How soon they’d like you to forget...

In one of their many distorted, deceitful e-mails, the Decerters state “We cannot point to any benefits gained as a result of union representation in the past seven years.” Apparently, they haven’t looked too hard at what went on during those seven years, because I can come up with a list of gains we got in just one day in 2005.

The list below shows the “non-represented benefits” Onex implemented on Spirit’s June 16th “Day One” and the “represented benefits” improvements negotiated in the SPEEA contract approved a month later on July 11th.

Non-represented benefit: No appeal for Employee Performance issues
SPEEA-negotiated benefits: 2-level appeal process

Non-represented: Holidays determined year-to-year at Company discretion
SPEEA benefit: Holidays identified for duration of contract

Non-represented: Holiday overtime rates at time& a half
SPEEA benefit: Doubletime Paycode 2 overtime for holidays

Non-represented: No ordered layoff process
SPEEA benefit: Retention-based layoff process

Non-represented: No active layoff status for retirement
SPEEA benefit: 30-month bridge to retirement for layoff

Non-represented: Retentions accomplished only during surplus action
SPEEA benefit: Scheduled, periodic retentions to build performance history

Non-represented: No retention adjustment for experience
SPEEA benefit: 20-year employees receive 1 Level increase in retention

Non-represented: No appeals for retention
SPEEA benefit: Appeals language for all dropped levels; employee allowed at retention appeal hearing

Non-represented: No standard process for filling job positions
SPEEA benefit: Formal process/procedure guaranteeing fair internal hiring

Non-represented: Forced variable work schedules
SPEEA benefit: Company required to first request volunteers prior to mandating non-standard schedules

Non-represented: Eight-hour third shift
SPEEA benefit: Six and one-half hour third shift

Non-represented: All non-exempt Paycode 2 overtime at time & a half
SPEEA benefit: Time and a half for first twelve hours of OT; double time after twelve hours of OT and for work on second rest day

Non-represented: Reductions in reporting pay
SPEEA benefit: Reporting and call back pay implemented

Non-represented: No payout of vacation and sickleave upon retirement
SPEEA benefit: ETO paid in full at retirement; sickleave carried over from Boeing paid at previous Boeing rate

Non-represented: No employee stock ownership plan
SPEEA benefit: Employee stock purchase plan at opening IPO stock price

Non-represented: No bereavement leave
SPEEA benefit: Three days of bereavement leave per occurrence

Even the Decert team has to admit that without the protections and guarantees of the SPEEA contract, there is nothing preventing these benefits from immediately reverting to those Onex had imposed the day they took over.


-- Bill, who thinks his friend Decerter Brian Hickman needs to fess up about how the union’s allowed him to wear his favorite shorts all summer, too...

Benefits of representation...

If you’re of my age, you’ve likely already got word about the UAW’s victory in Tulsa, where an arbitrator ruled that UAW-represented employees in Spirit-Tulsa were laid off from Boeing and, as such, were entitled to all the layoff benefits in their Boeing contract. Which includes the early retiree pension and medical we’re looking for in our suit.

While the arbitrator in the UAW case makes some really good arguments in his decision, my favorite part of the ruling was his cite of another arbitrator’s ruling in a case called ARCO Metals Co., supra

We reach the conclusion that the company could not have terminated its nonprobationers as of March 5,1984 when it sold the plant. We find that the employees were not discharged for cause and neither did they voluntarily quit. What did happen to them? They were laid off, purely and simply...

...These employees need not have been laid off. Arrangements could have been made for their transfer. ANAMET could have assumed the obligations of the collective bargaining agreement and in effect stood in the shoes of Anaconda. Under such circumstances, no lay off would have occurred and hence there would be the absence of the event which triggers the 70/80 [pension] eligibility. These arrangements were not made undoubtedly for good and sufficient reason which are of no concern here. As it turns out, the employees continued in the same physical location but in different jobs insofar as the protection afforded them by the collective bargaining agreement was concerned. Among other concessions was the relinquishing of any rights to the 70/80 pensions for ANAMET employees. Such differences, whether justified by the economic situation of the company or not (I am assuming ample justification for such changes existed), argue that the jobs were not the same jobs the employees had at Anaconda. They were not the same jobs from which they were laid off.

Save for the part about believing the company’s economic situation justified the employees wage and benefit cuts, it sounds exactly like what went on with the Boeing-Spirit divestiture and has been the argument I’ve been using to explain SPEEA's case in our class action lawsuit.


-- Bill, who’s looking forward to that early retirement next year...