Troubling PBGC News

Here is a GAO report prior to PBGC implementation of a new diversified investment strategy. And here is an article from the Boston Globe last August warning about potential problems with the new investment strategy the PBGC was about to undertake. Here is a Wall Street Journal Article in October of last year decrying the change in policy as the fund lost around 5 billion dollars. Finally here is another report today describing the detrimental effects this policy has had on the Agency.

It is sad to see that the previous Administration's proposed Social Security Initiative was turned into an experiment using PBGC funds. While it is understood that the fund needed more capital, there are many ways to go about it without endangering the last shred of hope of a pension for many Americans. One thought would be to increase the insurance premiums on Companies to reflect the actual potential risks, especially for single employer plans, of plan termination. Of course it is too late to enact this type of revenue generation tool now.

As we watch the debate raging in the country regarding the auto industry my concern is more underfunded plans will now be dumped on the PBGC because of upcoming bankruptcies. This combined with horrible investment strategies will possibly cripple the fund which would then require a taxpayer bailout. With the growing sentiment against bailouts what will be the outcome? It's hard to say, but I think we definitely need to keep an eye on the situation.

That's all for now,
Bob

Weekly report 03-29-09

This week the Organizers Conference was held in D.C. Unfortunately I was unable to attend because of prior commitments. One of the most important aspects of the Conference was the lobbying that took place on our behalf. The issue that the group lobbied for was the moratorium on overseas aircraft overhauls. Tom Reid attended the Conference and told me the number of people lobbying was very impressive. If you do not receive the "Week in Review" and would like to see the language of the proposed bill, let me know and I will forward it to you.

As for negotiations the IBT site is now up and running. It can be found here. There is a permanent link now at the top of the blog as well as one on the homepage of the website. The Negotiating Committee will meet with the Company for our first face to face meetings on April 14^th. The Company currently also has a negotiations update site which I have looked at. I've decided not to post a link to the site because through the last negotiations the Company did a great job of disseminating bogus information. They are the opposition in this process, so I'm sure their site will be a continuing source of propaganda. Because of this, I feel it would be a huge disservice to the membership to post a link here.

For MM the big news this week is that the hangar is on hold. I'm told this decision will be reviewed again in June. There is also still talk about moving the 767 A checks here, but I'm not optimistic at this point. I talked with both Don and Ron this week regarding outstanding second step grievances and we are going to try to wrap them up this week. I inherited a third step from Newark, regarding seniority application, because the member now works at Dulles. I am going to review this grievance with Bob Luciano the week after next because he is in negotiations with CAL this coming week. As you may have heard several people have been recalled to Denver. I believe two from here have been offered recall. In addition I've heard that the remaining people here from Denver have been offered temporary assignments there because of the continuing workload. Unfortunately this does not translate into recalls for our displaced members at this time.

For GQ/PV the meeting on the outsourcing of the nine stations will happen on April 2^nd in Chicago. When I have more information I'll pass it on to you.

Back to the lobbying efforts, if you would like to help in the future please e-mail me so that I can add you to the list. I know it's difficult to donate your time but there is another way to help. For as little as four dollars a check you can contribute to D.R.I.V.E. This is the Teamsters PAC that brings our agenda to our Legislators. I have the forms in the office if you need one.

That's all for this week,
Bob

Weekly Report 3-21-09

This last week we mostly finalized our opener to the company. There is a subcommittee working on one final non economic article which will hopefully be ready for the April 14th meeting with the company.

I was impressed with the way the Steering Committee came together solidly over this last week. There were many different opinions on proposals that came up, with some looking for radical change and others looking for minor tweaks to the current language. In the end consensus was reached and we found ourselves somewhere in the middle of those two schools of thought. I think this committee was a good representation of the opinions and thoughts of the overall membership. As such I believe the opening proposal represents a good start to the negotiating process. After this proposal is presented to the company it will be available for review by the membership.

A new website has been created by Local 856 in San Bruno CA for the official negotiations updates. The site will begin to be updated when we start negotiating and will be updated throughout negotiations. It can be found here. There will be a link on the blog as well as the website as soon as updates begin. I would like to extend thanks to Business Agent Peter Finn for for his support in creating this very useful tool.

I would also like to thank Local 856 as they hosted this committee for the entire time, which took three weeks over the last couple of months. During that time the Local provided us with lunch each day as well as coffee and doughnuts each morning. They also had to put up with thirty five very loud guys disrupting their operations, and they did this all graciously. Local 210 also helped us by sponsoring three rank and file members on this committee and deserve our thanks as well.

That's all for this week,
Bob

Steering Committee Update

The process continues, and we are now in day three of proposal review in this final session. It is obvious the committee is starting to come together. We have reviewed many Articles with only a few to go. When the proposal is formalized and given to the Company it will be available to the membership.

The Negotiating Committee was informed that we will meet with the Company April 14th in Chicago. The first session will consist of the Company's state of the airline presentation.

The Testing Committee met with the Company this morning and they felt good progress was made.

On another subject, please be careful in what you view on the Companies computer network. Everything you type and view is stored to use against you if something inappropriate is found. Also be careful with refusals of direct orders. There are a few things that Arbitrators look at as taboos. Among those items are theft and gross insubordination. Only if there is a compelling reason will an Arbitrator return an individual to work if they are guilty of these infractions. Please don't give the company an easy reason to fire you.

That's all for now,
Bob

Weekly report 3-15-09

We finalized training for the negotiations committee yesterday. The training was led by Rich Lipsitz. Rich is a Business Agent with Local 264 in Buffalo New York. Rich has his Masters Degree and his previous position was a professor in the Labor Studies department at Cornell University. Also presenting was Paul Alves an International Representative from the Airline Division. Paul is a pilot and former ALPA representative. In addition to an overview of the process of negotiations under the Railway Labor Act the class worked through mock negotiations and other exercises to assist the committee at the table. It was an excellent class and all members of the team worked well together. It is a good start in my opinion.

If you don't know, David Bourne wrote a letter to the Company to officially start negotiations. We are to meet on April 14th for the Company's initial presentation. Here is a link to the letter.

Tomorrow the steering committee will meet beginning at 9am and we will meet until Friday or later if more time is needed to finalize our opening proposal.

While I am gone Tom Reid will be taking care of any grievances needing to be processed to the second step in MM and PV and Joe Filice will take care of the GQ side. I would like to thank both of these guys for their support.

In MM this week Larry Bailey is researching an open grievance. Jay Koreny called with interesting information on Friday afternoon. Jay found a deferral that was left open by Timco on a rudder check which came due over the weekend. Timco was going to come to Dulles to perform this work. I immediately called Bob Luciano and he contacted Don Burbank to express our displeasure with this type of work being done here by an MRO. Don agreed and the last information I have is that we were supposed to do the work. The third step on the Panasonic grievance was denied last week.

For GQ/PV we are still waiting on the company to present their information on the outsourcing issue.

The old MM overtime rules have been posted on the website.

That's all for now,
Bob

Overtime rules (old)

The old overtime rules are now up on the website. As you will see they are in need of updating as the first agreement is from 1997. We still follow many of these rules locally but there is nothing in writing.

Mid Week Report 3-10-09

There were a couple of items of interest this week.

First the Employee Free Choice Act was introduced into both Chambers of Congress today. The house bill is H.R.1409, and S.560 in the Senate. Having done some work in organizing I have seen firsthand why this legislation is needed. In addition as I have previously reported several companies including UPS, Harley Davidson, ATT and Verizon utilize recognition agreements. As of today none of those companies are failing even in a serious economic downturn. How can they afford to do this when Home Depot can't? Here is an article from CNN on the issue. This an excerpt from the article (If a retailer has not gotten involved with fight over this bill, he "should be shot," Bernie Marcus, co-founder and former CEO of The Home Depot, said during a conference call about the act last October. Retailers who don't speak out against it "should be thrown out of their goddamn jobs.") In contrast here is an open letter from leading economists supporting the legislation. And finally this article from Politico describes the job opportunities created by these bills. It's a good read and the people gaining from this are not who you would normally think about.

Today UAL presented at the JP Morgan Chase Transportation conference. Here is a link to the presentation from Kathyrn Mikells. While she says many things about the screwing labor took, it is still worth listening to if you have thirty seven minutes. One of the items she discusses is M&A activity in the industry and how it would be very difficult because of the current credit market. The link requires you to register, but it is free.

Another piece of interesting legislation was introduced by Congressman Obertstar. It can be found on the San Fran teamsters site here. This is a bill that would require a review of antitrust immunity with the purpose of promoting further competition in regards to Airline conglomerates.

As many of you know I am leaving Thursday for Teamsters negotiations training which will be followed by hopefully the final steering committee meeting. I should be returning on the 20th so the reports will deal mainly with what is happening in San Fran regarding negotiations for a short time.

That's all for now,
Bob

Weekly report 3-7-09

This week there were a couple of big issues in MM.

The first involved lead recall and there were several issues regarding the company's approach to this. First the laid off leads should have been recalled prior to posting a bulletin and this was pointed out to the company. Second the company determined one of the laid off leads was not eligible and this is now in the second step of the grievance process. The other two laid off leads were awarded the positions and one accepted and one turned it down. There was a question as to whether or not returning leads could exercise their seniority to establish their shifts by bumping. After reading the CBA and the Washington Area Seniority Agreement it was determined returning leads would fill the vacancies. The seniority agreement is now posted here. Apparently the company also missed one of the mechanics bid forms and the Shop Steward on midnight shift has been instructed to file a grievance. As far as the leads not being able to bump this brings up an issue for contract negotiations. As many of you know I believe we should be able to utilize our seniority to establish our shifts on a bi-annual basis and I have received several proposals to establish this practice.

The second large issue was the assignment of mechanics overseas to open operations at stations. As I have told many of you before our agreement is very weak in regards to these assignments. There have been several proposals to strengthen this language and there is much better language in some of the other agreements in our industry. In the mean time the company is hot on having a sign up list for overtime. Many other agreements provide for a sign up list, but ours would require a local agreement to establish this. I have informed the company that I would be willing to talk about this if they were willing to talk about overseas assignments, and formalizing rules similar to what we have had in the past. I will try to post the old rules on the local agreement page for you to review.

There are rumors floating around in regards to the hangar and the 767 a-checks coming to Dulles but I have not heard anything official yet. From what I understand we should know more this coming week on both of these items.

For all, there are currently fourteen grievances in all steps of the process including denied first steps that will be appealed. A few of these grievances have systemwide implications with regards to contract language. I will keep you updated as to their progress.

In GQ/PV there were a few items that were discussed this week but I have not received denied grievances on those issues.

A couple of guys and myself were in the break room watching the President at his health care summit. While watching this we noticed that President Hoffa was seated directly behind President Obama. In my opinion it is great that Organized Labor has this sort of access again. 

There will be some lobbying and picketing opportunities coming up soon. These will all be in regards to the outsourcing of maintenance in the industry. I have the list of original volunteers and will be calling on them. If you would like to volunteer please let me know.

For a sobering look at what has happened with us I encourage you to look at the Seattle blog. They have listed the number of people in detail we've lost since 2000.

We are still waiting on an answer for the 20% outsourcing grievance. I expect it will be issued soon.

I did not attach the "Week in Review" this week. If you do not already receive it let me know and I will forward it to you.

That's all for this week,
Bob

State of the Airlines

Here is an interesting article on the state of the airlines moving through 2009.

Youtube links

This was sent to me by a friend in Pittsburgh. It is a computer simulation of Flight 1549 taking off from JFK and then landing in the Hudson with audio. It is very well done.

I also came across two youtube channels involving the government. There is one for the Senate, and one for the House. These links have interactive displays and when you click on your state, if your Congressperson or Senator participates, you can see their latest videos.