Impending strike at Lycoming Engines possible on Monday

[1980Mooney]

Mooney drivers flying behind a Lycoming may get really F***ed (aka "frustrated") - well at least more so than they already are now.  In November Skip @PT20J said "When I was at the Lycoming plant recently, they told me they have a year backlog."  I wonder if Textron is contemplating moving the plant.  Regardless how this plays out I suspect price increases will be coming.....

Impending strike at Lycoming Engines possible on Monday | News | northcentralpa.com

Willliamsport, Pa. — Lycoming Engines employees may strike on Monday if the company and the union are unable to come to an agreement.

Union members within the company have reported apprehension regarding the contract negotiations.

“Lycoming engines gave the UAW committee their final offer which is the worst offer that has ever been given to the union in history,” one worker told NorthcentralPa. “They’re taking money from our pockets and will not budge at all. The contract has never in history been extended. It’s been extended three times this year,” they added.

With a 21-year average employment rate, Lycoming Engines employees are among the highest paid manufacturing employees in the region, the company said.

"Lycoming Engines operates in a competitive market. The company presented a comprehensive offer that balanced various competing interests. The proposed agreement would constitute a private contract between Lycoming Engines and employees represented by UAW 787," Shannon Massey, Senior Vice President of Lycoming Engines, said.

"Lycoming Engines does not disclose that information to the public; however, Lycoming believes that the offer is comprehensive, fair, and responsible," she added.

On July 19, more than 300 individuals participated in a Strike Preparation Training. The training was facilitated by the UAW Region 9 Servicing Representative, and the International UAW Education Department.

The last contract extension given to the employees ends this weekend, meaning the union could go on strike Monday morning if they do not reach an agreement.

Edited July 30, 2023 by 1980Mooney

[Joshua Blackh4t]

We really need to get together to form a group to give us power against the unions. Things are getting out of hand

[Pinecone]

I can see the reasons that unions came about.  But these days, they seem to be more about furthering the union, not for the workers.

I was on a project in a major eastern city doing safety training to a union company.    One of the workers told me that during a recent union meeting, the union Health and Safety person told the workers that if they see an unsafe condition to NOT report it to the company, but only report it to the union.  That way they could use it to get a bigger raise.  I started to ask a question, and he said, he did ask, "but what happens if a worker gets injured because it was not reported to the company to fix."  The union health and safety rep told him, "that would mean we could get an even bigger raise."

REALLY?????

[A64Pilot]

Unions were needed, worker abuse was rampant, I mean really bad. I mean people dyeing bad, being mutilated etc. Working conditions were extreme and hours excessive and pay was crap, and the Robber Barons like Carnegie and Rockefeller became insanely wealthy by cracking the whip.

Father came from the Mountains of Kentucky, what the mines did to people then was criminal.
 But I don’t think that’s today, after Retiring from the Army I worked as a Civilian Test Pilot at the Test Activity, which meant I was a Union member, specifically Aerospace Workers and Machinist.

They made me more than a little nervous and I came away from that experience believing as has been said they exist to perpetuate themselves and in fact do more harm than good for the average worker.

Things I saw were unbelievable, if and only if you had seniority, how good you were was irrelevant, if you were a Union officer with seniority you were untouchable.

None of it was based on your skills or capability.

The pendulum has swung quite a long time ago actually.

[redbaron1982]

I'm ok with Unions, as long as they are not imposed on the employees. Meaning if I work in a job that has a Union I should be free to choose to be part of it or not. And they are not imposed on the employers either. 

So true free market unions.

If unions start "representing" the lazy rather than the hard-working people, then the hard-working people would leave the union, removing funding, and would eventually die.

If hard-working people get abused, they should be free to organize themselves into a union and have stronger representation and litigation power against the employer.

[A64Pilot]

31 minutes ago, M20Doc said:

Ask yourself if you could get by on the minimum wage in your state?  

I hate to say of course not, so I’ll put it another way.

Ask yourself if you have some kind of skill or knowledge that makes you worth more than minimum wage? If not, why not? Some don’t have the aptitude and those we should assist, but if for instance you’re eligible for the draft, you shouldn’t be getting public assistance. I’m not saying draft them, but if they meet that requirement, then they can work, maybe not jobs they want, only a few get paid for playing video games, but if they can serve, then they either can, or they can mow lawns, dig ditches whatever. There are options available for all, I’ve seen many come from not much succeed. I have several stories.

See I think raising the min wage to say $20 plus an hour will only result in Mcdonald’s and other min wage jobs being automated and hugely curtailed, they did it back in the 50’s, automated food service that is. I believe the only reason those kind of jobs aren’t automated is that workers are cheaper than the machines.

Guaranteed minimum income is insane, that guarantees a large population that will just sit around and likely spend the day getting high, larger than we already have. 

This was real, not a concept. Only thing that kept it from becoming mainstream was cheap, back then likely high school kids labor.

Which brings up, where are all the High School kids now? Where do they work after school? I only see old people working in what used to be High School kids only, fast food, movie theaters, skating rinks etc.

Why do the kids no longer work? The whole point way back then was to teach them a work ethic and frankly have them learn on their own why they needed either a skill or knowledge. We are making a big mistake in my opinion in thinking a person’s first job should be after they graduate College with that Liberal Arts degree.

 

Edited July 31, 2023 by A64Pilot

[hubcap]

2 hours ago, M20Doc said:

Not that I’m pro or anti union, I’d like to think I pay my people and treat them well enough that they wouldn’t need a union.

Ask yourself if you could get by on the minimum wage in your state?  

I don't believe the "minimum wage" was ever intended for heads of households in career positions.

[Fritz1]

so what is status of strike, on, off or still pending?

[hammdo]

https://www.sungazette.com/news/top-news/2023/07/lycoming-engines-gives-final-offer-contract-to-uaw-members/

[GeeBee]

You take the good with the bad. 

The bad? I was denied a first officers bid by a vindictive supervisor of manpower planning. He placed a more junior pilot in the seat and I flew flight engineer for a year longer losing a lot of pay. ALPA basically refused to grieve my case saying it was "too small" and in any event I got the seat later.

The good? I have had my life and all my crew and passengers lives saved by TCAS twice. In one case it would have been a dead nuts hit caused by an ATC error. Now after PSA 182 and Aeromexico 498 the NTSB wanted a collision avoidance system. The FAA wanted to keep it "in house", that is the computers at ATC warn of collision. ALPA fought hard for and eventually won, TCAS an independent cockpit system that gives real time information independent of ATC. A lot of things you take for granted in the aviation infrastructure are there because of pilots unions especially in the middle the last century.

On July 20 my area, heavily wooded suffered severe thunderstorms. A micro bust sent large trees hurtling everywhere including through 3 of my neighbors houses. I have 6 large trees threatening my house right now. As I interview tree companies I always request their liability and workman's comp certificates. A good 50% cannot produce workman's comp coverage and I dismiss them. Now you could say, "We have laws!". Yes we do, so a guy loses his arm on a chainsaw, the employer (who has his office In a pickup truck) declares bankruptcy, pays a fine, maybe gets a year in the county jail but the worker never gets compensated for his loss. So yeah, we still need people watching out for workers and as long as there is greed, always will.

[A64Pilot]

23 hours ago, GeeBee said:

"We have laws!". Yes we do, so a guy loses his arm on a chainsaw, the employer (who has his office In a pickup truck) declares bankruptcy, pays a fine, maybe gets a year in the county jail but the worker never gets compensated for his loss. So yeah, we still need people watching out for workers and as long as there is greed, always will.

So how would a Union help? Is it for part time workers who work for small business? I don’t think so or at least I’ve never seen it, Unions exist when Employers are at least multi million dollar corporations like Auto manufacturing or Airlines where there are deep pockets

Worker would be better off if he took his Union dues money and put it into insurence, if there is a Union he could join which I suspect there isn’t because as I said Unions only exist where there are employers with deep pockets.

Union dues are on average about 2.5 hours of salary per month, (Google it) so for that Ft Rucker job that had 5,000 employees I think “International” meaning the big Union received about a half million dollars per month in Union dues, so I asked my rep for a breakdown of where the money went, because we never saw any of it, the Union hall was an old convince store in a mostly abandoned strip mall so I wanted to know what was it spent on, and they got ugly about it.

Only thing I ever saw was abuse and some of it mind boggling.

When we inprocessed into the job there were of course safety classes, this was an Army contract after all. One I remember well as we got that class more than once and had to sign that we had read and understood it meaning of course that there had been issues with it was for vehicles on the flight line, everyone took it, not just drivers, but the gist of it was to get out of the vehicle it had to be placed in park, emergency brake set, ignition turned off key removed and driver took it with them. There were big yellow stickers on the dash outlining each step, I mean glove compt sized stickers.

So one day a Senior Union member was driving a pick up truck on Hanchey’s flight line, he came to a stop threw it into park and got out engine still running, except it didn’t make it to park, it was in reverse so off it went into a tied down AH-64, it open tail gate cut a large hole into the tail boom. Damage exceeded 1 million dollars, which made it a Class A accident, any class A you go to the hospital and pee and bleed, Class A is a death or damage exceeding 1 Million or was 20 years ago.

So this guy had the gall to file a grievance. His grievance? Sitting in the hospital took him past quitting time and he wasn’t paid overtime so he wanted his overtime. Normal person would have been praying they still had a job.

He got his overtime and wasn’t fired and the taxpayer picked up the over million dollars for repair and went without the aircraft for likely a year, but the Union member got his overtime.

Had you had seniority I assure you that your Union would have gotten you that seat as I’m sure you know.

Oh, and the Union Retirement which is pretty good, but the Employer not the Union funds it. There it was $1 for every hour we worked was set aside in I assume some kind of 401K

Edited August 2, 2023 by A64Pilot

[GeeBee]

I did not say "a union". I said "we need people watching out for workers". If you hire illegals you're exploiting workers. If you hire contractors without the proper workmen's comp, you're exploiting workers. Capitalism works when there is a plethora of individual morality which turns into a civic morality. We all have to watch out for each other.

4 minutes ago, A64Pilot said:

Had you had seniority I assure you that your Union would have gotten you that seat as I’m sure you know.

How can you be so sure what the union will do? That was the problem. I had the seniority. They gave the seat to someone junior to me. It was an out and out violation of the contract.. The reason why the planner defied the contract was because I took a leave of absence which I was entitled to by the contract and when I returned I was allowed to bid for any seat I had the seniority to hold and he personally was not happy. His personal preferences. do not over ride a contract. Unions will do what is in their self interest and they often sacrifice members individual interests to what they perceive "the greater good". The largest example is defined benefit pension plans.

 

[A64Pilot]

2 hours ago, GeeBee said:

I did not say "a union". I said "we need people watching out for workers". If you hire illegals you're exploiting workers. If you hire contractors without the proper workmen's comp, you're exploiting workers. Capitalism works when there is a plethora of individual morality which turns into a civic morality. We all have to watch out for each other.

That’s a pretty “Kumbaya” statement, unfortunately it’s not reality and never will be. 

Then your second statement that I don’t quote seems to fuel the argument that Unions are no longer what they were formed for?

I came into the Union thinking it was to protect the workers, and was quickly disabused of that belief. I never had any kind of interaction, just observed and came away with the opinion that they did more harm than good. Example I think the guy that crashed into the Apache was criminally negligent and as a min should have been fired immediately, yet he was so sure he was untouchable he filed a grievance for overtime. So we had a not insignificant number of people who were totally incapable of doing the job, but they were related to a Union higher up or met some hiring “goals” they took up the spot, others simply were promoted to the point they couldn’t perform based on Union seniority rules of upward movement based on time and not skill.

Perfect example of “The Peter Principle”  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_principle EXCEPT in the Union they don’t stop at the level of their incompetence, they continue to advance, based on Seniority and NOT competence or performance.

The illegal thing I don’t think there is a good answer to, if you don’t hire them, then they either turn to crime or starve? They I assume aren’t eligible for unemployment?

How could you be if your not allowed to work? I put myself in their shoes, if I were them what would I want / need? I joined the Army to provide, what option do they have?As I only hire Handymen, I don’t ask, but I’m certain a large majority of the workers installing roofs around here are Illegal for example, because it’s tough, backbreaking work that most Citizens won’t do.

Now that they are here, we have a mess. Ignoring it is criminal I think, either we deport them or give them a path to Citizenship. 

It seems the idea is to almost recreate slavery, but instead of picking cotton I guess it’s picking fruit or whatever migrant agricultural workers pick and any other job a Citizen won’t do?

Edited August 2, 2023 by A64Pilot

[GeeBee]

Kumbaya is believing unions protect workers.

 

As I said, take the good with the bad. 

I should not have to tell you any organization operates in its own interests. Where yours and theirs align, take it. It is a wonderful thing. Where they do not, make alternative arraignments. If you belong to a union make sure they align to yours to the greatest extent possible. If they are insufficient in that pursuit, turn up the heat until they see the light. I did. I helped get over 50% of membership to sign cards to be ready to vote to decertify and replace your union. When the heat got great enough, they capitulated to our demands. Somebody has to watch out and sometimes, it is you. 

[N201MKTurbo]

When I was a kid I worked for Raytheon Data Systems. When I went to Boston for training, they took us on a factory tour. Before we went in they told us to not touch anything. I asked if they thought we would break things? They said "No, that's not it. It is a union shop and you don't belong to the union. If you pick anything up, all the workers will walk out, because picking things up is a union job".

I was redoing my kitchen a few years ago and hired a guy to do the drywall. He was an american citizen and gave me an estimate and we scheduled the work. I never saw him again. On work day, 4 non-US citizens showed up. One spoke broken english. They did good work, but I doubt the whole thing was legit. That is the normal around here, not the exception.

[DXB]

Unlike in the time of robber baron industrialists, productive balance of power between labor unions and management is now a tenuous entity. I once met a guy who got his first management job out of business school in the late '60s at American Motor Corporation's vast 100+ acre plant in Kenosha WI. On day one of the job, he was told there were certain areas of the plant that had become fully controlled by workers; he should not go in a dress shirt to these areas or carry a clip board there due to risk of physical violence.  I think that might be a scenario where the unions got too strong...

[N201MKTurbo]

They should move the whole plant here to Arizona. Quite a few big companies have in the last few years. We are a right to work state. Even though our current governor would love to change that, I'm sure....

[GeeBee]

Right to work cannot overcome Railway Labor Act.

If you have sections of a plant that all workers cannot traverse, that is a management failure either in culture or discipline. There is plenty of blame to go around. Remember when autoworkers accused of building crappy cars? Then it turned out that when someone discovered "Drucker", the guy the Japanese used, they also discovered that assembly errors are just as much the fault of management through poor engineering and sloppy tolerances as it was the worker. For many years things were engineered and produced sloppily and the assembly worker was relied upon to "make it right".

Since we are being anecdotal here, my late wife was a comptroller at a Ford Assembly plant. The first woman to reach such a position at FoMoCo. The workers were being accused of stealing stereos. They even had the stereos caged with alarms. Then they started not installing the stereos but putting them in the truck for the dealer to hook up. Still they disappeared and management continued to blame the workers. My wife said, "These men have good union jobs, I am dubious of the claim". She took to hiring some PI's who discovered homeless in the train yards were stealing them off cars on the rail cars. How? They put the keys in the car and leave it unlocked when they load the car. Duh!!!! My wife was always cheered on the plant floor for that and many other things. Management is more than profit and loss. 

[EricJ]

22 minutes ago, N201MKTurbo said:

They should move the whole plant here to Arizona. Quite a few big companies have in the last few years. We are a right to work state. Even though our current governor would love to change that, I'm sure....

Most of my experiences working with unions and union members have been in AZ.   They're here, just like they're everywhere.    If they didn't serve a purpose they wouldn't exist.    Some companies manage themselves in a way that gives unions reason to exist, others manage to avoid it.   No states in the US have compulsory union policies, but even states that aren't specifically right-to-work have many employers that aren't unionized.

In my pre-college days I spent many years working in a lumber yard, and every couple of years or so somebody would take a crack at organizing the place, but it always failed.   That was back in ancient times when even modestly paid hourly folks still got reasonable health care and reliable employment, so the union didn't have much to offer other than promises that nobody was confident they'd be able to keep.   These days it's no wonder that unions are making a resurgence in some places.  The pendulums continue to swing back and forth.

[GeeBee]

I will tell you what has happened. Today's millennial saw their parents jobs shipped to China, the pensions ransacked and their health care diminished after their parents gave years of loyal and valuable service. There is less loyalty to the company nowadays because the corporations in large numbers have shown no loyalty to their workforce. It makes today's worker very cynical and extremely mercenary.

 

[ta2too]

1 hour ago, DXB said:

Unlike in the time of robber baron industrialists, productive balance of power between labor unions and management is now a tenuous entity. I once met a guy who got his first management job out of business school in the late '60s at American Motor Corporation's vast 100+ acre plant in Kenosha WI. On day one of the job, he was told there were certain areas of the plant that had become fully controlled by workers; he should not go in a dress shirt to these areas or carry a clip board there due to risk of physical violence.  I think that might be a scenario where the unions got too strong...

I don't doubt that happened, but only because it was allowed to continue. That is the downside of that specific union.

What has not been stated up until now is that you cannot consider unions all the same. There are good unions and there are very bad unions. Being in the construction business, I have direct exposure with all the bulding trade unions, so my comments are limited to the construction industry. There are some unions in specific locations that I will not even deal with anymore, even if it means walking away from the work. On the other hand, there are some locals that are a pleasure to work with. They work with you to get work for their members.

[A64Pilot]

There hasn’t been any loyalty to the company, or for the company for its employees for a long time, I mean decades, the idea of lifetime employment died with my Grandparents, even Japan has lost it I believe.

The concept of I’lll work at X for decades and in return they will give me a very good retirement with benefits died decades ago, and I think it needed to go, because there was no guarantee that the company wouldn’t go bankrupt or could in fact pay for your Retirement and I believe by the 80’s many people lost their retirements or they were greatly curtailed, so something needed to be done, that something was to put you in charge of your retirement, and in my opinion that’s better than big brother or big government doling out money.

That concept of the company will take care of you was I believe pretty much gone by the time I entered the workplace, even Military retirement isn’t at all what I was promised, it’s seriously degraded, I won’t bore you but it has, and it’s my understanding todays enlistees have very little Retirement if they stay for 20.

What replaced all those retirements was the concept that you were in charge of your Retirement and the size etc of it was predicated on how much you put back in 401K’s and other savings plans and investments, and I think that’s the way it should be, we all know how much money we would have if our SS had been invested. Problem is most won’t invest and I hate to be ugly but that’s their choice and well you have to live with the choices you make. However I’ll fight for your right to make those choices.

It’s time I think for Social Security to go away as well. The way I think it ought to go away is a gradual reduction in pay and to stop taking it from paychecks, done right then you would receive SS in relation to how much you paid your working life, but in say 40 years to just toss out a number it’s gone.

That won’t happen of course because money taken from todays paycheck is what’s used to pay current recipients. But with what’s subsidized etc we could take that money and make it happen

Edited August 2, 2023 by A64Pilot

[201Steve]

Interesting what happened this weekend with longtime trucking giant “yellow”. I’m sure there’s two sides to the story but from a 30k’ view, the Union at least helped dig its’ own grave. It draws a lot of comparison to both aviation and trucking being highly regulated, high liability, competitive industry. In todays world where each camp has convinced it’s’ people that they are under appreciated and owed more, I fear it doesn’t stop with Yellow. And by no means is it limited to the “millennials”. I listen to 50-60 year old men seeping with entitlement every day. They have been allured away from the principal of self responsibility and happy to determine their circumstances are someone else’s fault. 

[Echo]

On 8/1/2023 at 8:40 AM, GeeBee said:

You take the good with the bad. 

The bad? I was denied a first officers bid by a vindictive supervisor of manpower planning. He placed a more junior pilot in the seat and I flew flight engineer for a year longer losing a lot of pay. ALPA basically refused to grieve my case saying it was "too small" and in any event I got the seat later.

The good? I have had my life and all my crew and passengers lives saved by TCAS twice. In one case it would have been a dead nuts hit caused by an ATC error. Now after PSA 182 and Aeromexico 498 the NTSB wanted a collision avoidance system. The FAA wanted to keep it "in house", that is the computers at ATC warn of collision. ALPA fought hard for and eventually won, TCAS an independent cockpit system that gives real time information independent of ATC. A lot of things you take for granted in the aviation infrastructure are there because of pilots unions especially in the middle the last century.

On July 20 my area, heavily wooded suffered severe thunderstorms. A micro bust sent large trees hurtling everywhere including through 3 of my neighbors houses. I have 6 large trees threatening my house right now. As I interview tree companies I always request their liability and workman's comp certificates. A good 50% cannot produce workman's comp coverage and I dismiss them. Now you could say, "We have laws!". Yes we do, so a guy loses his arm on a chainsaw, the employer (who has his office In a pickup truck) declares bankruptcy, pays a fine, maybe gets a year in the county jail but the worker never gets compensated for his loss. So yeah, we still need people watching out for workers and as long as there is greed, always will.

It’s a brave new world. We have women that work outside the home. It’s Workers Compensation. 

[GeeBee]

I can identify with the Yellow Freight. It got that way at my airline. They kept coming back for givebacks while management continued to line their pockets. In my case, management created bankruptcy proof pensions for themselves while at the same time demanding pay cuts. You arrive at the point, and Yellow Freight did where it is no longer salvageable on managements terms and you put the whole thing in Chapter 11 and hope for better management. Believe me, the Teamsters at Yellow did their homework and figured out it was a sow's ear and nothing could make it a silk purse.

What many don't realize is large unions hire investment bankers too. They advise them on management's plans and if they are worthy of their members sacrifice's when called upon. 

In my case we went from Chapter 11 to the best paid pilots and the airline with the highest revenue per seat mile in the world. Same people, same airplanes, same hubs, better management. I hope Yellow can pull it off coming out.