FedEx Launches Campaign to Derail Proposed Legislation
FedEx announced a "multimillion-dollar" campaign to derail proposed federal legislation that would make it easier for the company's workers to organize. FedEx has been the sole beneficiary of a provision that its lobbyists quietly slipped into legislation in October 1996, making FedEx the only freight and package-delivery company in the United States whose non-FAA certified employees are regulated under the Railway Labor Act governing railways and airlines. The proposed language which would put FedEx under the same labor laws as other companies like UPS which provide the same services. The Teamsters have lobbied hard for this legislation.
Teamsters Attend Airline Shareholder Meetings
The Teamsters regularly attend shareholder meetings to voice our concerns and ask questions about company policies and practices that affect our members. Our Capital Strategies Division along with IBT airline experts recently attended shareholder meetings at Continental, US Airways, and Alaska. At Alaska, for example, the IBT raised the issue of outsourcing and asked if the company had internal guidelines to ensure the highest maintenance standards were met to protect the public and shareholders.
NTSB Safety Hearings
Airline safety issues have been prominent this week. The NTSB held a two and a half day hearing this week on the crash in the Hudson River of US Airways Flight 1549. Even though there was no loss of life in the crash there were safety issues that arose. Obviously the bird strike issue raises questions about the prevention of such occurrences which have caused crashes before. Other issues include the lack of deployment of safety lines and rear side rafts.
At a Senate hearing this week probing safety issues regarding the regional airline industry growing out of the February crash of Colgan Air in Buffalo, acting NTSB chairman Mark Rosenker told the panel that the NTSB urged three years ago that airlines be required to request a pilot's complete training history from the FAA. The FAA has declined to make the recommendation mandatory, choosing instead to tell carriers that they will provide training records if pilots sign a privacy waiver. Colgan officials have acknowledged they didn't seek the training history of pilot Marvin Renslow, the pilot of the crashed plane when they hired him.
First Horizon Board of Adjustments Meeting by IBT to be Held Next Monday
The first Board of Adjustments Meeting to review grievances filed by mechanics under AMFA and recently Teamster union representation will be held next Monday. It has been just seven weeks since the Teamsters were certified by the NLRB as Horizon's mechanics union.
Congratulations to Rich Chase
Rich Chase has been voted to be the Chief Shop Steward at for Horizon's maintenance base locations in the western states of Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and California. Local 986 welcomes Rich and looks forward to working with him.
United and Continental Mechanics Contract Bargaining Continues
Bargaining with United is scheduled for June 16 and 17 in San Francisco
and also for July 23 and 24. Continental negotiations are scheduled for July 14, 15 and 16 in Houston.
Week in Review News Items
Labor Developments
Pilots at British Airways could take an unprecedented voluntary pay cut following talks this week on a number of cost-saving measures. The range of measures, which include a small across-the-board pay cut, will be discussed with the BA section of BALPA, the UKpilots' union. FedEx Corp launched a campaign on Tuesday attacking rival UPS over a bill in Congress that FedEx said amounts to a bailout for UPS. Air Canada said it reached tentative agreements with three of its unions on contracts and pensions as the airline battles a cash shortage and tough competition amid the industry's worst ever downturn.
Safety & Government Oversight
Long-suffering pilots for commuter airlines say it's about time that Washington and passengers alike pay attention to the cockpit, where pilots may be exhausted, under-trained — and paid less than the bus or cab drivers who'd ferried their passengers to the airport. ''We have been calling for years trying to get the public to understand what their lifestyle is really like,'' said Capt. Paul Rice, first vice president of the Air Line Pilots Association, International, the nation's largest pilot's union, representing 54,000 flyers. The plight of many commuter pilots was revealed at a recent federal hearing into the Feb. 12 crash of Continental Connection Flight 3407 near Buffalothat killed 50 people.
The head of the Federal Aviation Administration said Wednesday that tighter government regulations and tougher industry self-policing are needed to improve commuter airline safety. Testifying before a Senate Commerce aviation subcommittee, FAA chief Randy Babbitt laid out a series of initiatives to ensure a single level of safety between major airlines and their commuter partners. Such carriers typically fly smaller planes serving smaller markets, or they shuttle passengers to and from major hub airports around the U.S.But since the tickets and the aircraft usually have the larger carrier's name and logo, can "passengers expect that the same competence" and pilot judgment "exists in that cockpit regardless of the size of that plane?" asked Democratic Sen. Byron Dorgan of North Dakota, the panel's chairman.
Even though nobody died, the crash of US Airways Flight 1549 into the Hudson Riverhas exposed shortcomings in aviation safety, in areas like training and life rafts. "It's a tremendous learning opportunity," said Robert L. Sumwalt, the member of the National Transportation Safety Board who supervised two and a half days of hearings in Washington that ended Thursday. "You don't judge the potential learning on the size of the body count." In fact, old hands at the safety board said they could not recall any previous occasion when hearings were convened for a crash with no fatalities. But from the tenor of the testimony and the questioning, a number of safety recommendations seem likely. Many of the assumptions on which safety rules are based seem outdated, or were perhaps wrong to begin with.
Airline Industry Finances
Airline losses worldwide may total $9 billion in 2009, nearly double a previous forecast, as an outbreak of swine flu compounds the effects of the recession, the industry's main trade group said. Sales may fall 15 percent to $448 billion this year from $528 billion in 2008, the International Air Transport Association said in a statement distributed at its annual meeting in Kuala Lumpur. And rising oil prices are again a worry for U.S.airlines, which are seeing their largest expense soar at a particularly inopportune time: as a global recession and fears of swine flu prompt fewer people to travel. Continental Airlines and other major U.S.
carriers should know by early July whether the economy will continue to depress business travel, forcing more capacity cuts, Chief Executive Officer Larry Kellner said.
Airlines' CO2 Targets
Some of the world's largest airlines on Tuesday called for the industry to set global emissions targets as part of efforts to include aviation in a broader climate agreement at the end of the year. The seven airlines, including Air France-KLM and British Airways have backed a range of emissions reduction targets for negotiators involved in UN-backed climate talks to consider. Aviation is responsible for about 2 percent of global greenhouse gas pollution and that share is expected to rise.