“The IBT is acting like a parasite.”
The following statement is from TWU Air Transport Division Director Garry Drummond, after it was announced that the Teamsters would be filing cards to raid the International Association of Machinists (IAM) at US Airways:
As a trade unionist, I’m outraged and disgusted that the Teamsters plan to waste the time and resources of their members in an unprincipled raid against union members at US Airways. Let’s call this what it is: The IBT is behaving like a parasite. They are desperately attempting to feed off another organization to cover up their own failures. This has everything to do with the Bureau of Labor Statistics reporting that the IBT lost more members than any other union last year and nothing to do with the needs of aircraft mechanics.
The Teamsters can’t say anything positive about their own record of representation for airline mechanics because they haven’t done anything positive. They sat on their hands while jobs were outsourced overseas – unlike TWU members at American Airlines, who used tough, innovative bargaining to keep more repair and overhaul jobs in the U.S. than at any other carrier. If you want to see what happened to Teamster airline mechanic jobs, you’ll have to buy a plane ticket to China, because that’s where the work is.
The Teamsters left the AFL-CIO a few years ago and made a lot of noise about organizing — but they have no agenda except to steal members from other unions. Ninety-four percent of U.S. private sector workers have no union, 97 percent of all workers in North Carolina have no union, and there are tens of thousands of unorganized aircraft mechanics in shops all over the United States. Real trade unionists focus on organizing the unorganized, not wasting money to attack other unions.
The Transport Workers Union of America (TWU) represents 200,000 workers and retirees, primarily in commercial aviation, public transportation and passenger railroads. The union is an affiliate of the AFL-CIO.