The July Steward Training covered the upcoming Association Agreement that our membership will soon be voting on. We began the training by going over the Trumka letter that aired his concern of a costly labor battle amongst AFLCIO Unions while not adding a single new member to organized labor. Trumka encouraged the TWU and IAM to work out a case of dual representation. This is where the Association Agreement came from.
The Agreement Regarding Seniority Integration states, your seniority will be based on the date of each employee’s entry into the basic classification, as set forth in the existing Collective Bargaining Agreements and the Current Seniority Lists maintained by American and USAir for each group. Once the Seniority List integration process is completed, The TWU and IAM will form a committee to address and resolve any individual challenges, which must be raised by submitting a letter identifying the alleged problem to the committee within 30 days after the integrated seniority list is published.
The TWU and IAM jointly agreed for the formation of Association Agreements of the three joint labor organizations representing the Craft and Classes of, Maintenance and Related, Material Logistics Specs, and Fleet Service Clerks. The membership will vote on whether to accept these Association Agreements. Once the Associations are accepted a ratio of current TWU and IAM members will determine the ratio of TWU and IAM members that will be maintained going forward. Your station location will determine if you are TWU or IAM. There will be some shuffling of our current stations to maintain the ratio resulting in current members changing unions.
The Association is a small organization that would own the Bargaining Agreement with American. The Association will be located in Washington DC and will hold no assets. The cost will be covered jointly by the TWU and IAM. A Chairman and Vice Chairman will preside over the Association they will be the International Presidents or their appointee. The Officers in the Association will come from the ranks of the TWU and IAM and meet a minimum of 4 times a year. Negotiations will be handled by committee formed from an equal number of representatives from the IAM and TWU. The first order of business for this committee will be to harmonize the two current agreements between the TWU and IAM into a single agreement.
We also have a joint agreement on Pensions. The IAM has a National Pension Fund (IAMNPF). The IAM and TWU will propose to allow current TWU members into the IAMNPF. They further agree to make this a high priority when we harmonize our current agreements.
Some very important steps in our near future will be the vote on the Association and then the Harmonizing of the two CBA’s. The Association vote will be the same as any representation vote if the Association isn’t voted in we would lose our current CBA. With no CBA we become “At Will Employees”. That means you can be fired for no reason. You lose all the negotiated rights of pay, seniority, transfers, and riff procedures, just to name a few.