Over the last two weeks a concern surfaced regarding the potential outsourcing of the mechanical services for the bag room at Dulles Airport. The timing of the discovery of this information definitely cast a pall over the negotiations. But I would contend that there was some good that came out of this incident. One very positive thing that occurred was that the bag room RFP was rescinded from the airport authority website.
Another positive thing that happened was that I got to witness three men in action working towards a quick resolution of the situation. David Bourne advocated the position of the Union, while Doug McKeen and Mike Bonds worked to get the facts surrounding the RFP. As we worked during the first week I was given assurance from both Doug and Mike that there would be no outsourcing of the shop. Then at the beginning of the second week of negotiations a manager from JBT came through the shop looking for information on what exactly our mechanics do as well as how many were currently assigned to the task. After David took this information to Doug and Mike, within a couple of hours the RFP was removed.
How the RFP was issued in the first place appears to have come from the Airport Authority as part of a much larger project. I would like to thank all three of these men for their hard work towards this quick resolution that ended up protecting the jobs of 13 mechanics.
