A union-related legal question

[Captain Blood]

It has to do with American Airlines and their machinist union. As my father is forced to switch planes and/or terminals for the 5th time in 2 days as he tries to go on a golf vacation to Hilton head, I'm wondering if said machinist union might be liable to a class action lawsuit if they are ruled against in the following lawsuit:

https://www.bizjournals.com/dallas/n...s-lawsuit.html

The union is obviously conspiring to delay and/or have the flight canceled. My dad, aged 75, deserves this vacation, but not this treatment from this stupid union.
Are there any torte attorneys on here that have anything to support a suit against the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers?

[TheWatchGuy]

probably not.

but call them up and bitch and complain until they give you some free shit

[overcoil]

Had no idea this was happening. Fascinating. Out sourcing maintenance to El Salvador and S Korea.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.for...-possible/amp/

[Captain Blood]

Originally Posted by TheWatchGuy

probably not.

but call them up and bitch and complain until they give you some free shit

I called the mechanics union to complain.

[Maestro]

By definition of a Union means you are bound to arbitration to resolve any issues, it is very hard to sue a Union or the company the union supports. Work slow downs are standard Union negotiation tactics to get concession from a company. Obviously this time it backfire on the Union.

My dad was Teamster for 40 yrs and I attend many a union meeting especially during contract negotiations and Union would tell the Rank and File to do things to harm the company's or government's operations to force a quick negotiation. I for one with an outsiders view the people running the union do not care if the workers suffer, they are not the ones who pay the price at the job.

[TheWatchGuy]

Originally Posted by Schwarzschild Radius

I called the mechanics union to complain.

they dgaf about you

but American Airlines can give you free stuff. The union cant give you shit

[stevenc]

I fly for a cruise on Saturday and Norwegian booked me on AA with a connection. Im shitting balls that im going to be delayed and miss the cruise. Of course Norwegian wont care that i my flight got delayed or cancelled!

[Maynard]

Is it just me, or is the idea of farming out airplane maintenance to the lowest overseas bidder a scarier prospect than a delayed flight? I hope that if you call the airline to gripe, that the first thing you complain about is outsourcing maintenance. God knows what undercutting they would come up with if it weren't for unions and government regulations - I know they can be a PITA in some ways, but there is something to be said for high standards in some areas, as well as paying Americans a good wage to look after us.

[Captain Blood]

My dad finally made it....after the third plane on the 2nd day wasn't called back. The first lady at the union I talked to, I asked her if she would want that to happen to her 75 year old dad. The DC union guy who finally called me denied the whole thing. I called him a liar.

[Captain Blood]

Originally Posted by Maynard

Is it just me, or is the idea of farming out airplane maintenance to the lowest overseas bidder a scarier prospect than a delayed flight? I hope that if you call the airline to gripe, that the first thing you complain about is outsourcing maintenance. God knows what undercutting they would come up with if it weren't for unions and government regulations - I know they can be a PITA in some ways, but there is something to be said for high standards in some areas, as well as paying Americans a good wage to look after us.

I told the DC union rep that I fully supported them on the outsourcing thing. He lied again and said they were not doing the maintenence thing on purpose. I also told him they needed to grow some balls and strike. The maintainence thing is such bs. Especially 5 times, and 3 terminals.

[Run Silent]

Originally Posted by Maynard

.....if it weren't for unions and government regulations - something to be said for high standards....

Laughing at "unions" and "high standards".

[vreihen16]

Originally Posted by stevenc

I fly for a cruise on Saturday and Norwegian booked me on AA with a connection. Im shitting balls that im going to be delayed and miss the cruise. Of course Norwegian wont care that i my flight got delayed or cancelled!

Did you buy travel insurance?

Norwegian will hold the ship if any ship-provided shore excursion has not returned at departure time, and it might be worth checking to see if they have a similar policy for inbound flights that they booked for you. Worst case, they should pick up the tab to fly you to the first cruise stop, and you get a private SOLAS drill upon boarding.

One of my strongest suggestion to cruisers is to always spring for the passport book, even though the cheaper passport card works fine on ships and for land crossings in many common cruise destinations. Last thing that you want to do is get stuck in a foreign country waiting for the local embassy to get you a passport book so that you can fly home/onwards to the next port.

Going any place interesting?????

[Maestro]

Originally Posted by vreihen16

Did you buy travel insurance?

Norwegian will hold the ship if any ship-provided shore excursion has not returned at departure time, and it might be worth checking to see if they have a similar policy for inbound flights that they booked for you. Worst case, they should pick up the tab to fly you to the first cruise stop, and you get a private SOLAS drill upon boarding.

One of my strongest suggestion to cruisers is to always spring for the passport book, even though the cheaper passport card works fine on ships and for land crossings in many common cruise destinations. Last thing that you want to do is get stuck in a foreign country waiting for the local embassy to get you a passport book so that you can fly home/onwards to the next port.

Going any place interesting?????

I believe there is some stupid law which dates back to before WWII which forces you to board the ship in the US (if not a US flagged ship), if you miss the departure you can not board the ship outside the US then return to the US. Once the ship leaves the US it can not go to another US port without going to a non-US port especially if it not a US flagged ship. There is some pretty complicated rules which governing shipping and cruise ships are covered by default. If you miss the boarding you are pretty much screwed depending on where the ship is going.

[vreihen16]

If you are referring to the Passenger Vessel Services Act (PVSA), cruise lines are supposedly pretty experienced at dealing with collecting the fine (~$800 USD) for passengers who miss the required foreign port of call. If you missed embarkation on a flight that they booked, I would think that either the cruise line or the travel insurance would pay the airfare and PVSA fine to get you to the first port of call for boarding.

Although the laws for crew and employees may vary from paying passengers, I was on a Norwegian Dawn cruise where they offloaded a comedian and picked up a new one during our Cayman Islands port call. I was on the tender with the departing comedian carrying his suitcases, and joked that I thought that his show the previous evening was good enough where they didn't need to throw him off of the ship. He said that he was flying directly home to the USA, since he had been on the cruise circuit for almost a year and wanted to see his kids.

The funny part was that I was sitting in the reserved balcony seats for the new comedian's first show. As the warmup act was on stage, he plopped into the seat next to me and was asking in the third-person about what I knew about the main act (him). Recognizing him from the poster at the door and playing along, I told him the story about how the captain put the last comedian off the ship at Grand Cayman, and how that comedian didn't want to talk about what happened on the tender ride to shore (none of it true). He then admitted who he was, that he had just flown in from the USA, and was in a panic because he had never performed on the cruise ship circuit before and was afraid that the last comedian was involuntarily disembarked because his act was too dirty for the passengers! Did I mention that I love messing with comedian's minds? Let's just say that his first show was, um, funny to me for the way he was fumbling for "safe" material.....

[JohnnyCanuck]

So, from someone who represents management at the bargaining table (two deals down this year, two to go) as a chief spokesperson.

Some things to consider. There is a difference between working to rule and a slowdown. Working to rule is a completely legitimate tactic (in or out of bargaining) for a union to bring pressure on an employer. It is exactly what it sounds like (my lunch starts at 11:30, I put my tools down at 11:30, don't even bother to finish to tighten the bolt I'm working on). A slowdown occurs when you deliberately perform your work inefficiently so that it takes longer. Surprised the unions would bother with a slowdown when work to rule is usually really effective (contrary to popular belief, most employees ... non-union or not ...care about their work and do more than the bare minimum of their workplace and work rules).

Second, four years without a deal means that one side is patently uninterested in getting bargaining done. I've been involved in two rounds that were close to two years (one was my first at the table and I was second chair and the second I was lead negotiator). Both of those had proper strike votes and job action and were not caused by either side not wanting to negotiate but by legitimate differences at the bargaining table (including a concessionary agenda on our part at one point). If American has been deliberately not wanting to negotiate, I think that's a shitty thing to do to your employees. If you need concessions, negotiate them or have the brass to lock them out to get what you need. If it's the company but it's not concessionary, the Union should get a strike mandate from their members. If they can't get a strong enough one, then they need to go back to the table and get what they can. If it's the Union, then the company should use the tools it has to force them back to the table (another use for lockout).

However, in answer to your question up top (and there may be some quirks to Texas law that may apply) my gut tells me you have no cause of action against the union. The company sold your Dad the ticket, it's the company's problem to fix. If they want to try and go after the union for damages in some fashion, that's between them and the union.

[vreihen16]

Originally Posted by JohnnyCanuck

Working to rule is a completely legitimate tactic (in or out of bargaining) for a union to bring pressure on an employer. It is exactly what it sounds like (my lunch starts at 11:30, I put my tools down at 11:30, don't even bother to finish to tighten the bolt I'm working on).

That reminds me of a railroad accident that happened back in the 1970's. The railroad wanted the yard switcher crews to work until quitting time, and then bring the locomotives back to the shed on unpaid time. One crew decided to step off their running/moving train at exactly quitting time, which resulted in an unmanned locomotive with about a dozen freight cars in tow idling itself out of the yard, onto the mainline, and ultimately winding up at the bottom of a river because a draw bridge was open.....

[JohnnyCanuck]

Originally Posted by vreihen16

That reminds me of a railroad accident that happened back in the 1970's. The railroad wanted the yard switcher crews to work until quitting time, and then bring the locomotives back to the shed on unpaid time. One crew decided to step off their running/moving train at exactly quitting time, which resulted in an unmanned locomotive with about a dozen freight cars in tow idling itself out of the yard, onto the mainline, and ultimately winding up at the bottom of a river because a draw bridge was open.....

I haven't seen work to rule result in significant safety issues. I know in the places I work, even if it was quitting time, that kind of gross negligence would get them fired.

[vreihen16]

Who's to say that the crew didn't properly park the train, and then some pesky kids jumped the fence to take it for a joy ride?

With the bankruptcies of several railroads and loss of pensions by long-term employees back then, it isn't a stretch to think that there wasn't anything left to lose for some disgruntled employees.....

[vreihen16]

Did anyone see the news about how an AA mechanic in Miami was accused of intentionally sabotaging the navigation system on a plane so that he could collect overtime pay to fix it?

Also, as a heads-up, there's a planned strike against British Airways this month with three pre-scheduled "don't fly" strike dates already in the press.....

[Fritzer]

Unions suck. Really glad my company takes care of it's employees, and that I get to keep most of the money from my paycheck each week instead of it going to a bunch of bureaucrats in a union office somewhere.

[Maestro]

Originally Posted by vreihen16

Who's to say that the crew didn't properly park the train, and then some pesky kids jumped the fence to take it for a joy ride?

With the bankruptcies of several railroads and loss of pensions by long-term employees back then, it isn't a stretch to think that there wasn't anything left to lose for some disgruntled employees.....

Yep, I grew up next to a rail yard which serviced a number of local steel mills. At the time what surprised me was the fact they would usually leave the locomotive running when parked. I was told they did this to avoid having issues starting them up the next day. The yard use to run 24/7 and as the steel mills shut down, the yard would be idle for period of time so my friends and I use to go and check out the locomotives which were idling. The control panels would under a lock steel plate so we could not take it for a joy ride, if it was not I imagine we might have tried.

[JohnnyCanuck]

Originally Posted by Fritzer

Unions suck. Really glad my company takes care of it's employees, and that I get to keep most of the money from my paycheck each week instead of it going to a bunch of bureaucrats in a union office somewhere.

Nothing like a good generalization or stereotype, is there? Just like there are good employers and bad ones, there are good unions and bad ones too. There are union that take their obligation to their members seriously, diligently, and include in their consideration of those obligations the financial health of the employer (more success = more hours = more money for their members).

I've sat across the table from every type of union from extremely good to a complete clown show. But of course, nothing that would rebut your global stereotype, huh?

By the way, did you ever stop to think that one of the reasons your employer might be so good is that they want to make sure there's no incentive for employees to unionize? Occur to you that maybe you're benefiting from unions even if you work for a non-union employer?