American’s Profit HOARDING Plan

Mar 28, 2018 | Airlines, American, Home, The Association

Brothers and Sisters,

The TWU-IAM Association is fighting for the industry’s best profit sharing plan. The current American Airlines profit sharing plan is simply inadequate. Even American’s CEO admitted that other airlines have better profit sharing plans. He recognized that those better plans have created a “compensation differential” for Association members that would be addressed in contract negotiations stating, “we’ll [American] need to close that [compensation differential].”

Did Steve Johnsen get the memo from his boss? Or is he freelancing, undercutting what his CEO has publicly stated?

Steve refuses to improve your profit sharing plan. He also demanded in his infamous “take it or leave it” style that we should stop making such reasonable proposals. He does not think American should fairly share the industry-leading profits that Association members created.

The TWU-IAM Association will not relent in obtaining the value that the industry’s best profit sharing plan will provide. Association members deserve that.

Fraternally,

Your Association Negotiating Committee

The Truth About American’s Medical Proposal

Mar 27, 2018 | Airlines, American, Home, The Association

Brothers and Sisters,

Your bargaining committee has chosen to fight for affordable health care. Therefore, we have demanded that American Airlines, the largest and most profitable airline in the world, offer the richer Legacy U.S. Airways plans to all Association members.

Under the Association proposal, the company may offer other plans at their discretion. If the company plans are as “competitive” as the company says they are, Association members will choose them. However, we won’t let the company eliminate the LUS plans that for years members have fought and sacrificed for.

In yet another assault on this membership, the company proposed to eliminate the LUS plans and offer only more expensive company plans to all Association members with no limits on future cost increases.

Comparison of 80/20 plans LAA/LUS

For some Association members, a move to the company plans means an increase in annual premiums that you will never recoup –more than $6,500 per year for many employees with families (see comparison above). And for every other Association member, it means yearly cost increases that, at best, will offset any wage increases, and even erode your compensation to the point of going backward.

This, brothers and sisters, is simply unacceptable. This health insurance was not forfeited during a time of bankruptcy and sacrifice. And during this time of record profits, billion dollar stock buy backs, and multi-million dollar executive salaries, all Association members should have access to the best health insurance plans.

Fraternally,

Your Association Negotiating Committee

The Truth About American’s FAKE SCOPE Proposal

Mar 26, 2018 | Airlines, American, Home, The Association

Brothers and Sisters,

The TWU/IAM Association seeks to protect your jobs and the WORK you do. Without protecting your work, your job is at risk; and without a job, every other benefit in a contract is meaningless.

Steve Johnsen and American are proposing FAKE SCOPE. In their most recent and insulting offer, Steve and company want to outsource at least 5,000 (a whopping 17 percent) Association jobs, across all classifications. This is not our number, it’s theirs, and it’s wholly unacceptable.

American Airlines should be ashamed of their cowardly attempt to bypass the negotiating committee by trying to fool us into believing how great their “take it or leave it” scope/job protection, medical insurance, wages and retirement security proposals are.

Without the 30,000 dedicated, hardworking Association members, there is no American Airlines, there are no profits that enrich the top executives and there is definitely no Steve Johnsen. If Steve Johnsen and American’s corporate leadership want a bargain, they should go shop at Walmart, not at the doorstep of the TWU-IAM Association.

Fraternally,

Your Association Negotiating Committee

American Derails Negotiations

Mar 22, 2018 | Airlines, American, Home, The Association

In this period between scheduled negotiating sessions, the Association leadership met with American Airlines management principals in the hope of better understanding each other’s position on the outstanding issues that need to be resolved in order to conclude negotiations. Significant issues, including wages, job scope protection, pensions and medical benefits remain open.

The Association entered these meetings expecting to set the stage to conclude negotiations in our next full negotiating session. If American management had that same goal, a tentative agreement to present to you for your consideration and vote would have been close. Unfortunately, American management had a different plan.

American Airlines Executive Vice President Steven Johnsen, who had never participated in a single negotiating session since opening proposals were shared more than two years ago, led the discussions for the company. Johnsen’s presence not only failed to bring us closer to an agreement, but he single-handedly derailed the significant and steady progress that both sides had been making in these negotiations. As a result of Johnsen injecting himself in the process, we are now further away from a tentative agreement than we were a month ago.

Johnsen, who American Airlines paid more than $30 million over the last four years, delivered the message that American could not afford to provide proper healthcare, job security and retirement income for Association members.

In discussing profit sharing, he said no improvements were possible. This completely contradicts CEO Doug Parker who acknowledged American’s sub-par profit sharing scheme in a discussion with employees on January 18, 2018 and said it had to be improved in negotiations.

American Airlines is demanding that legacy US Airways members lose the healthcare that they earned through a strike and which has survived two bankruptcies. The Association’s position is that the better healthcare should be extended to cover all Association members, the cost of which would be less than the annual compensation of the carrier’s top three officers.

Johnsen also refused to discuss defined benefit pensions for Association members. Instead, he wants to mandate major employee concessions when the airline is making more than $3 billion a year in pre-tax profits.

Negotiating is a process where both parties engage in discussions to reach a common agreement. There must be give and take from both sides. Steven Johnsen is not interested in negotiating. He is not interested in agreement. He is only interested in the Association acquiescing to his will. The Association, however, responded to his demands appropriately, which resulted in Johnsen having a tantrum, leaving his other company negotiators in the lurch and storming out of the room.

Steven Johnsen’s presence has marked a dramatic shift from the productive discussions we had been having with American’s experienced negotiators. In these meetings Johnsen displayed a unique combination of arrogance and ignorance that will prevent us from reaching an agreement.

The entire Association negotiating committee will meet next week in Washington, D.C. to discuss the sudden and insulting shift American has taken. We will also discuss the coordinated mobilization of the Association’s more than 30,000 members in response to Steven Johnsen’s deliberate sabotaging of your career, your future and your contract negotiations.

The Association is committed to quickly concluding negotiations. But we must have a willing partner across the table to do so.

Fraternally,

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Association, AA Executive Session Negotiations Continue

Feb 23, 2018 | Airlines, American, Home, The Association

Brothers and Sisters,

The Executive Negotiating Committee this week met face to face with American Airlines in Washington D.C.

Complete Tentative Agreements were reached on:

Classifications-MTS

Discussions continued on the MLS Classifications Article that contains some Scope provisions. The parties continued to narrow their positions in this article. Scope discussions were completed for MTS, except for those covenants that are global in nature and will apply to the Scope article for all JCBA’s.

Progress was made on the outstanding issues in the following Articles:

M&R Grievance Procedure
Fleet Service Vacation accrual change “double jeopardy”
Weekly Pay checks for all groups

The Negotiating Committees continued the task of building JCBA drafts with all the previously tentatively agreed to Articles, an arduous and painstaking process to ensure accuracy of the agreed upon language.

With the progress made on these tasks, the Fleet Service Committee will meet with the company the week of February 26th and the M&R Committee will meet with the company the week of March 5th to reconcile any errors that either party has identified while compiling the JCBA drafts with the previously agreed to tentative agreements.

During the next 2 weeks that this reconciliation process takes place, the Executive Negotiating Committee will continue dialog with American Airlines on the outstanding Scope and economic topics, healthcare, retirement and all forms of compensation in an effort to move closer to a successful conclusion of JCBA negotiations.

Your continued solidarity and support continues to inspire and motivate your committees to bring these negotiations to completion.

Fraternally,

Fleet Negotiating Committee:

Mark Baskett, William Fa, Mike Fairbanks, Tim Hughes, Steve Miller, Tim Murphy, Pat Rezler, Andre Sutton, Rodney Walker, Bill Wilson

Mechanic and Related/Stores Committee:

Jason Best, Mike Bush, Ken Coley, John Coveny, Dale Danker, Mark Huffman, Bennie Martino, Gary Peterson, Rollie Reaves, Sean Ryan, Jay Sleeman, Mark Strength

Association, AA Executive Session Negotiations Continue

Feb 16, 2018 | Airlines, American, Home, The Association

Brothers and Sisters,

The Executive Negotiating Committee met face to face with American Airlines this week in Washington D.C.

Complete Tentative Agreements were reached on:

Filling of Vacancies-MLS

Discussions continued on the MLS Classifications Article that contains some Scope provisions. The parties have narrowed their positions in this article.

The majority of the Letters of Agreement that were previously identified to be discussed and incorporated into the JCBA or revised to reflect current applications were discussed and agreed to this week.

The Negotiating Committees this week began the task of building a JCBA draft with all the previously tentatively agreed to Articles, an arduous and painstaking process to ensure accuracy of the agreed upon language.

This week’s work was positive and productive; however, your solidarity and patience are of tremendous importance as we move the JCBA negotiating process much closer to the end than the beginning.  By the end of next week’s negotiation session, we will have a clear idea of how serious the company is in resolving Scope, Healthcare, Retirement and all forms of Compensation.

The future negotiating calendar is as follows:

February 20- DCA

Fraternally,

Fleet Negotiating Committee:

Mark Baskett, William Fa, Mike Fairbanks, Tim Hughes, Steve Miller, Tim Murphy, Pat Rezler, Andre Sutton, Rodney Walker, Bill Wilson

Mechanic and Related/Stores Committee:

Jason Best, Mike Bush, Ken Coley, John Coveny, Dale Danker, Mark Huffman, Bennie Martino, Gary Peterson, Rollie Reaves, Sean Ryan, Jay Sleeman, Mark Strength