Sep 20, 2019 | Airlines, American, Home, Organizing, The Association
Federally-mediated negotiations between the TWU-IAM Association and American Airlines continued this week in Washington, D.C. At the request of the NMB, the parties have agreed to keep details of our discussions confidential.
The National Mediation Board scheduled negotiations to continue next week in Washington, and we are hopeful that progress is made then.
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Sep 19, 2019 | Airlines, American, Hawaiian, Home, Philippine, Spirit, United
With the potential for three simultaneous contract negotiations becoming more likely, the President of District 141 of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers is working to stay connected with front-line workers.
Machinists District 141 President Mike Klemm was greeted by over a hundred Local 914 members at a recent station visit at EWR. Meeting directly with members on their home turf has become a regular part of Mike’s tenure as President.
For anyone leading an organization with over 40,000 members scattered from Massachusetts to Pago Pago, staying connected can be a real challenge.
Even the most tech-savvy leaders value the importance of face-to-face communication and see no substitute for just showing up at workplaces and hearing from workers in person, on their turf. When the organization you lead is the largest district in the largest territory of the IAMAW, the challenge is indeed great.
IAMAW District 141 President and Directing General Chair Mike Klemm spends a lot of time on airplanes, but he sees that as a way to have meaningful connections with the members he has pledged to represent. “When I am not in contract negotiations, station visits are the best use of my time,” according to Mike. “The time I spend on airplanes helps me organize my thoughts so I can communicate better when I get to interact with the members at their jobs. When your thoughts are organized, you can be a better listener. And listening to what the members have to say is the main purpose of a station visit.”
At a recent visit to Liberty International Airport in Newark, NJ, Mike spent the day visiting every corner of the airport to converse with members informally. He tries to visit every hub station at least once per year. Many times, these station visits yield concrete results. After listening to insights from Kirk Griffiths, an IAM ramp worker in Houston, TX, Mike negotiated a smaller time frame for submitting day and shift trades for all airport-based employees at United Airlines. The new 4-hour window, an improvement over the previous 24-hour requirement, brought more flexibility and fewer job terminations due to attendance problems.
With two major airline contracts up for renewal in 2020, and ongoing negotiations at American Airlines, station visits have become even more important. “Not everyone is ready to share all their concerns when put on the spot at a station visit. So that’s why we encourage members to watch for and fill out the surveys we put out before we begin negotiations. We rank issues according to how many members mention them in the surveys, and that tells us what’s really important. There may be some issues that are specific to one region or city, but there are always concerns that affect every member. That’s what we need to address in a contract that will work for everyone.”
Local officers and committee members usually join Mike for the station visits, which helps when members bring up issues that are location-specific. It also allows for some reflection on the issues discussed as the visit wraps up. At Terminal A in Newark, Erica Boyce was vocal about her frustrations with short-staffing, but was excited to hear about several cases where union representatives fought for and saved jobs. “You’ve got to get loud and proud,” Erica said. “Advertise your successes.” That exchange ended the day on a high note, as Mike got ready for the drive out to Long Island, New York, to see his family.
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Sep 12, 2019 | Airlines, American, Departments, Featured, Hawaiian, Home, Organizing, Philippine, Spirit, United
Wait, what?
High wages are great, but there’s a lot more that goes into a union paycheck.
If you’re a member of the largest airline union in the world (the IAMAW), you are better compensated than anyone else who does the same work as you. That fact remains true even if someone else makes more money per hour.
How is this possible?
Many things go into building a union paycheck. How many hours you are allowed to work, overtime rules, bonuses and benefits – to name a few. At non-union workplaces, an eye-catching hourly wage might come with hidden costs, such as a smaller pension, forced time off and sick leave policies that deduct from vacation time. These things can drain a paycheck and leave workers wondering where all the money went.
Many people confuse an hourly wage with overall compensation. In reality, your wage is only one of the reasons that you are financially better off (or not) working at one company over another.
Bloggers who don’t work for an airline and company spokespersons might claim that one set of employees is “better paid” than their union counterparts. However, they probably aren’t looking at the full picture.
What is “Overall Compensation?”
A significant portion of your income isn’t part of your hourly wage but still counts toward your total compensation. Some of this is considered income for tax purposes, and some is not.
For example, the value of specific benefits, such as travel privileges, bonuses, and “premium” overtime are considered income to the IRS. Other benefits, such as work rules that allow for nearly-unlimited day trades and paid training, are harder to calculate unless a worker uses them.
Other policies that can boost your take-home pay and net worth are arguably just as important as base wages. Things like your pension and health benefits can add many thousands of dollars to your financial security. Also, don’t forget your vacation time and sick banks. Those have value as well.
Union members get great add-ons to their base wages that are missing at non-union workplaces. Double-time overtime, shift differentials, overrides, day and shift trades, paid training, holiday pay, vacation buyouts, separate sick time and vacation banks, and many other extras that union members know all about, but that are unheard of at non-union workplaces.
All of this combines to create your total compensation, the figure that determines your overall net worth and how financially secure you and your family actually are.
Take Delta Air Lines. Delta ramp workers have a fair hourly wage, often ranging over $30. They also earned an extremely desirable profit-sharing check this year, splitting a record-shattering $1.3 Billion in company profits. Anyone would be happy with money like that.
However, Machinists and Aerospace Union members at other airlines wouldn’t want to trade places with Delta employees. Even if the hourly wages are competitive with those at United and American, union members would be taking a crippling pay cut to work at Delta, even if it might mean slightly higher hourly wages.
How?
As just one example, Delta employees do not get a pension. The company only offers a company match to employee contributions to a 401(k) plan and does not have a fully-funded defined benefit pension plan. Delta is so intent on killing pensions that executives are deducting costs related to on the job injuries from the retirement accounts earned by former Northwest workers who now work at Delta. The airline has consistently raised insurance rates along with wages increases, which can erode a paycheck faster than inflation. In this way, Delta employees raises do not keep up with cost of living expenses in most of the country. Union members at United and American get health insurance plans that are locked in with a legally-binding contract.
Also, while the profit sharing at Delta is something that all companies should be working to emulate, union members at United chose to guarantee their profit sharing each and every year. They did this by boosting the hourly rate they earn all year. Moreover, their yearly profit sharing cannot be taken away, gambled, or spent on stock buyback schemes.
Earning a substantial hourly wage is always a good thing. But workers shouldn’t allow one single figure to distract them from their overall compensation rates. Machinists and Aerospace Union members certainly haven’t. In every classification in which they work, Machinists earn the highest total compensation levels in the industry. From rocket and aircraft builders and from astronauts to airline ground crews, the most highly compensated workers are always members of the Machinists and Aerospace Workers Union.
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Sep 12, 2019 | Airlines, American, Departments, Featured, Hawaiian, Home, Philippine, Safety, Spirit, United, Video
The 2019 IAM Joint Air Transport Safety Committee Conference was held at the William Winpisinger Education Center in Hollywood, Maryland. IAM safety advocates from District 140, District 141 and District 142 were joined by management safety officials from companies where workers are represented by our union. Conference attendees participated in group discussions and hands-on seminars where they shared ways to improve safety policies and procedures, how to mitigate workplace hazards and how to promote a comprehensive safety culture. They also enjoyed a presentation by professional race car driver Andy Pilgrim, founder of the Traffic Safety Education Foundation, who is passionate about promoting safety and combating distracted driving.
District Lodge 141 will feature highlights from the JATSC Conference, including Pilgrim’s presentation, at the upcoming District Safety Conference in October. More information and video presentations coming soon.![]()
Sep 6, 2019 | Airlines, American, Departments, Featured, Home, Organizing, Safety, The Association
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