lets move on

[Guest ame767]

Mitch:

I see you've taken my words ('lets move on'..never said, get over it)and applied them begrudgingly on the other side of the forum. I did not mean that you should shut up and swallow as your post implied, but that I (we, AC people) were giving up the fight...you've (cail)won.

you seemed to take offense to all the grievences i listed, po-poed them, so to speak....they've all happened many times to myself and others where i used to work...had to move due to the merge.

also through the arbitration appeals, the seniority negotiators, perhaps without understanding what was happening, managed to destroy what was the way of advancement at AC.

untill recently, if a person wanted to be a CAT,they had to achieve the first license on their own, the company wanted self-starters. then that person must wait for a position to become available(some waited years), then they must pass an interview, above basic. this weeded guite a few more out. this CAT position then afforded some level of protection in the seniority system, super seniority, if you will. that was the road the arbitrator was going down with the first decision. now, with strictly date of hire for layoff, and with the reletively high time in the cail demographic, that work the reletively few CAT's put out is for nothing(most want nothing to do with the LLAT position... it will be a thankless job with crap from top and bottom). coupled with the transition to QA, many CAT's feel they have been demoted and screwed by the company and by the merge. we all understand the importance and historical significance of seniority in past merges but content that this is a different case...and please don't go on again about AE1's being the same, they are not. they may have a simliar job description at least on the ramp, but the process to achieve CAT was far different.

what we do welcome, i think, is that you folks are a much more co-hesive lot...that protest a while back with the AE1's refusing to sign anything is a good example.

we welcome the bargaining ability that achieved some of the perks that the yellow book had.

i think in better economic times we would not be so bitter but early this new year, you will see massive layoffs as the co. tries to stay afloat and obviously it will be the AC people taking the hit.

so when i said 'lets move on' i was refering more to OUR bitterness and that this is the new system, like it or not, we've lost a lot to our new co-workers but that process now seems irreversable.

with this division, what is the next step? i'm sure you've felt some animosity. i know i have. how do we move on? the company is in the tank, public relations is abismal, work in heavy is slowed almost to a stop, line is still ok but devs have gone from a high of 40 to 140 for the fleet with a lot of the older metal parked. i know for a fact that getting rid of the IAM will be a long, tough problem but i don't think that it will improve the companies out look in any way and that is really what it is all about. we don't prosper until AC does.

so when i said 'lets move on' i meant lets get on with making this a better place to work, with an on time, safe, clean fleet of aircraft. thats really all we in mtc. can do. hopefully we can have fun and enjoy our jobs while we do that.

[Guest Mitch]

Good post. I'm thinking you might have been reading a post by Kip Powick and attributed his words about hearing 'Move on' to me, but I understand what you're saying nevertheless.

You're right, becoming an AE1 was nothing like you described. And I can understand how mixing our lot and system with what you had tends to water down the value of the progression the early CAT's made. I think that watering down started before we mixed though. For the record, I'd have been in for that first licence about the same time I got my AME licence... I was a gung-ho kid with fire under my but when I thought there was a point to it. I've been called a 'company man' by some. I just took pride in my work and enjoyed seeing results. I still can get pretty fired up when I have a mission. I have to admit all this drudgery has taken some wind out of my sails. I've evidently reached the end of any career ladders to climb, at a somewhat lower rung than I would have liked, but I'm still looking forward to days when 100% effort can provide the satisfaction of seeing an airplane go flying. Lately it seems no matter the effort, failure is inevitable.

Too much seems beyond our control at the moment... planners never seem to know what airplanes we'll be getting, so can't see to it parts are available... When parts are available, it seems tooling isn't... It's a rare day when the parts, the tools, the airplane AND the manpower all seem to be together!

I appreciate your 'let's move on' stance. I too look forward to the satisfaction of a safe, on time, clean fleet of aircraft and having fun at work. We've got one hell of a pool of talent together here now and we can accomplish some pretty good stuff... Some of those things will be improving our remuneration and working conditions ...and that, I believe, will benefit the company as well as ourselves.

I once heard a manager (thankfully, he's no longer with us) say that since you can't assign a value to employee moralle, it must be assumed to have zero value... Surely anyone with his eyes open at AC today can see the folly in that statement!

Cheers,

Mitch

[Guest Gadgeteer]

Hi my fellow AME @ AC. It is my believe, the arbitration did not speak of methods used for ones promotion. The bidding and interview process is alive and well. When one decides to bid on a senior position you will go through the interview process with a management rep, H.R. rep, and union rep present.

The training process is laid out by the company and the training and lic. committee. The training process was not changed due to the arbitration.

Tell me, why should we have a union at all if we don't honor date of hire seniority at all? It is only proper to lay off by date of hire regardless of position held.

I can understand how the CAT's feel about the changes. I experience the same thing when CAIL bought WD 12 years ago. I was an AE2 with no union position above me. They created the ICC position and slotted them in between the AE2's and management.

I do not think the CAT's were screwed by the company at all. The mechanics got screwed because we did not have our views presented properly by the IAM. We got screwed because the AC and CAIL IAM were busier fighting amongst each other. The IAM should have solved the problems in house first and only then negotiate with the company. And by the way, the company feels there should be no hard feelings because they paid the AC people for all the troubles they endured through.

Remember, lay offs = less manpower = more devs. And parked airplanes = flying airplanes work harder = less time on ground = fewer repair opportunities = more devs. That was managements call and they have to live with it.

One last point, there is no winner or loser. We are on the same side. The new game is between us(Air Canada) and the worlds airlines. I know we can all be winners. However, I feel that we are not structured just right yet. There are lots of things we have to do. Hopefully, we will be ready to take on the world in the summer of 2002.

Happy New Year

[buzz]

'Hi my fellow AME @ AC. It is my believe, the arbitration did not speak of methods used for ones promotion. The bidding and interview process is alive and well. When one decides to bid on a senior position you will go through the interview process with a management rep, H.R. rep, and union rep present.'

Sir I fear that you are incorrect,with the LAT position now a progression position no interview is required,as for the LLAT position with all CAT's,ICC's AE2's being promoted and then placed on laid off status with no interview required,the company has opened a real can of worms if any other prospective LLAT's are required to pass an interview as grievances will state that precedent has already been set.

The only time an interview may be required is for promotion to a management position.

[Guest Gadgeteer]

Hi Rob

Man it burns me up hearing about how we can't seem to get it together yet. What in the world is planning doing anyway? What is our management to doing to fix these problems?

I would love to put a small team of dedicated people together just to identify and fix these problems. We all have a vested interest in making our processes work.

[Guest Gadgeteer]

Yes we will recalling LLAT's. However, after we work thru the recall list, we will be going to the bidding and interview process. I agree it won't be pretty.