General Information
For those of you still out of work Monster is hosting a Job Fair in Arlington on the 28th 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
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