Teamsters File for Election for American Airlines Mechanics

 

Yesterday, American Airlines mechanics and related made history! Leaders of the campaign for Teamster representation at AA gathered in Washington, DC where they announced that they filed for their election with the National Mediation Board to become Teamsters. This monumental achievement followed many months of hard work in the mechanic-led effort to get a majority of 11,000 mechanics to sign Teamster cards.

Click here to read the TAMC Teamster Aviation Professional Special Edition report on this tremendous milestone.

As the Teamster Aviation Professional reports, this is big news for the Teamsters, the TAMC and the mechanics at both AA and US Airways. The filing on Tuesday follows the US Airways mechanics’ filing for their Teamster election earlier this month. Altogether, both campaigns include 15,000 mechanics who have built a movement for Teamster power at the merging American and US Airways carriers. The mechanics are drawing a line in the sand after years of abuse by management, concessionary TWU representation at AA and poor IAM representation at US Airways.

“Workers around the country have been under attack for years and we as American Airlines mechanics are no exception,” said Bill Wheeler, a 26-year mechanic from Tulsa who traveled to D.C. for the filing event. “After enduring 20 years of concessions, outsourced jobs, bankruptcy, frozen pensions and an overall lack of respect, we are coming together to bring in the bargaining power of the Teamsters Union.”

“We approached the Teamsters because of their strong record representing airline mechanics,” said Jim Witt, a 24-year mechanic from Los Angeles. “This campaign is about our craft standing up and fighting back against outsourcing and other abuses we’ve seen over the years.”

“With these two campaigns, we are poised to build one great airline mechanics union representing over 30,000 mechanics nationwide,” said TAMC Chair Chris Moore. “With that power, we will fight to move the airline mechanic craft – and the entire industry – forward.”

Read the full Teamster Aviation Professional Special Report and share it with your coworkers.

Single Carrier Status

Yesterday, the NMB issued their ruling on the filing for Single Carrier Status between UAL, CAL and CMI.

The ruling may be read in it's entirety by clicking on the following link.

www.teamster.org/sites/teamster.org/files/NMB_UAL_CAL_CMI_ruling.pdf

Mechanics Dispatch - Week Ending May 10

 Update

The week was very busy for the subcommittee meetings involving benefits including medical and pensions. J.J. Johns from the Benefits committee was brought in to assist in the benefits talks between the parties last week and continued assistance in this week’s round. His history, experience, and knowledge in medical and other benefits related issues were welcomed by the committee. Meetings over all this week progressed closer to some agreements, but there are still many unresolved areas. These union subcommittee meetings were assisted by Cheiron actuaries Gaelle Gravot and Jim Holland and were facilitated by Pat Sims from the NMB.

The parties continue to make progress and the discussions will continue the week of May 13^th in Chicago.   

Seniority Committee

Representatives from the Seniority Committee met with the company on Wednesday to discuss plans to create the new seniority list. Julianne Cooney, UA Senior Analyst - Labor Relations, and Mark Prpich – UA Labor Relations were on hand to discuss the many issues and concerns in combining the three lists in to one. The two member union committee will assist Julianne next week in creating a comprehensive accurate list which will be available for review should the negotiating committee reach a tentative agreement.  

Mechanics Dispatch - Week Ending May 4

Negotiations Update

This week the negotiating team traveled back to Chicago. The week was spent reviewing the comprehensive proposal to Phase 2 subjects exchanged with the carrier in last week’s session. Each item from the Companies initial proposal was broken down and discussed by the committee. The union team then took another look at the Teamster proposals to determine where adjustments or agreements might possibly be made. Meanwhile, the subcommittees continued to meet and discuss benefit details in an effort to come to a mutual agreement. These union subcommittee meetings were assisted by Cheiron actuaries Gaelle Gravot and Peter Hardcastle and were facilitated by Michael Kelleher from the NMB.  

On Wednesday, the negotiating committee received a presentation from IBT EAP Coordinator Caleb Goode.  The presentation included briefings on the company’s planned/proposed changes to their drug/alcohol policy.  Discussions were held within the committee regarding how to proceed with contractual language changes with regard to the IBT’s EAP program on United Airlines, as well as clarification of the program on the property. 

The parties continue to make progress and the discussions will continue the week of May 6^th in Chicago.