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
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