A union representing more than 10,000 aviation maintenance technicians at United Airlines has accused the Chicago-based carrier of wanting to offshore American jobs for cheaper labor in “communist China.”
The accusations started to fly after an overwhelming number of technicians represented by the Teamsters rejected a proposed new contract that the union’s Airline Division Director Chris Griswold described as “disgraceful.”
“United Airlines’ executives think they can strong-arm 10,000 Teamsters technicians into accepting a terrible deal,” Griswold said after the deal was rejected earlier this week by 99.5% of aircraft technicians who took part in the ballot.
“United raked in $4 billion in profits last year off the backs of highly skilled, hardworking Teamsters who keep planes flying safely,” Griswold continued. “Rather than reward them, United wants to gut good American jobs and gamble with safety.”
During the first Trump administration, several unions representing engineers at major US airlines accused the likes of American Airlines and Delta, as well as United Airlines of offshoring maintenance jobs to other countries, especially China.
At the same time, the biggest airlines in the United States complained they were at a disadvantage to foreign rivals, especially in the Middle East, because these state-run carriers were able to hire cheaper labor.
In 2019, the Transport Workers Union (TWU) even slammed American Airlines as UnAmerican Airlines over accusations that the Fort Worth-based carrier was sending its planes overseas for maintenance jobs rather than getting the work done by American firms in the United States.
The TWU believes that as much as half of all maintenance work carried out on US-registered commercial airliners is actually carried out overseas – generally because it is cheaper rather than because airlines lack the capacity or skills to have this work done at home.
Given the Trump administration’s current tariff war with major trading partners, it may be that the unions hope the President is sympathetic to their concerns that American jobs are being unnecessarily lost overseas so that US-based airlines can lower their costs.
As Griswold points out: “United’s short-sighted cash grab reflects everything that’s wrong with Big Business at a time when we should be bringing back jobs to America.”
“The Teamsters Union isn’t just fighting for a fair contract — we’re fighting for the future of the American aviation industry,” Griswold continued.
When the mechanics can actually fix a plane without their IPad then they can bitch. The backs they are talking about are the people who break their backs loading and off loading the planes. People need to start looking at whom actually do things.