Since Arbitrator Greenbaum released her awards on outsourcing of landing gear and engine work, we have received a number of inquiries on the meaning of her rulings. If you want to know what an arbitrator’s opinion means the best place to start is the actual language of the opinion. In both cases, the arbitrator’s words make it very clear that there are significant restrictions on AA’s authority to outsource under our contract:
777 Landing Gear:
“It must be stressed that this is an unusual event, in which, despite the best efforts of both parties, the work at issue could not be performed within the time requirements necessary to keep the Company’s aircraft in service. AA does not dispute that had it been able to perform the work in-house within the required turn around time (something which the Union accomplished after the time frame in question) the contract, the formal notification, the Baker letter, and the various letters associated with the Tulsa Working Together process would have foreclosed this instance of outsourcing. It would be a different matter if it had been established that the Company had intentionally or negligently deprived its employees of the necessary resources to accomplish the task in the time allotted. However, this was not proven, and, in fact, the evidence shows that the shop had a full headcount, and its employees were working maximum overtime. As noted above, the AA/TWU contract contains some of the most far reaching restrictions on outsourcing. However, these restrictions do not require the Company to keep aircraft on the ground (and absorb revenue loss as a result) instead of using the temporary measure of subcontracting some of the work to an outside vendor to deal with a surge in maintenance volume. Therefore, the grievance should be denied. (P. 19, emphasis added)
The CFM 56 case has similar language and made the following ruling:
1. The Company did not violate Article 1 of the Collective Bargaining Agreement when it sent eight 737 CFM-56 engines to an outside vendor for repair, but did violate the Agreement with regard to the other three engines, as there is no evidence of notice to the Union of its intent to contract out these three engines and no evidence of “meaningful discussions” with regard to the final three engines. Thus, the grievance is hereby denied in part and granted in part.
2. The Company is hereby ordered to comply with the Agreement and the Allen and Baker letters in the future, notifying the Union when it first contemplates contracting out bargaining unit work and having meaningful discussions thereafter.
3. The monetary remedy, as agreed to by the System Board, is set forth above, and includes payments at the appropriate overtime rate to 47 mechanics assigned to the shop, including crew chiefs, one technical crew chief, as well as five stock clerks assigned to support the shop at that time and nine inspectors.
Arbitrator Greenbaum, consistent with her landing gear opinion, also made clear that even after a discussion with the union which met the requirements of the Allen and Baker letters, outsourcing could occur only “under certain circumstances” and added that, with respect to the final three engines, the evidence presented by the union “leads to the conclusion that the shop could have met the same schedule Strothers did on these three engines,” and that was a further reason she sustained this part of our grievance.
The Union believes that we presented strong enough cases to justify a remedy on all eleven engines as well as the landing gear, and we respectfully, but strongly, disagree with those aspects of her rulings. However, anyone familiar with the arbitration process knows that arbitrators tend to compromise the claims of the parties, particularly when they involve significant economic claims. Having said that, there is no contract in the industry besides ours in which the union would have received any remedy on this sort of matter and under these circumstances and the principles of both decisions give us much to work with as we face future threats to our work.