http://online.wsj.com/arti cle/SB10001424052748704302304575214501554530976.html?mod=WSJ_business_ whatsNews

http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid62129015001?bclid=0 &bctid=80040125001

I'm not real happy with this website. I'm having problems getting the links to work and I have no attachment ability. I spoke with my son and he's going to work on something better. In the mean time we're just going to have to make do.

Jon Watson here. Wow, I was thinking back to UAL and typed in this long since defunct site. So glad to see it is back! With all the UAL and Continental news lately gonna get crazy. Still on layoff, not that I would ever go back I graduate with a bachelors in nursing in less than a year!!!! Hope all the guys I knew at UAL are doing well! If anybody remembers me drop me a line I worked (OAK98,99,00,01) (Indy01. Peace!

Glad to see you're happy. Yes. Lot's happening here with the merger. Bad news is we're teamsters. Good news. Hopefully not for long.

Back in 2003 when AA gave up 25% outside of BK I told my wife that she needed to go back to school. Well after six years she finally finished Nursing school last year and her starting pay is $3/hr more than mine after 25Years. Good luck with your new career.

Below is the link to the image you attempted to post. The image is at the bottom of the article. Sorry for the poor quality of a website. I'm working on a better format.

http://www.chicagobusiness.com/cgi-bin/news.pl?id=38056&ba=1

ht tp://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=1483922036&play=1

http://www.unitedconti nentalmerger.com/

I hope mechanics at both UAL & CAL are taking notice how all the other unions are addressing the merger.

ALPA, AFA, IAM, have come out with statements making no bones about exerting the leverage this merger provides them to win gains for their members. Additionally, these unions have dedicated websites/pages within there homes sites filled with Q&As, official position statements, and other data concerning this historic merger.

What have the teamsters provided?

A vague meandering statement on the Airline Division site?

A couple of out of the loop "chief" stewards blogging us their whimsical opinions, with grade school flow charts which have no signatures or validation of any kind?

WHERE IS THE POWEROF 1.4 MILLION MEMBERS? WHERE ARE THE RESOURCES TO KEEP THE MEMBERSHIP WELL INFORMED?

Have you had enough yet?

Two of our negotiators came down to visit. After talking to them it is of my opinion this union has no clue on what to do. While the other unions are taking advantage of the situation we will end up with the crumbs with the ibt in charge. Who's running this union anyway?

Good to see u back GT, everyone needs to be on the same page, I'll pass the word.

Thank you.

Thanks for taking the time and effort to once again run this site.

The future for the CAL and UAL Mechanics just got a little brighter. While the future for us here at USAir, just got a little dimmer.

Once again we were played for a fool and left as the odd man out. Most of us here are just riding the wave until it crashes to the shore.

The future for all of us should be interesting to say the least, but one thing for sure, you're lucky you did not wind up with a merger with this dysfunctional outfit!!

Just the man I have been waiting for. If you're not aware, the iam has been attempting a card drive here at united for about a year now promising a structure similiar to AMFA.

Has the iam at us air improved at all or is it as bad as always?

It's been a steady state of decline. We are just waiting for the ax to drop.

Our dues went up as expected this year.

The last thing I can remember is, the IAM did win in court a grievance on the outsourcing of our Airbus work. That saved some jobs, but that was years ago.

We have a little more than a year to go until we are vested in the IAM pension plan, but we lost our company match in our 401K to this plan. As of now, the plan is only 90% funded and has liabilities of more than a billion over the assets. The only reason the plan is not in the PBGC is that they were able to re amortize the debt over more years due to the Pension Protection Act of 2006.

But as you know, a union is only as good as it's members. And so far the Mechanics at USAirways are not good members. I hope the UAL and CAL AMT's can be better and stronger than we were.

Can you email me at The-AMT@The-AMT.com please?

Interesting read, the new IBT merger Q&A being passed about.

Funny thing, during the UAL organizing campaign the IBT promised Date Of Hire integration for BOTH carriers. This obviously being just one more lie told to UAL furloughed AMTs to get them to sign cards.

LIARS! One and all!

Hopefully we can replace them with a more honest and transparent union. The ibt is finished at UAL.

Can you post that Q&A, we've heard nothing at Cal from the Teamsters! Thanks

Gt great to see you back, as a EWR Cal tech I can tell you first hand we are just as disgusted with the teamsters. We have endured lost ballots, and union appointments not to mention a paycut forced through by the last Don. Amfa would pass in Ewr as well as Mco.

You will be happy to know that there soon will be an opportunity to change your future there at Continental and us at United. More to come.

Just Curious, what major issues do the Ual Techs have with the Teamsters? I know what the issuse are at Cal, so I would like to see how we compare. Thanks

When a union tells the members they're going to do what they think is best despite the members wishes that's not a good thing. When they tell you they do not want to make the company angry, that's not a good thing. When they tell you everyone wants the ibt pension plan when in fact we have proved this to be false, that's not a good thing. The teamsters refuse to communicate and "listen" to the members. Not one campaign promise has been fulfilled. While we have langauage in our contract to protect us from increased outsourcing the teamsters refuse to address this problem. When a member attends a union meeting and truck drivers shout you down and they shut down the meeting while a member is trying to get information, that's not a good thing.

See link below.
http://teamsterair.org/special-editio n-questions-and-answers-proposed-ual-%E2%80%93-cal-merger

Hey GT,

I'm a CAL tech in Orlando. I have been hearing thru the grapevine down here that a joint UA-CO mechanic AMFA drive is going to start soon. Have you heard anything on your end? Thanks.

BTW, everything you said about the Teamsters is Deja-vu to me.

I can tell you here at United people are frustrated and ready to dump the teamsters.
I know at Continental it's the same thing. Sounds like a good idea though.

With the NMB rule change from 50% + 1 , to the majority of ballots cast, this will make your quest for new union representation a whole lot easier.

Now there will be no chance of becoming 'employee's at will'.

At least that's the way I read it.

Congrats!!!!

Quote:

NMB Delivers Historic Election Rule Change

Tue. May 11, 2010

IAM members sent more than 24 thousand cards and letters to the NMB supporting the proposed rule change.
The National Mediation Board (NM this week published in the Federal Register its long-awaited change to rules governing representation elections conducted under the Railway Labor Act.
In the brief summary of the historic change, the NMB declared: “As part of its ongoing efforts to further the statutory goals of the Railway Labor Act, the National Mediation Board is amending its National Railway Act rules to provide that, in representation disputes, a majority of valid ballots cast will determine the craft or class representative (italics added). This change to its election procedures will provide a more reliable measure/indicator of employee sentiment in representation disputes and provide employees with clear choices in representation matters.”
Under the NMB’s previous election guidelines, 50+1 of eligible voters in an election were required to participate in the election in order for the NMB to certify a union. Anyone who did not cast a vote was automatically considered to have voted against union representation. In contrast, union representation elections conducted under the National Labor Relations Act, as well as all other public elections, are decided by a simple majority of those who actually cast a ballot.
“Thousands of Machinists union members and hundreds of members of Congress told the NMB that it was time to end its 75-year practice of imposing a viewpoint on people who, either by choice or by chance, do not participate in representation elections,” said Transportation GVP Robert Roach, Jr.
The NMB’s new rule will take effect 30 days after being published in the Federal Register.

As some may see the message box will only take so much information. Sorry for this problem. Eventually it will be remedied.

The NMB ruling also allows unions to be replaced by unions by a majority vote of votes casted. But, you still need to collect 50% + 1 cards in order to go to that next step.

Does anyone know AMFA's seniority integration policy? I can't find any info in regards to this issue! Thanks

If you're talking merger there really isn't any for any union. It basically refers to the Alegheny-Mohawk ruling which says to the effect a fair and equal effort will be made. Otherwise it's either up to the union it's self or it's negotiated.

I received the following:

Just wanted to let you know that Frontline will be rebroadcasting our Feb program, Flying Cheap, next Tues, May 25. Pls pass the word along to anyone that you think might be interested.
Also, was wondering whether there are any online forums or chat rooms that airline mechanics use? I'd like to put the word out about the rebroadcast next week and also let people know that we are working on a followup that will look at airline maintenance and the outsourcing trends. We are interested in first-hand experience with quality and oversight in the 3rd party MRO industry.
Welcome any suggestions.
Hope all well on your end.
best,
Rick

Rick Young
Producer, PBS FRONTLINE
202/270-8504

Good to see a mechanic site back up.
As a mechanic I can say that I'm deeply dissapointed with the sellout of a TA that has been agreed to at American Airlines and I will do everything I can to get it killed.

In answer to Curious, AMFAs Seniority Integration policy has always been to Dovetail by seniority date.

Thats the normal policy for merging two unionized groups, since the IBT is at both places, CAL and UAL they would likely do the same.

Bob, the ibt has already stated it will be date of hire with some fences. What type of fences and how they will be implemented, I have no idea. The dictators have spoken, and us peasants will do as we are told.

Interesting. Rumor here is because we aren't working hard or fast enough, the company (USAir) has decided to send the next 4 Airbus S checks down to our non-licensed friends in San Salvador.

What cost is cheap? When they come back from there, we mostly end up redoing their sloppy work anyways.

If the flying public really knew.......... or even cared.

"TA" means Transition Agreement or Tentative Agreement? Which one please.

Also please try to explain what is going on at AA. I would like to know.
Thanks.

Keep in mind that AA never filed bankruptcy.

Whats going on over at AA is essentailly a "mop up operation" being facilitated by some of our own. The company is coming back for what they missed in 2003. For everyone under 50 they are taking away our retiree medical. Back in 1989(or 91)we started having payroll deduction to fund our retireee health benifits, we put in half and the company matched the other half. It was a concession, prior to that it was fully company funded. I think we lost LTD at around the same time, the company no longer contributed anything and the union got a company to sell it to us at around $12 per paycheck.

The companys proposal which was accepted by the committee is to have us buy retiree health coverage with our sick time like at SWA and CAL but at the rate of 20 hours per month, SWA and CAL pay 12 hours per month. The company has decided that they will give us 8 days of sick time per year, and has kept the cap on IOD time at 10 days, SWA and CAL get 12 sick days per year and 75 IOD days.

The company admits that on average a mechanic uses 5.1 sick days per year, some may be from sick and some may be from sick used for an IOD where the mechanic used up his 10 days and used sick days until he was fit to return to duty.The company knows that there's no way we could accrue enough sick time to cover us.

The pay changes include increasing Line Premium by $2 on DOS and a 0%, 0%, 3%, 1.5% and 1.5% increases to the base pay, so a 6% increase to base pay over a five year term. We would still be around $10hr less than SWA, not counting Sick time, vacation time, IOD time ETC etc.

The net effect of the increases after inflation is that we will worse off in 2013 than we are now. Not including the many concessions such as the retiree health mentioned above.

Our base wage will be lower in 2013 than it was in 2003.

-No restoration of shift differentials.
-No Pension for new hires
-No $25 payout for each sick day in bank upon retirement
-Permanent "Probation" for Crew Chiefs
-No doubletime except on 8 Holidays (vs the 10 at 2.5X we used to get
-Training done on strait time, even if beyond shift and on day off.
-IOD bank lowest in the industry-10 days
-Sick time accrual lowest in the industry-8 days per year
-Holidays automatically working,
-No Longevity pay
-Least amont of vacation for all steps above the first 5 years, Example employee with 10 years only get 2 weeks and two days vacation, we used to get three weeks after 5.
-No paid lunch even though we are assigned 8.5 hours
-No penalty hour, paid to nearest 10th of an hour in the companys favor
-No uniform Cleaning
-No STD Plan
-Benifits based on companys costs, we subsidize the company for the Pilot and FA caps. Thats right, because they were smart enough to negotiate caps into their plans the costs get added to our and we pay more.

The same guys that are pushing this and telling their members to "shut their pie holes and wait till they see the final langauge" had a "Road Show" last year where they told the members that they would not bring back a concessionary contract, well a few months after that three of the Road Show guys got International titles and all of them voted to bring this POS back!

Tentative Agreement

Left out one of the biggest concessions in this deal. The company wants to at least double the ratio of the number of miles that our feeder airline, American Eagle can fly. As Eagle gets things like First Class and larger aircraft AA cities are destaffed and Eagle moves in, at even lower pay rates. The same union with the same divisive structure represents Eagle so there isnt much fuss from them as this happens (Eagle mechanics recently accepted yet another concessionary contract). Since 2001 the AA fleet has shrunk from 881 aircraft to 610 while Eagle has gone from 276 to 280.Their fleet grew slightly while ours shrank by 30%. Our Facilities guys would be laid off out of some of our class III cities immediately and there's a high probability that many of our ClassII line maint stations would lose mechanics as well. The company stated that they didnt "forsee any job losses" from this however with the high attrition rates at the hubs the smaller stations would probably be destaffed and the class II guys would have to move to one of the larger Hub stations like New York, ORD, MIA, DFW or LAX. So they wouldnt be getting laid off, they would be relocating.

You want oversight?

The Fed's have been crawling around here like roaches. Day in day out. Taking pictures and burning people for stupid, insignificant stuff.

I had one say they can't check out and oversee our MRO friends "south of the boarder" as much as they check us out. The reason why is, he said this is due to the fact that they can only get a 5 day work visa, and after that they get thrown out of the country.

So instead of 5 months around here, they only get 5 days down there.

That's oversight for 'ya.

http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/20/waning-star-of-the-air -struggles-as-solo-act/?scp=7&sq=American%20Airlines&st=cse

This is why I am interested in AA.

Copy and paste the link in your browser.

Interesting and scary.

Our negotiators here in Denver admitted the ibt will decide how the two work groups will be dovetailed. Another decision behind closed doors without the memberships participation. Bottom line is the members should be allowed to vote. No more dictating to the members. The ibt is as transparent as a brick wall and it isn't by accident.

That's exactly what the IBT is doing to us at CAL!

I signed my AMFA card today along with a lot of other techs here in MCO.

When comments are posted for some reason it will only show a limited amount of text. If you click on quote you are able to read the whole comment. Hopefully I can remedy this problem.

Glad to see this site back up, sad to see no people here.

I've been rather busy taking part in preparing a Card Drive to oust the dreaded ibt from United. I will divulge more in another week for those interested.

Just fixed the issue where the site was not showing entire posts. Sorry I have been really busy.

Glad to see you back in action.You have been missed

Welcome back GT, I hope all is going well, my wife and I got into a heated agument over the scab that died in MSP. She didn't like my attitude, "Good for him, one less scab"

Glad your back

Al
SDF
UPS

Thanks guys. I have been rather busy on another project. Between that and shoulder surgery I've had my hands full.

Have you been on exnwa.com lately?

Nope. Why?

I'm looking for people who have worked at MRO's such as but not limited to Timco, Pemco, AAR. You can email me at The-AMT@The-AMT.com

It has begun. A coalition of mechanics and related have come together at Continental and United Airlines to oust the ibt. You can visit CAL-UALMechanics.com for more info.

GT, the link does not work.

Hey Al, what's going on over there at UPS?

Go ahead and copy and paste it. CAL-UALMechanics.com

Little has changed here at UPS. Still negotiation a contract that has stalled several times by the NMB. Although they are down to the last few things of course they are the big sticking points. 1)Scope - The "farming" out of work to overseas maintenance facilities. 2) Reto pay 3) health insurance.

If you are interested I can elaborate more if there are interested people.

Could you tell I had just got up when i wrote that post.

einstein said:"the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over expecting different results" workers at united had all this choices and they didn't work,what makes them think that this time around it will work??. i can see the company getting their way with the workers at united.divide and conquer.IAM,TEAMSTERS,AMFA,if i was the company i will introduce a couple more choices just to confuse everybody and dilute the pool,specially now that i am dealing with merger and contract negotiatons,at some point workers need to act less emotional and think more rational to further their cause.

The difference is we have now experienced all three unions. We have now seen what the ibt brings. Lies and deciet. Many fell for their campaign promises and that's the only reason they got in. If anything we now realize how great AMFA was. Many people are kicking themselves including former ibt organizers.

einstein said: "the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over expecting different results"

Wasn't that Ben Franklin?

American Airlines Reductions In Force

Their wording for layoffs.

WARN notices to go out by July 20th with final moves to take place no later than Septemeber 27.

TWU flyers went out to the mechanics at SFO this week.

No Union can save its members it would appear.

There are alot of problems with the ibt negotiations. Confidentiality agreement that the ibt negotiators must sign. The lead ibt negotiator who is leading both CAL and UAL negotiations has of history of hotel room deals. Just ask Southwest mechanics. Their negotiating website where you are suppose to be able to email the negotiators is a fraud. The negotiators don't receive those emails. The closed negotiations have been used to push the ibt pensions here at UAL without our approval. We have no say until there is a tentative then the interpretation will be questionable. Many times the ibt here at UAL have said they don't want to make the company angry which in my opinion doesn't go well for us in negotiations. Bottomline is we just don't trust the ibt. With all this and their history how can you?

California Layoffs Database: See if your company is planning big layoffs in 2010 Mercury NewsPosted: 02/24/2009 04:26:13 PM PST
California's WARN law requires certain companies with more than 75 employees to provide 60 days advance notice of a plant closing.
City
Company
Layoffs
Layoff Date

LOS ANGELES AMERICAN AIRLINES, INC 7 4/10/2010
SAN FRANCISCO AMERICAN AIRLINES, INC 16 3/13/2010
LOS ANGELES AMERICAN AIRLINES, INC 73 3/13/2010

GT, FYI- A character here at EWR named Ned Kugel has been running his mouth saying that he put you in your place during a recent phone conversation. No one really believes him but he carries on about how he intimidated you with his knowledge of your personal information. This local 210 shop steward is known for tampering with shift bids and bypassing the overtime list procedures for his own personal gain. Hope this sheds some light for you.

There was no phone conversation. There was a couple of emails and yes he tried to intimidate me with personal info. Typical ibt stunt. I responded and he backed off a bit. After a couple of emails I found he was a typical ibt puppet and really didn't have any knowledge of the real world events at United or about AMFA. He presented alot of words but nothing concrete.

Information is power and these kind of guys only know what the ibt feeds them. Don't let these kind of guys dictate to you. Inform yourself and make your own decisions.

Teamster reps in SFO are telling individual members that the company has rejected outright the WCTPT pension plan.

Have you all noticed it hasn't been mentioned in a long while? Have you also noticed that all those pension plan road shows never happened?

BTW as its heard here in SFO, the local reps have known this for a couple of weeks now, yet no official update.

They hung themselves on the pension they used to lie their way onto the property, and now they know they are all but finished.

United Mechanics you have been LIED to!

There is no "teamster power"

Throw them out NOW!

This is true. I have done alot of research on their claims about their pension and virtually everything they claimed about it was false. Surprise, surprise. One of many lies they have made.