Hoffa: Halt Outsourcing of Aircraft Repairs Overseas

Teamsters President Sends Letter to House Speaker Asking for Moratorium in Stimulus Teamsters General President Jim Hoffa sent a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi urging her to include in the stimulus bill a moratorium on outsourcing aircraft maintenance to foreign repair stations.
“I urge you and your colleagues take every necessary step to ensure that the stimulus package include a moratorium on any additional outsourcing of foreign aircraft maintenance,” Hoffa wrote in a letter dated Monday.

Break Room

Starting on February 2nd around 06:00 our building maintanence mechanics will start with the "refurbishment' of the SEAMM break room at the maintanence facility and should be completed around February 16th.
Painting; February 2-4
Wainscoting: February 5-11
Floors: February 12-16

What is Wainscoting? Wainscoting is a decorative paneling that commonly adorns the lower part of walls and stairways.

1-29-09

United Airlines has updated the IBT Airline Division of the Company's continuing efforts to more efficiently run its maintenance operation. It has asked the Division to work with the Company's representatives to help the Company achieve that objective. The Division advised United Airlines that it will indeed work with the Company and its team. This joint effort will consist of several steps and will require the sharing of sensitive, operational and cost-related data, as well as significant input from the United mechanics and related. As part of this process, the Company is currently focusing on its GQ and PV maintenance operations at 9 of its locations. In so doing, United will focus on all aspects of these operations, including potential increased utilization of its facilities as well as potential third-party outsourcing of some or all of these facilities. To that end,
United and the Division will be establishing several work teams to jointly evaluate and assess the Company's QC and PV maintenance operations.

Local Unions, namely, Locals 25,210 and 986 will begin the first phase of this process. In order to ensure geographic representation of the entire unit, one member will be selected from each of the following locations: Boston; New York Point; Philadelphia; West Coast; and Hawaii. February 9,2009, will be the meeting date.

We were able to get Phil Stewart Chief Steward, for SEAPV/GQ on the committee and he will be traveling back to Chicago for this meeting to represent us in Seattle and Portland.
Jock Creach
Teamsters Local 986
Coordinator

1-26-09

Last week the IBT Steering Committee met in San Francisco to discuss contract proposals. There were representatives from all over the country present. As you can imagine there were many proposals and many different ideas on how to move forward. The committee attacked each Article line by line with the goal of tightening and clearing up language that dates back to 1947. While we made progress more work is definitely needed. We will meet again in the beginning of February to continue this work. Dave, Phil and myself will be there to continue the process. Also on a side note Dave Saucedo has been selected to be on the IBT negotiations committee.