Jan 11, 2019 | Airlines, American, Departments, Hawaiian, Home, Philippine, Spirit, United
On the 20th day of the partial federal government shutdown, workers, union leaders, members of Congress and allies gathered in front of the AFL-CIO headquarters in Washington, DC.
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka kicked off the rally by denouncing the shutdown, which has become the longest and most painful in American history.
“That is not a record that anyone should be proud of. And let’s call this shutdown what it is: it’s a lockout. Hard working American patriots are being locked out of their jobs for no reason other than the politics of fear.”
Representatives of IAM141 joined in solidarity with union activists from the National Federation of Federal Employees (NFFE), the IAMAW affiliate that was a lead organizer of the rally. Randy Erwin, NFFE National President, described union members who feel as if the “carpet (was) ripped out from under them” and asked, “How out of touch is this president?”
Erwin introduced NFFE member Jamie Rodney, who as a Federal Investigator for the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) enforces fair housing and civil rights laws. She warned that HUD rental assistance payments that millions of people rely on would not be available during the shutdown.
IAM General Vice-President Bryan Bryant stressed the real-life consequences of the shutdown politics:
“Not once did (the president) mention the impact on federal workers, federal contractors, their communities and their families. Not once did he mention that one-third of federal workers are veterans. Not once did he mention the damage that is being done to the American people and our economy.”
Economists at Standard & Poor estimate that the shutdown has dropped the nation’s economic output by over $6.5 billion per week. The US Travel Association, a non-profit advocacy group, estimates a loss of $152 million per day in the industry, based in part on expected reductions in business travel for federal employees and government contractors.
GVP Bryant invited IAMAW member Steve Ching to the podium. Ching is an Industrial High Voltage Technician whose responsibilities include monitoring the power grid at the Kennedy Space Center. He spoke about the dilemma federal workers face: “How long will our families be able to hold out? What about medical insurance? We love our jobs but hate this uncertainty. Many have questioned if they should move on to another job. If these workers go on to other jobs, the space program will suffer. These are highly trained, skilled professionals with security clearances and certifications that will be hard to replace. Working America wants to go back to work. Hard working Americans like myself are being used as pawns in this great political divide. Congress and the President must put aside political differences, reopen the government and work together to solve America’s problems just like they always have in this great country.”
Elected officials, including several members of Congress, called for fairness for the furloughed workers, demanding that a “clean” bill be put for a vote on the Senate floor to get workers back to their jobs, leaving negotiations on immigration and border security for a later discussion. Sen. Mazie Hirono (HI) called out Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (KY) demanding that “the man missing in action come out of hiding and do his job so we can all do our jobs.” Several senators echoed her call, pointing out that the US Senate, as an independent branch of government, has the power to override a president’s veto with a 2/3 majority vote.
Union leaders pledged steadfast and unified action in support of working women and men at similar rallies across the country. Hundreds of union leaders from a range of industries promised to continue to speak out, march and take any additional necessary actions in support of their members.
So far, two unions are suing the federal government arguing it is against the law to mandate employees to work without pay. GVP Bryan Bryant agreed, and called it “unconscionable.”
Dec 19, 2018 | Airlines, American, Departments, Hawaiian, Home, Philippine, Safety, Spirit, United
Newly Released Research by UnionSafe141 has info for airline workers looking to avoid the OJI Pain Train.
Try to think of something that will ruin your day at work, and airline workers are probably dealing with that exact thing right now, while you are reading this.
Extreme weather, exhaustion, heavy machinery… the world of commercial aviation is home to every kind of workplace hazard known to man.
Chemicals? Explosives? Tight spaces? Airline workers wouldn’t even flinch. Airline workers are trained to deal with all that by their first day. Heavy lifting? Heights? Complicated math? Please. Some ramper somewhere is probably loading a lion or a bear into a plane at this very moment.
However hard you try, occasionally coming home feeling a little beat up is normal. For airline workers, it’s SOP. In fact, according to data compiled by OSHA, working at one of our nation’s airports is about even with construction work when it comes to how likely it is to get banged up on the job.
Airline work is dangerous. And, the longer a person does it, the more likely a severe injury becomes.
It’s hard to know just how dangerous airline work is, however. Surprisingly, there are no federal regulators or agencies that maintain a detailed and comprehensive record of injuries. What information exists can be nearly impossible to find, scattered over a confusing tangle of bureaucratic firewalls.
The most extensive database of airline incident tracking available is kept by Machinists Union members in Philadelphia. The small team of Safety Advocates there maintains careful records of injuries, equipment repairs, and other safety-related information of interest to airline workers. The detailed information provides what is perhaps the clearest view of the safety landscape of Airlines in North America.
According to the research conducted by the Machinists Union, the leading cause of injuries sustained by airline workers is… drumroll please… back injuries.
Hundreds and hundreds of airline workers report serious back injuries each year. Many of them are crippling.
They are also hard to avoid. Airline workers deal with several thousand pounds of bags a day, often while squeezed into the underbellies of planes. Other work areas require near-constant lifting from unavoidable awkward positions and heights. Moreover, back injuries seldom result from a single incident. Repetitive stress trauma can sneak up on you, waiting for that one special bag to become the straw that finally, well, breaks the camel’s back.
All of which makes back injuries an unwanted trademark of airline work.
To read the full story and many more like it. Check out District Lodge 141’s New Airmail Magazine. This Issue focuses on the 2018 IAM141 Safety Conference and highlights safety in the airline industry.
Dec 17, 2018 | Airlines, American, Hawaiian, Home, Philippine, Spirit, United
Union contracts protect paychecks.
While millions of America’s non-union workers watch their take-home pay shrink due to increasing health care costs and wage stagnation, IAM members at our nation’s airlines are prospering.
With wages rising to record levels, new contracts that make outsourcing almost impossible, and no shortage of profits for carriers, unionized airline workers have never had it better than they do right now. Reversing national trends that outsource work, labor agreements are also driving an increase in airline sector hiring. Hundreds of new and insourced employees are being recruited at a rate not seen since before 9/11.
IAM members at United Airlines are the best paid airline workers in their classifications. In December of 2018, the IAM wage premium will increase again, and most IAM members at United will earn a base rate of over $30 per hour, many of them for the first time.
Although contract negotiations at American are ongoing, insiders predict that wages at that airline will remain competitive once a Tentative Agreement is ratified. IAM members at American Airlines, like their counterparts at United, earn top wages already. A major goal of the negotiations in progress at American is to improve on the wage and benefits at United, creating industry leading pay at American and protecting the enviable health care provisions that they already have.
These raises will deliver millions of dollars in additional wages to IAM141 members. The wage increases will help counter the escalating costs of living that are eroding the wages of most non-union workers.
The recent raises at United are only the second of six total negotiated raises for IAM-represented workers at the airline. Under their current agreement, IAM members at United will get guaranteed raises like this one for the next four years.
Thanks to these advances, Machinists Union contracts have dramatically re-defined what constitutes a fair market rate for airline work. “Standard” wages for airline workers at the top of the pay scale are now higher than those of most American workers. And this is not likely to fall anytime soon.
Dec 17, 2018 | Airlines, Home, United
Union Workers are Making More.
Increasing numbers of American workers have stagnant wages, less secure employment, and fewer rights at work, according to data released by the Pew Research Center. But not all workers are missing out – union members are thriving.
Unemployment has been dropping steadily for nearly a decade, to well below 4%. That’s the lowest unemployment rate in 20 years, coming after more than 100 straight months of job gains. On the surface, it would seem like the dawn of a new Golden Age for the American workforce.
However, wages remain stubbornly stagnant for the majority of American workers. As the labor market shrinks for employers, labor costs are not going up as fast as the labor supply is going down. For many workers, inflation, skyrocketing health care costs, and weakened collective bargaining quickly eat away small increases in take-home pay.
Many Americans are seeing how labor unions offer a solution to wage stagnation.
Higher wages result from stronger labor unions, according to studies conducted by the Pew Research Center. 55% of Americans say that unions allow workers a more fair percentage of the profits that they generate.
Where it comes to wages and overall compensation, unions have historically outpaced all other forms of workplace negotiation. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2018 non-union workers earned only 80% of the wages of their unionized counterparts. Total compensation, including vacation time, health insurance, and other benefits drive the wage gap between union and non-union workers even farther apart.
The airline industry offers an excellent example of how unions help defy wage stagnation.
United Airlines employees working under a collective bargaining agreement negotiated between the company and the Machinists Union are getting a big raise this Holiday season. Many members are getting a bump of more than $0.80 an hour. This increase will mean an additional $128 a month, on top of the base rate of over $30 an hour that most of them are earning already. Their union contract also provides overtime and holiday pay, including a rare benefit outside of the union world: double time and a half pay for working on holidays. Most United employees who work on Christmas Day and New Year’s Day will get $1200 or more for their efforts this holiday season, as guaranteed by their IAM Contract.
If all that wasn’t enough, as the airline grows, hundreds of unionized part-time agents at the airline are having their status increased to full-time, doubling their pay on top of the new pay rates. Health care costs, infamous for always growing faster than wages, are tightly controlled, again thanks to their collectively negotiated contract. Machinists Union members at United are watching their paychecks grow, not shrink, by leaps and bounds.
Meanwhile, the holidays are a much darker time for non-union employees. United Airlines announced this week that it plans to outsource most non-union tool room jobs in Houston’s IAH to an outside vendor, shifting existing employees to administrative duties. There are few, if any, legal guarantees to make sure that the workers’ pay will keep up with health care costs, inflation… or if they will even keep the current pay rates.
In contrast, the jobs of Machinists Union members working in the United tool rooms in Houston are not being outsourced. Strong anti-outsourcing language in their IAM contract protects their livelihoods.
Non-union airline employees at other airlines aren’t faring any better. Ground Operations Crewmembers at jetBlue, for example, recently watched as the company slashed their profit sharing payments, and long-anticipated raises failed to materialize. Working “at-will” with no job security protections means that more Crewmembers will get fired from Thanksgiving to Easter than at any other time of the year.
At the same time, back at the unionized airlines, as negotiations between IAM and company representatives at American and United advance, it forces the carriers to compete to attract and retain a quality workforce by paying its ground crews the most in both wages and overall compensation. That’s a position that any worker would like to find themselves in.
Dec 16, 2018 | Airlines, American, Departments, Home, Organizing, The Association
Brothers and Sisters,
THE TWU/IAM Association executive negotiating committee participated on a conference call conducted by National Mediation Board mediators yesterday, December 14, 2018. Negotiators from American Airlines also participated.
The mediators recapped the remaining open items to be negotiated. They also set the agenda and negotiating schedule for the beginning of 2019. The Association presented a proposal covering Field Trips for M&R and MLS members.
The next face-to-face negotiations are scheduled for January 15-17 in San Francisco. Topics to be discussed are open economic pay elements, health & welfare (insurance), duration of the agreement, field trips and other open contract language items.
We were successful in obtaining additional negotiating dates on the calendar. Scheduled negotiating dates are:
• January 15, 16, 17
• January 29, 30, 31
• February 6, 7, 8
• February 12, 13, 14
• And an additional week in March – specific dates to be determined
Our objective is to reach agreement as soon as possible without having to use all of our scheduled dates. However, this Association is committed to achieving the compensation, healthcare, retirement and job security that our members have earned and deserve. Your continued support and solidarity is both appreciated and necessary to reach these goals.
We wish all of our members a safe and happy holiday season.
Fraternally,
Your Association Executive Negotiating Committee
Please Post On All TWU- IAM Bulletin Boards
Dec 12, 2018 | Airlines, Departments, Featured, Hawaiian, Home, Safety
In airline safety
Practice Makes Perfect
Fewer safety reports may be a sign that an airline is being less honest, not safer.
Airlines all face the same fundamental challenges keeping travellers and workers safe. When one of these airlines refuses to report on these issues, it’s not because their safety record is perfect. It’s because it’s hidden.
Almost all airlines in the US fly the same planes, operate at the same airports, and fall under the same regulatory guidelines and workplace safety laws.
When airlines report more safety issues, fewer real catastrophes seem to happen. A higher number of reported safety incidents and near-misses does not mean that an airline is less safe. It might be a sign that the airline is practicing and learning more than the other guys.
Meanwhile, airlines that try to hide safety reports can miss opportunities to correct problems while they are still small.
“All airlines have incidents every day,” said Geoffrey Thomas, an industry analyst with AirlineRatings.com. “It is the way that flight crews handle incidents that determines a good airline from an unsafe one.”
Airlines that closely monitor and study accidents get better and better at preventing them. The trick, according to Machinists Union District 141 Safety Director Kaulana Pakele, is for companies to learn to trust front-line employees. Pakele’s work at Hawaiian Airlines takes him to work areas across the spectrum, including Customer Service, Cargo, Supplies, and Clerical & Stores. Hawaiian is recognized as one of the top 20 airlines in the world for its safety record, thanks in no small part to the work of Pakele and his safety teams.
Hawaiian has essentially made every front-line employee a safety inspector, with a program called “Ground Safety Improvement Plan,” called GSIP (pronounced Gee-Sip) by agents. The program allows any employee at the airline to put any safety concern they might have on blast – sending word to the FAA, OSHA, company managers and safety experts at the same time.
Other airlines have similar programs, like the GSAP program at United Airlines.
According to Pakele, putting employees into a leadership role when it comes to safety makes sense. It ensures that the people with the most to lose in an unsafe workplace have the most influence in developing and executing safety policies. It also makes sure that the workers that know the most about the real-world operation are keeping upper management and safety regulators informed about how well company policies are working. All this can be done on a constant, hour by hour basis, and can provide valuable data that safety experts can integrate into policy.
However, this level of transparency can come with a price, especially if a company culture sees such reporting as adversarial rather than something that might save lives. Some passengers when learning about the reports may misinterpret them as evidence that an airline is unsafe, rather than see them as a tool to identify and correct policies and procedures.
Despite the potential drawbacks, Pakele is quick to point out the value of employee-directed safety programs. “The best argument for these programs is in how boring they are.” Pakele jokes. “When they work, nothing happens. And that’s the point.”
“There’s a saying in Hawaii that we can use when we talk about safety: ‘E palekana kahana a e k?ko’o kekahi i kekahi,’ or, ‘May the work be safe, and support one another.’”
