Brothers and Sisters,
I continue to receive phone calls and emails either asking why our Chairman of MLS (Pat Bax) is not going to be at the main negotiations table 100% of the time or why he is not involved in negotiations. I would like to explain how the team was selected. Please review the Association documents on how the selection process is written. It states that the Negotiating Committee members shall be comprised of an equal number of appointees of the TWU International President and the IAM International President.
It was decided that six (6) TWU members and six (6) IAM members would be selected to form the Negotiating Committee. It was also decided at the highest level to include MLS, Plant Maintenance, GSE, MCT and MTS within M&R contract reconciliation and subsequent negotiations with American Airlines for a new Joint contract. To do that sub-committees were formed so that when language specific to that particular group was being worked on subject matter experts could be brought in to accomplish that task.
the selection
They chose each TWU President from locals who represented aircraft maintenance. That was Larry Pike 567, Gary Peterson 591 and myself for 514. Then they chose representatives from the next three biggest work groups. That is MLS, Plant Mx and MCT’s. They determined which local had the largest number of members in that title group and they asked the local President who would you like to represent that group. Every President chose the elected Chairmen. For MLS it was local 591, Mike Bush. For Plant Mx it was local 513, Jay Sleeman and the largest group of MCT’s is from our own local 514, MCT Chairman Jason Best.
sub-committee’s
We were asked to submit names of those who would want to be on the sub-committee’s.
For Local 514 it is the following.
Plant Mx- Chairman Dale Lantz
MLS- Chairman Pat Bax
MTS- E-Board Officer David Corbit
Scope and RO language- Jay Potter
All the officers have been involved in some capacity since we started sending out surveys to our membership in the winter of 2014 and they are still engaged. Everyone selected to help with contract language continues to tell me they are ready to be at negotiations when specific work they have been selected for is required. When the negotiating team is working on articles that are “flow through items” the sub-committee’s will not be tasked to do that work.
I took an oath when elected President of TWU Local 514 “to perform faithfully all duties assigned to me to the best of my ability”.
With the help of all 514 Officers and more specifically Jason, Pat, Dale, David and Jay my goal (our goal) is to deliver to you an Industry Leading Contract to vote on.
In Solidarity,
Dale Danker, President of TWU Local 514