Airline Division News Items
Teamster Mechanics Meet with Senators to Promote IBT Legislation
On Tuesday and Wednesday of this week, a group of Teamster mechanics from Continental, United, and Horizon and led by Chris Moore and Airline Division consultant Jack Albertine met with 14 Senate offices, both Democratic and Republican. Three pieces of legislation were promoted—The Employee Free Choice Act, the outsourcing legislative language in the House passed FAA Reauthorization Bill, and the Express Carrier language that changes the unique FedEx provision in the existing law that makes it difficult for workers to organize.
The group received generally positive responses from the Senate offices. For example, Olympia Snow (R- Maine) sees the outsourcing issue as a safety issue which we believe it clearly is.
The IBT is also supporting the passage of the House-passed TSA Reauthorization Act which orders TSA to issue long-overdue security standards for foreign repair stations that are comparable to domestic standards for air carriers and airports. The standards would cover background checks, access to aircraft and perimeter security in order to prevent terrorists from infiltrating our aviation system and harming the U.S.or other countries.
Senator Clair McCaskill Bangs the Drum (Again) on Foreign Aircraft Repair
Here's what the public doesn't get, Sen. Claire McCaskill says:
A big chunk of the maintenance work being done on the airplanes you fly on is performed overseas. Sometimes these are at sites that are non-FAA certified repair facilities. Sometimes these are places where workers are not tested for alcohol or drugs. "I don't think the American flying public realizes to what extent maintenance has been outsourced in an effort to cut costs," McCaskill said at a hearing on aviation operations, safety, and security.
Along with Sen. Arlen Spector (D-PA), McCaskill introduced legislation in the last Congress that would have addressed many of the safety and security problems associated with outsourcing to foreign repair stations.
Teamster Negotiators Address Grievance Procedures and New Layoff and Recall Proposal
Contract negotiations resumed this week in San Francisco. On June 16th and 17th the Teamsters negotiating team met with Company officials to continue discussions on non-economic items. The June 16th session focused on the grievance procedure, the Union feeling strongly that the system needs to be overhauled to encourage grievances to be settled at the lowest possible level. The June 17th session centered on the Union's new Layoff and Recall proposal. The Company had a number of questions aimed at clarifying the portion of the Union 's proposal that allows greater flexibility in the exercise of seniority in times of layoffs. Negotiations will resume on July 23 and 24 in San Francisco. The following negotiating session will be in Denveron July 29 and 30.
Airline Division Safety Committee Underway
Russ Leighton, an ex-accident investigator from the NTSB and currently the Head of Safety for Local 1224, held a meeting in Chicago of the new Safety Committee authorized by the Teamsters Airline Division Advisory Board of Directors. The Safety Committee developed recommendations on Go-Team responsibilities and Go-Team Kits. As an outgrowth of that meeting Russ held a conference call with United Airlines mechanics and others with safety responsibilities at United to go over the Safety Committee recommendations. Ground side safety issues as well as accident investigation responsibilities were covered. Russ reports that the information was very well received and further meetings with United mechanics and safety personnel will take place.
Teamster Aviation Mechanics Coalition Chairman Visits MRO in
El Salvador
Chris Moore, TAMC chairman, accompanied Southwest Airline officials at their invitation on a "validation flight" to Aeroman, a foreign repair station in El Salvador that will be doing heavy maintenance on some of Southwest's 737s. Chris spent two days at the facility and developed a wealth of information. Chris will be writing reports on what he saw.
Week in Review News Items
Labor Developments
Aircraft mechanics do their job with a repair manual open in front of them, mapping every step. Documents, and interviews in this MUST-watch video, indicate one Texas repair firm, San Antonio Aerospace (SAA), now has more than 100 Mexican and Asian aircraft mechanics. Some SAA repairmen say the Mexican workers lack the ability to even understand the content of company meetings, much less read manuals. Willie Walsh, British Airways chief executive, faced fresh conflict with the unions on Tuesday after they reacted angrily to proposals that staff should work without pay for a month. And Air Canada is to ask for – and probably get – a USD200 million government loan as part of a USD600 million refinancing, now that it appears unions have agreed to the pension moratorium that management has been seeking.
Safety & Regulatory
Confronting a string of six fatal commuter plane crashes, top federal officials promised on Monday to set new rules to limit fatigue. NTSB has been urging the FAA for 19 years to strengthen regulations on pilot hours. "It's money," said Dave Ross, a trustee for the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, which represents pilot unions at six regional airlines. Nearly 15 years ago, after a spate of regional air crashes involving pilots with shaky records, federal regulators promised "on one level of safety" for all airlines, both large and small. The hollowness of that promise hit home in recent days, as hearings unfolded into the Feb. 12 crash of a Colgan Air turboprop. The captain and co-pilot were underpaid, inexperienced, undisciplined and perhaps exhausted.
Los Angeles International has unveiled a new $7 million radar system designed to eliminate aircraft runway incursions that have been a major operational problem for years. The radar is connected to status lights along a runway and eight taxiways and is designed to detect potential collisions between two aircraft or an aircraft and a vehicle. A US Airways aircraft with 89 people on board taking off from Boston's Logan Airport narrowly missed a truck on the runway on Thursday, in an incident described by airport authorities as "serious."
Air France 447 Developments
After the crash of an Air France jet this month, Europe's main air safety regulator is expected to decide by Friday whether to require all airlines to replace the air-speed sensors on Airbus A330 planes. However, as they work to unravel the mystery of Air France Flight 447, aviation analysts and pilots are now urging investigators to focus attention on the plane's tail fin, known as the vertical stabilizer. "Airbus has every single incentive to do whatever it takes to find out what could have gone wrong to be sure that information gets in the right hands to prevent further accidents," says Kevin Mitchell, chairman of the Business Travel Coalition. "On the other side of the issue, if they have fundamental structural or design flaws and billions of dollars invested, then it doesn't get any worse in terms of strategic prospects. So organizations like NTSB and the FAA must be on the alert for potential conflicts of interests."
Airline Financial News
The 100th Paris Air Show takes place this year against a backdrop of tragedy and economic stress. The still unexplained crash of an Air France Airbus A330 into the Atlantic two weeks ago has cast a pall over the European plane maker. Europe 's airlines appear to have just suffered their worst month yet of the downturn, with preliminary traffic figures down 9 percent year-on-year in May, the Association of European Airlines said on Monday. And American Airlines expects to report a 16 to 17 percent year-over-year decrease in mainline unit revenue for the quarter, the company said on Thursday. American also said in a regulatory filing that second quarter cargo and other revenue is anticipated to decline between 7.8 and 8.8 percent.