Weekly report 5-31-09

General Items

Because of negotiations last week there is not much to report.

If you haven't already seen the update here it is. Also here is the Unions Non-Economic Opening Proposal. Many proposals that were made by the mechanics at Dulles are addressed with this proposal, such as Field Service language, updated Grievance processes, and improved Layoff and Recall language. I encourage you to take the time to review the opener and ask questions or provide feedback. There is a link to e-mail the Negotiating team here.

A former ALPA Attorney, Steve Nagrotsky, has been named as Deputy Director of the Airline Division. This was addressed in the Week in Review on Friday. If you don't already get the Week in Review you can sign up to receive it electronically on the link above.

MM

All the recall letters have gone out and for those on layoff if you haven't received yours yet please contact me at the office.

Upon my return last week several mechanics informed me that the Company has taken the position that the new cabin crew will be assigned to an eight hour midnight shift on a separate overtime and vacation list. The Company claims all the other hubs are doing this, so we should as well. When I talked to the other Coordinators none of them agreed to set up the crew this way. Unfortunately for the Company the vacation piece would be governed by the Local Vacation rules and the same is true for the overtime list. In fact there are no Local Overtime rules so the Company has no right to unilaterally make a new rule outside of the agreement. I will discuss this issue with them this week.

A second step for Lead Bypass is scheduled for Tuesday morning.

GQ

There is nothing new to report for GQ this week.

PV

The Labor Management meeting was canceled last week. There are a couple of first steps that will be discussed with Steve this week. In addition some more research will be done on the Jetway grievance prior to filing.

That's all for this week,

Bob

Negotiations Update

The official update from the May 26^th-27^th can be found here. In addition the Union's non-economic proposal can be found at the same site. I encourage you to take the time to read the opener. To read it all you will need some time as it is 103 pages long.

I felt the overall tone of this session was professional and respectful. As I've said before I am impressed with the support from the various IBT Locals, as well as the International that supplies Representatives as well as an Attorney to each session.

That's all for now,

Bob

More outsourcing?

An article in Forbes was pointed out to me at work last night regarding the Star Alliance and antitrust immunity. It is titled "American Jobs At Risk In The Airline Business" and can be found here.

The article is quite disturbing and here is an excerpt "United is proposing another means of off-shoring American jobs beginning in March 2010, this time in a joint venture with Aer Lingus. By 2012, if left unregulated, both carriers intend to form another airline, not based in the U.S., flying international routes from Washington-Dulles to various European destinations. If the DOT approves this new joint venture, it will mean a further loss of United jobs as both Aer Lingus and United have already stated that they will be employing new-hire employees from neither carrier for this venture."

I know David Bourne and the IBT Airline Division have been working on this issue on the Hill. After you read this article I urge you to contact your Congressmen and Senators to let them know what you think about this latest assault on our livelihood.

That's all for now,

Bob

Weekly report 5-22-09

General Information

This was a slow starting week that really had an incredible finish. As many of you know United is recalling Aircraft Mechanics to the hubs. Because of the recall process it is difficult to say how many new Mechanics will be reporting to Dulles, but there are more than enough openings to exhaust the recall list in MM and we will have an additional headcount of 11 to 13 people from the current number.

Last week I talked about Director Bourne's attitude in regards to looking at new ways to secure work, such as attending the MRO conventions. So it was good to see this on Skynet, "The International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT) approached us to discuss opportunities to efficiently improve the workability of our aircraft, and we are pleased that collaboratively we were able to work out a way to bring these mechanics back," says Jim Keenan, senior vice president-United Services. "It is essential that we make strategic investments in our product, to continue providing our customers with great service."

There are several news items for this week. The first is that the TAMC newsletter "Nuts and Bolts" is now available. Next is the Airline Division's weekly newsletter "Week in Review". This link has now been added to the blog's links section. Attached to this week's newsletter was a bill titled the "Aircraft Maintenance and Security Act of 2009". This is the IBT's current proposal to stiffen rules in regards to outsourced maintenance. If you are wondering "what is the Union doing for me?", these three links offer a glimpse into the effort being expended on our behalf.

For most of next week I'll be in San Francisco for negotiations. Here is the interim update from the negotiations website.

The TAA/ATAA portion of the Stimulus Bill is now law and I will be filing a new petition soon.

For those of you interested in the IAM's pension plan I added a small write-up on the blog about its current funding level. On PBGC news the Seattle blog had this piece on an investigation into possible investment improprieties.

The jackets are in, and I am currently working on a new order. If you are interested please e-mail me with your sizing and name information and I will see you about payment. Several of you have requested t-shirts and I am also working on that order so if you are interested let me know.

MM
Tim Canavan visited Dulles this week. I'm told Tim addressed several briefings but I was unable to attend.

Several small items were addressed with management this week. These items were individual member issues and resolution was reached on most of them. We are still waiting on answers to the previously heard grievances and I expect them soon.
PV
I talked to several members this week and they expressed frustration with the current level of outsourcing in the shop. My advice was to file grievances whenever a vendor was seen doing work that should be done by the shop. The only way to bring this outsourcing to the forefront is to use the grievance procedure.

No one in the shop will be bumped as a result of the recent system lay-off and shakedown

GQ

There is not much to report in GQ this week except that as in PV no one in the shop will be bumped as a result of the recent system lay-off and shakedown.

That's all for this week,

Bob

IAM National Pension Fund

According to campaign literature the IAM is offering the opportunity to participate in their plan with instant vesting. Also we have been told that the plan is currently funded at 97% and is in the "Green Zone". This has been offered as a much better alternative to the IBT's WCT plan which is also in the "Green Zone", but at a funding level of 84.7%.

Is it true? Unfortunately the answer is no. Here is a link to the IAMNPF webpage dealing with the Actuarial Certification for the 2009 plan year. The Actuary has deemed the fund to be in the "Yellow Zone" or endangered status for the plan year. The next question is how can the fund be claimed to be in the Green Zone when actually it is in the Yellow Zone? The answer lies in the Worker, Retiree, and Employer Recovery Act ("WRERA") of 2008. According to the IAMNPF website "That Act made some temporary changes in the multiemployer plan funding rules of the Pension Protection Act of 2006". According to the letter the previous two years funding levels were used as allowed by the Law to give the fund time to correct its deficiencies. The last two links on the page include an explanation and also a question and answer document.

The fact that the fund is not doing well is not surprising given the huge downturn in the market, but I felt it was important that if you were making comparisons you had an "apple to apple" baseline.

That's all for now,

Bob

 

Weekly report 5-17-09

General Information

For those of you still out of work Monster is hosting a Job Fair in Arlington on the 28^th of May. Here is the link for pre-registration.

This week I met with a member of UAL management who's responsible for the insourcing of Global Emergency Maintenance (GEM), as well as routine work. We discussed the potential for job growth with these contracts as well as issues related to successfully bidding on this work. He told me that the Company attended an MRO Convention in Dallas recently to research what is going on in the industry. He made a suggestion that the IBT Leadership attend these events to see not only what we are up against, but also to see the possibilities of using our talent going forward. After the meeting I passed this information on to David Bourne. David responded that he had already given the Airline Division direction to be a part of these conventions for that purpose. It was good to hear that our Union is being proactive on this front.

Chris Moore of the Teamsters Aviation Mechanics Coalition (TAMC) will be visiting UAL locations to ask for your feedback and recommendations on all things Teamster related. In addition he will be describing the TAMC's efforts on Capitol Hill. Here is a copy of Chris' letter. When Chris is scheduled for Dulles I'll let you know.

Here is a link to the Union's Arbitration Submission for the Panasonic grievance.

There was a good write-up regarding the Employee Free Choice Act on the Teamsters website this week and it can be found here. Why is EFCA important to you? With the possible passage of the FAA reauthorization bill requiring a one world standard for Aircraft Maintenance, there will most likely be a repatriation of much of this work. Many MRO's such as TIMCO will be likely beneficiaries of the move back to the States. If EFCA passes, making it easier to unionize, then fair contracts can be negotiated at these MRO's making it not only less appealing to outsource our work, but could also afford us the opportunity to insource more. I know there are a lot of ifs, but we can't keep going in the same direction we have in the past. Please contact your Senators and Representatives asking for support of both the EFCA and FAA Reauthorization bills.

Lobbying amounts for the first quarter are out. United spent six hundred thousand and Continental spent more. Here is the article on the amount United spent and here is a similar article on Continental. These huge amounts spent by both companies shed light on the need for Union PAC's such as D.R.I.V.E.

I was informed this week that Local 1759 of the IAM elected not to participate in the current organizing drive for the Mechanics and Related. This choice is understandable given that even in the unlikely event that the IAM is successful, the Local would not benefit at all because of the promise of an autonomous Local here in DC. I would have made the same recommendation if I were still on the Board. The reason for this because it is best not to spend the members' dues on frivolous items, when in addition to running the Lodge, there will also be heavy costs incurred related to the negotiations at United. Many of you expressed anger to me this week over the card drive and told me you were sending in your cards with less than kind messages, and talked about taping bricks to the letters and marking them "return to sender". This may make you feel better, but if you are angry about it, the best course of action would be to simply discard the letters. This would have the effect of ending the drive when there is not a sufficient showing of interest.

I will be making another jacket order soon. Also several of you have asked about additional t-shirt purchases and they can be purchased for ten dollars for small through extra-large and twelve dollars for XX through XXXXL. Please contact me if you are interested.

MM
There was one second step withdrawn this week. One discipline grievance is waiting on a member's signature to process to the second step. We are trying to schedule a lead bypass second step hearing for next week. We are still waiting on five answers for second step grievances.

PV
In PV Steve Loughman informed me of the department's intention to outsource the Jetway maintenance for the purpose of bringing them up to standards. I informed Steve that the Union will grieve this as this is not work normally outsourced and we have the manpower and the opportunity to accomplish this work. I further informed him that this was a serious case of poor planning by the PV Department. I am confident the Union will prevail in this grievance and will keep you posted. We are still waiting on answers to two second steps.

GQ
I talked with Brian McNichols about several items in the shop this week. The big one was the potential to insource work. Brian informed me that he is currently focusing on the work in the shop but would be open to contracts that made sense. Eric Harger has been an advocate of this issue for some time, and I think there is a good potential to given Brian's response.

That's all for this week,

Bob

Weekly report 5-10-09

General Items

Sorry for the delayed report, but I spent most of the day with the family celebrating Mother's Day. I hope that you and your family had an opportunity to have a good time together as well today.

This week the IAM announced its intention to attempt an organizing drive for the Mechanics and Related at United Air Lines. I posted my feelings regarding this development on the blog.

Also I was reading The-AMT and found that there is a petition for the IBT to stop any action in regards to the Western Conference of Teamsters Pension Fund. The reason for the petition is that the petitioners feel there were no proposals for this fund so the membership should not have to endure the hardship of researching whether this is a benefit to them or not. For Dulles there were many proposals to establish a pension plan. In my opinion this tactic is as short-sighted and foolish as the card drive for the IAM for a couple of reasons. The first is we don't yet know what we'll be offered by the WCT and the second is that a Taft-Hartley multi-employer defined benefit plan is generally regarded as a much better alternative to a defined contribution plan. Here are a few links that address the difference between the two plan ideas. The first is from the Department of Labor and it is a report intended to show the benefits of small business moving to a DC (defined contribution) plan for employees. The conclusion however, was that a DB (defined benefit) plan was probably best for both employer and employee, and this could be helped with legislation from Congress. The next link is from the State of Utah's retirement systems and I would ask that you pay particular attention to item number six. The last of the links is from the Illinois Teachers Retirement Plan and it discusses DB's vs. DC's and comes to the conclusion like most other organizations that DB plans are generally considered best for workers. This is especially true as workers enter the latter years of their employment (like United Mechanics with an average of 23 years seniority) leaving a shorter amount of time to consolidate investments into a working retirement plan using the stock market as the driving force for investments. In fact even the IAM in their quest to represent us are promising a DB plan as the cornerstone of their platform. So for the above reasons I am very open to hearing what the WCT has to offer and then let the membership decide.

As for Flight Safety there were some issues that arose this week. I would like to remind you that if you need assistance with an issue involving the FAA, or would like to file an MSAP, that you use Tom Reid to assist you. Tom can be reached at 2-7557 in the office.

MM Items

In MM this week all but two of the outstanding second step grievances were heard. Two of the grievances that were heard I expect will be denied and processed to the third step because they have systemwide implications. The others went well and I expect an answer will be received soon. I received one denied first step grievance for discipline that will be moved to the second step this week.

GQ Items

I met with Greg Pinelli this week and discussed the training issue in regards to the shift allotment. Greg informed me that changes were made, and the training allotment reflected each shift by percentage now.

PV Items

I was informed by the guys in the shop that the company was looking to outsource routine maintenance on jetways. I informed the company that this would be a violation of the CBA and Steve and I will meet this week to discuss this issue. We are still waiting on answers to three first steps in the shop and they will be reviewed for further processing.

That's all for this week,

Bob

The Machinists Union

Today while reading Yahoo! Business news related to United Airlines I came across this article. The article talks about the IAM trying to organize the Mechanics and Related group again. I was not surprised to see this as I have told several of you that I have been approached by the Grand Lodge recently to help in this effort. I respectfully declined for several reasons.

The first reason I said no thank you, is that I am impressed so far with what the Teamsters have done for us. In both Negotiations and Arbitration cases we now have Attorneys actively participating in the representation of the membership. While the country and the airline industry continues in a downward spiral the IBT has done what it could with the language we have to protect us. That is not a put down on either of the previous Unions on the property but our contract is currently a shambles. The IBT is also working hard on the Hill to ensure that our craft is protected through legislative action. I have had the opportunity to help in this effort and have witnessed the IBT using outside professional Lobbyists as well as our internal Attorneys to push our issues to the forefront.

The second reason is numbers. No I'm not going to preach about safety in numbers, but rather we need to take a look at our numbers. We currently have about half of the unit on layoff status with permanent recall rights. This not only makes it exceedingly difficult to get to the fifty percent plus one threshold, it also makes it very likely that a decertification would take place in an election. I don't say this to scare anyone because the IBT faced the same obstacle and overcame it. The question is how did they do it? Well as many of you know they made home visits to our laid off members, as many as five and six visits to make sure these people voted. That brings me to another number which is a million. How many millions did the IBT spend to get the right to represent us? I don't know but having worked on previous organizing campaigns I would guess that it was close to five million given the effort that was put forth. Will the IAM put this kind of money into getting us back? I guess it is possible, but I have my reservations.

The third reason is the potential risk to reward. In other words what are we trying to achieve by organizing the IAM back on the property? I've read on The-AMT that we will be given our own District and Locals which will have autonomy within the IAM. While this sounds like a good idea on the surface there are a couple of potential roadblocks that would need to be faced. The first would be a need to have a waiver from the IAM Constitution that would allow the new District to have the ultimate authority over our agreement including the right to authorize a strike on our own. Otherwise if I remember correctly the President of the Union retains the ability to accept an agreement on our behalf or to authorize us to go on strike. The next issue with this is the structural breakdown and the money needed to run such an organization. As many of you know I was President of a Local that had 5000 members at one point. As I see it we would have smaller locals supporting an autonomous District. What does that mean for us as the members? Well for IAD we would have about 300 give or take, plus the members from USAirways in DCA and maybe Baltimore if they are allowed to separate from their current Locals. So let's say we have 600 people here and we had to support at least two full time officers as well as Grand Lodge, District Lodge, and AFL-CIO per capita you're looking at spending most of your dues revenue just on these items. In San Fran you could do somewhat better due to the number of people that would be in the local, but that leaves four other somewhat dysfunctional Locals in the new District. And why do we need a Local Lodge that caters only to our needs? In my few years as President the only time people really cared about what was going on was at the end of Negotiations. Outside of those times we were lucky to get more than a handful of participating members of any classification. So I end this paragraph wondering what would be the benefit of having poorly funded Locals answering only to mechanics.

The last reason is motive. I have no grievance with the IAM and if I had answered differently on the call from the Grand Lodge, and the IAM were successful, there could potentially been a position waiting for me since I was previously an Officer of both a Local Lodge and District 141-M. This decision in my estimation would have been a great choice for me personally had the IAM succeeded, but a poor choice for the membership as a whole because of the potential risk for decertification. From what some of my old friends in the IAM are telling me this effort is being launched by the old Officers of AMFA Local 9 in San Francisco. My question to them is what is your motivation? Do you have the membership's best interests in mind or your own?

That's all for now,

Bob

Weekly report 5-3-09

General Items

For those of you that don't know our Business Agent, Bob Luciano, suffered a health emergency last week. I talked to Bob on Thursday and he sounded well but he is going to be in recovery for a while. I would like to ask that you keep Bob in your thoughts and prayers as he recovers.

This week as you have already read on the IBT Negotiations Website, David Bourne proposed to the company that they consider the Western Conference of Teamsters pension fund. The Company agreed to look at the fund as an option for the membership. This is a very good development in my opinion. For those of you that know very little about the WCT plan in specific or Taft-Hartley multi employer pension plans in general, I would like to share a couple of links for your edification. The first is obviously the link to the WCT fund's site and it can be found here. There is some really good information on the WCT website and I urge you to spend some time there. The second link I would like for you to see is from the National Labor College and it is a free overview of Taft-Hartley plans. The link to this free course can be found here. This course describes the laws governing these funds as well as the fiduciary responsibilities of the members of the pension committees. It also addresses who generally sits on the boards as well as their roles in the managing the funds. These funds are all governed by the ERISA act of 1974 and the WCT is no exception. While this proposal is still in the early stages of development, it provides us with an opportunity to learn a great deal about how a fund like this would benefit us. Please do your research and get your questions about this fund together so that you can make an informed decision when it does come time to vote on this issue.

The Teamsters now post the "Airline Division Week in Review" on the website. In addition to what is happening within the Union it also reports on the week's developments within the Labor and Airline sectors. If you do not receive this already you can sign up on the website to get it via e-mail on a weekly basis.

Dave Saucedo from Seattle sent me a link to the Teamsters Magazine Online. It provides for some good reading on what is happening within the Union.

Several members expressed disappointment that negotiations are not going as fast as they would like. I explained to them that the Railway Labor Act provides for some of the reason that this process is drawn out. In addition there are six Unions currently negotiating with the Company, as well as 22 Negotiations the Airline Division is currently engaged in. The Teamsters like to have an Attorney present at each session, as we had previously requested from the IAM, and scheduling around all of these items will take some more time. In my opinion it is better to proceed at a pace that ensures a fair agreement is reached and this is far more important than speeding through the process.

MM Items

For MM this week I met with Stuart and we discussed hearing the outstanding second steps this coming week. We will meet on Monday to schedule as many as we can. Hopefully the ones that do not get heard this coming week will be finished next week.

We had a surprise visit from David Bourne and Ed Gleason of the Teamsters Airline Division. Both men flew back on the same flight as I did after negotiations in Chicago. I asked them if they would like to take a few minutes and meet with the guys. They enthusiastically agreed even though it was already 7pm and they spent some time with the guys in the C Gate lunch room. There was a discussion of what happened at negotiations as well as what is currently happening on Capitol Hill.

GQ Items

I met with Greg Pinelli this week and he related what was happening in the shop. There will be some training on the new push tractor coming up soon. All members that are to receive the training have been notified. Some members have expressed disappointment that a majority of the training will be given to the Dayshift. I will discuss this further with Greg this coming week.

PV Items

There was a Labor/Management meeting this week on Wednesday. We agreed to make the last Wednesday of every month at 2:15pm the permanent schedule for these meetings. We also agreed that if either Steve or I could not attend the meetings they would take place anyway. I asked that if I was absent and there were second steps that needed to be heard that Tom Reid present them. I also asked that if Steve was absent that second steps be held until the next month's meeting. Both of these issues were agreed to. We then had a lively discussion on the outsourcing that has been occurring in the shop. The company informed us of their intention to outsource work that has customarily been outsourced but they would meet with us before sending out things that the shop could perform on a better cost and time basis than the vendors. We then heard the open second steps and Steve told me he would provide an answer soon.

That's all for this week,

Bob