Airline Division News Items
Amerijet Strike Continues and Garners Broad Support From Teamsters and Other Unons
The pilots and flight engineers of Amerijet International have been on strike since last Thursday after having tried for five years with mediation assistance of the National Mediation Board to get a contract. Up until last week, the NMB and the Teamsters continued to urge Amerijet to bargain in good faith and come to an agreement, but Amerijet walked out on talks Wednesday night.
Some of the issues that have surfaced deal with working conditions. There are no toilets aboard Amerijet's Boeing 727s. Female pilots must relieve themselves by squatting over bags. Male pilots urinate into bags just outside the cockpit doors and hang them on hooks when finished. There are no sanitary facilities in which to wash.
Nor is there food or water on board. The average first officer's annual pay was $36,000 before a 10 percent cut earlier this year. Amerijet docks pilots the equivalent off two days pay if they call out sick within 2.5, and sometimes 7, hours before their flight.
"You'd think the last person Amerijet would want flying its airplanes would be an exhausted, hungry sick pilot," said Teamsters Airline Division Director Capt. David Bourne. "And yet that's exactly who they put in the cockpit." "Amerijet's sick-leave policy, low salaries and 18-hour work days combine to create fatigue and low morale," Bourne said.
Teamsters from across the country have shown their support for the pilots striking at Amerijet International by refusing to cross picket lines or move freight for Amerijet, Bourne said.
"We have seen a widespread outpouring of support from our brother and sister Teamsters in the airline industry and major national trucking firms," Bourne said. Teamster-represented maintenance workers and cleaners at Miami International Airport are also refusing to cross the picket lines at the cargo facility on the west side of the airport.
Teamster pilots from Atlas Air, Polar Air Cargo and Kalitta – Amerijet competitors – have joined the Amerijet pilots and flight engineers in large numbers. Pilot unions at American, US Airways, Southwest, JetBlue, UPS, the Air Line Pilots Association and the Coalition of Airline Pilots Association have also joined the Amerijet pilots and flight engineers on the picket lines and are contributing their time and money in support. Additionally, other South Florida unions, as well as organized labor in the Caribbean and South America, are supporting the strikers.
Teamsters and Pilots Visit Capitol Hill to Press the Case for Amerijet Pilots
David Bourne, IBT Airline Division Director, accompanied by Amerijet pilot John Guy, USAPA President Mike McCleary and pilot Jeff Skiles, and CAPA President Paul Onorato, visited more than a dozen offices on Capitol Hill including the Aviation Subcommittee office seeking support for the Amerijet pilots in their fight with Amerijet management and HIG Capital, the majority owner of the airline.
Horizon Air Mechanics Begin Contract Talks with Management
Just four and a half months after voting the Teamsters in as their union, mechanics for Horizon began negotiations in Portland on their first collective bargaining agreement. Today the mechanics bargaining representatives met with Horizon management and presented the union's contract proposal on all non-economic sections of the contract to be negotiated. The negotiating team will be chaired by Jim DeKay. International Representative Clacy Griswold also attended this first meeting.
Continental Mechanics Section 6 Negotiations Continue in Houston
Negotiations were held on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of this week. One section of the new contract was tentatively agreed to and progress was made on a number of other sections. All-in-all, good progress is being made on the new contract.
Week in Review News Items
Labor Developments
Things got ugly at Fort Lauderdale-based cargo carrier Amerijet International, where pilots and flight engineers walked off the job last Thursday. In condemning the unhealthy working conditions at the carrier, the IBT Airline Division secured media attention early in the week. IBT indicated that after attempting to negotiate its first contract for five years that management last Wednesday walked out of National Mediation Board-sponsored talks at midnight. Leaping from the trade press to mainstream media, the Associated Press reported Friday that flying a Boeing 727 around the world might sound like a dream, but pilots for Amerijet claim their job is a nightmare that includes no sick pay, shrinking wages and no place to use the bathroom on flights but a plastic bag.
Regulatory & Safety
The Federal Aviation Administration gave Southwest Airlines the green light to continue flying about 50 commercial jets, or 10 percent of its fleet, allowing the carrier more time to remove unauthorized parts from its planes. Serious questions were raised, however, by some industry observers. The brackets in question are designed to divert engine exhaust away from the wings when a jet's flaps are extended. American Airlines faces an increasing dispute with FAA regulators over allegedly improper repairs to at least 16 aircraft, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday. U.S. airlines must replace some Thales SA speed probes in Airbus SAS planes amid concern the devices may have played a role in a June Air France crash in the Atlantic Ocean. And France wants to launch an expanded international effort to find the missing wreckage and flight recorders of the Air France jet.
Airline Industry Finances
British Airways this week reported a new drop of 11.9% in its premium traffic for August. The fall in premium traffic in August, a holiday month, is a slight rise on the 11% figure for July. But it is lower than falls of 14.9% in June, 17.7% in April, 17.2% in May and 20.2% in February. Global airlines' losses this year could exceed industry body IATA's estimate of $9 billion as no improvement across the sector is in sight so far. American Airlines is cutting 921 flight attendant jobs and Southwest will temporarily halt non-stop flights on three routes early next year in the latest examples of airlines trying to cope with a steep drop in air travel.
Miscellaneous
Carriers say a passenger bill of rights will tie their hands and they probably are right; unfortunately for all, it is they themselves who supplied the rope…Lufthansa was expected to receive approval Monday from American regulators to form a ticketing partnership with JetBlue Airways…U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio has authored legislation, passed by the House, to ban cell phone use by passengers in flight. While such use currently is prohibited by Federal Communications Commission regulations, he wants to etch the ban in stone.