the outsourcing of work that Continental mechanics would normally perform. This could not be further from the truth.
Here is the truth: No Continental mechanics lost any work. The work that Pace will now be performing had already been previously outsourced by the company. The fact is, as with many airlines, outsourcing had taken place at Continental BEFORE the Teamsters were elected as the union there. However, since the Teamsters became the union representative for mechanics at Continental, jobs have been brought back in house. We’ve increased the head count at Continental by over 18 percent. We had an increase from 3,050 mechanics and related to 3,650 between December 1998 and August 2007. And no one was lost in concessions in the post 9/11 period. The furlough list has been exhausted and new mechanics have also been hired.
We are very proud of this accomplishment. What has taken place at AMFA-represented airlines is quite different, with the loss of 3,289 jobs at UAL between 2003 and 2006, which left many mechanics and related out on the streets.
Anything you hear otherwise about Continental is a distortion of the truth. Please look at the AMFA materials you are receiving, with the understanding that, as in this case, they simply may not be true. I encourage you to do your own research, keep up with the press, and go to www.teamster.org and www.teamstersatual.com for information on what the Teamsters have done, and are doing, for our members in the aviation maintenance industry.