Labor Laws and Unions
Fidel Castro
HRM 531
June 20, 2011
Che Guevarra

Labor Laws and Unions
American Airlines
Background
American Airlines (AA) history goes back to 1926 when a young aviator named Charles A. Lindberg started air routes to transport mail between St. Louis to Chicago. Lindberg seek the help of other aviators and expanded to other types of types of services such as transport of foods. Later on under the name of American Airways, Lindberg acquired and organized other small airlines. The small airlines were mostly independent carries and they all were branded under American Airways. Throughout the decades AA participated in the development of our current mail systems and play important parts in the American conflicts such as World War II, where AA turned their fleet to the military, Air Transport Command, to include their air crews.
AA has been always been reinventing itself offering new services, keeping itself with aviation technology and by introducing new customer services. It innovated with services like magnetronic reservoir to keep track of available seats. AA was the first to offer nonstop transcontinental service and later on the first to offer coast-to-coast jet service. They also introduced a Family Plan to give discount air fares to traveling families. AA attention to customer service introduces the first flight attendant college and the AADVANTAGE travel awards program. AA was the first airline to use electronic ticketing and it was one of the first airlines to go use online ticketing. Currently, AA operates a fleet of more than 600 hundreds aircrafts, is one of the largest airlines in the world with international and domestic routes, with revenues of more than 22 billions of dollars annually.
Transport Workers Union – Air Transport Division
Background
Transport Workers Union of America (TWU) was founded in 1934 back in the years of the Great Depression to represent workers who were treated unfairly, not paid adequately, overworked and fire for no good reason against transportation companies with disregard for safety conditions and abusive worker treatment. The Air Transport Division was formed after the booming and rapid growth of the airline industry in the 1920s.
TWU works for all the transport workers not only in aviation but in rail, transit, transport service/maintenance and also gaming. Any workers that work in these industries can join the TWU to represent them. TWU is dedicated to safeguard, protect and improve working conditions for their union members. Among the workforces that TWU represents; all AA employees (not to include management) are required to become part of TWU upon hiring.
AA being the large employer that it is in the U.S and with dealings and relationship all over the world has to deal with a massive workforce all over the country. Through the decades AA has encountered many issues with up and down economies which has tightened budget and has force AA to reinvent themselves over and over. In order to stay in business and leading the in the industry; AA, has to have a loyal and great workforce. That workforce is unionized with TWU. At times when the airline industry had to cut budgets because of gas and security issues, had to let go of workers. In cases like that is where TWU has stepped in. Also to keep their service fleet adequately manned and trained, AA and TWU has work together to keep good paying rates and proper staff trained. TWU has serves as the voice of the workers in such a mass and spread working environment.
TWU bargains with AA through negotiations between management and union representative depending on the division and the workers issues. Some divisions will represent mechanics and other customer services, etc. Some of the benefits of TWU for their union members are proper representation and negotiations of contracts, paid vacations, health coverage, retirement plans and stock options with AA. As an overall benefit to all, union representation of TWU with AA brings fairness to workers and a great deal of job security and brings loyalty from the workforce to AA, which gives an operational safety net in such a bad economy. References
American Airlines. (2011, April 18). TWU Negotiation: Mechanic & Related. Retrieved from http://www.aanegotiations.com/mechanics.asp
American Airlines. (2010, August). History of AMR Corporation and American Airlines. Retrieved from http://www.aa.com/i18n/amrcorp/corporateInformation/facts/history.jsp
Transport Workers Union of America. (2011). TWU - Our History, Air Transport Division. Retrieved from http://www.twu.org/international/our_history