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

Negotiation update

The official update is now posted on the Teamster Negotiations web site. The link is in red at the top of the page.

Weekly report 04-26-09

This will be another short report.

For general items, last week the first part of the station closing arbitration was held in Chicago. I really can't go into great detail at this time because the hearing is not finished. The Union had to present first because this is a language interpretation case. Our Attorney Nick Manicone did a great job of putting this case together. All the witnesses did well for our side, and Nick was able to finish the Union's side pending cross examination and potential rebuttals. The next session will be in the beginning of July.

Negotiations will start on Tuesday the 28^th. I imagine the Company will post their opener on their website in the same manner as the other Unions on the property. After our opener is presented it will be posted here.

Here is the Actuary's letter certifying the funding levels of the Western Conference of Teamsters Pension Fund. The Fund took a big hit last year, like all of them, but it was positioned well and is still certified in the "Green" at 84.7%. In addition the Actuary saw no issues six years into the future.

The Obama Administration is seeking input from Federal Employees similar to one of United's old programs, "Let's Make it Happen". Here is a link to the article. This program was one of the few successful programs at United. Hopefully the Government won't give up on it if it produces results the way United did.

Here is another link to research how your members of Congress have voted on items important to you. It is from the Washington post and allows you to research historical votes all the way back to 1991.

In MM this week one grievance was advanced to second step.

For GQ/PV the decision on the station closings is out. Only two of the nine will close and they are BOS and HNL. I don't have any numbers but the layoffs will have an effective date of June 7^th. On Wednesday the 29^th the PV Labor/Management meeting will be held at 2pm.

That's all for this week,

Bob

Mid week items

I just returned from Chicago last night where the station closing arbitration was held. The Union was able to present the bulk of it's case over the two day period. The Company will have it's turn next, and that will be in July. In my opinion things went well for the Union.

Most of you have already heard the news on the nine GQ/PV stations so I won't go deep into that. The Seattle blog has some info if you would like to read about it.

That's all for now,
Bob