Last week the Teamsters were able to affect real positive change that all members can recognize. I attended the announcement by Jim Keenan on Friday at the SFO Maintenance Base where he described the new system that eliminates all current discipline for dependability related issues for those members working in the United Services Division. We were given a clean slate with the understanding that moving forward discipline would be handled by the front line supervisors and also there would be a return to the joint counseling as proscribed in the CBA.
I would like to extend my sincere thanks to President Hoffa, Airline Division Director David Bourne, Chief Negotiator Clacy Griswold, IBT Counsel Ed Gleason and International Representative Paul Alves. These men were able to convince the Company that the current system was broken and that the Teamsters had ideas by which the parties collectively could repair this decades old problem. To the Company's credit they saw value in what the Teamsters brought to the table. Because of that, this should be just a first step towards further and lasting gains for the membership. Long time readers of the blog know I am a fan of interest based bargaining where it makes sense, and this is an example of that style of negotiations. Interest based bargaining, or IBB, is also known as win-win bargaining and generally requires trust built up over years of working together. That makes this development all the more surprising, as the IBT hasn't had decades of dealing with the Company in order to establish that required pattern of trust.
Brothers and Sisters I have to confess that this solution caught me by surprise, even though I knew this was a high priority of both the IBT and the Company. For the Company this matter represents double digit millions of dollars annually. For the membership of the IBT this represents a huge disciplinary tool that the Company uses which has caused great angst among us, as well as those millions of dollars mentioned in the Company's concern. Why does the money matter to the IBT membership you might ask? Well a quick exercise in napkin (or rough guess) math tells us we have roughly 4700 active members with an absence rate of around 5%. 4700 members working 2080 hours leaves us with around 9,776,000 man hours paid for annually for a total of $303,056,000 at an average of 31 dollars per hour. 5% of that total manhours number is 488,800 and at 31 dollars an hour that is $15,152,800 per year paid in illness leave. The Company's stated goal is 3%, and 3% of the total manhours annually is 293,280 which represents $9,091,680. The difference between these two is $6,061,120. Again with 4700 members working 2080 hours every year, those six million dollars represent roughly $1.62 per hour per member. Those are some very staggering figures, and I would rather be arguing at the table that we saved the Company that $1.62 per hour thereby negotiating from a position of strength as opposed to not having that tool. Working together in a manner that makes sense should help us reach this goal.
Obviously this is a first step, a huge one to be sure, and I look forward to continual gains under a leadership that understands our concerns and is willing to expend the time and effort to achieve these goals.
If you haven't seen the Joint release in the Airline Divisions Week in Review or on Skynet the document can be found here.
That's all for now,
Bob Fisher
