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