American Airline workers protest over work citing safety issues

TULSA, Okla. (KTUL) — American Airline workers are protesting with the Transport Workers Union Local 514 over work issues and concerns about work being outsourced overseas, according to the president of the organization.

“If you get on an airplane today, it doesn’t matter if it is American Airlines, Southwest, Delta, that airplane has been in places like China, Brazil, El Salvador, being worked on, by they what are going to call them mechanics, being worked on by people that don’t have the same training we have, and the FAA doesn’t have the oversight in those countries,” said Dale Danker, president of TWU Local 514.

He says the union is in negotiations with American and that jobs lost to retirement in Tulsa are not being filled.

“When you go in negotiations for a union contract, you talk about how much you will perform, so they clearly now want to increase the amount of work they do outside the United States. That is a definite fact. They want to tell us we will have a job here in Tulsa and the other stations in U.S. but when we retire, they do not want to have to replace us,” said Danker.

Mike Neal with the Regional Tulsa Metro Chamber says American has a commitment to Tulsa and that the company is making investments in its facilities here.

American Airlines released this statement:

American insources more maintenance work than anyone else in the industry. And that won’t change. As it relates to heavy maintenance, the majority of this work is done in the U.S., with the only work being done outside the U.S. taking place in Central America with our trusted partner Aeroman, who also performs work for other U.S. carriers. The majority of the scheduled line maintenance work being done outside the U.S. is performed in South America by American Airlines team members, not contractors. The vast majority of them are FAA-A&P licensed AMTs, and those not are in the process of receiving their A&P licenses. All of the work performed in our South American maintenance facilities, as well as any other work that is outsourced, is subject to the same FAA regulations as maintenance performed in the U.S.

We remain committed to Tulsa and our maintenance base, and have invested tens of millions in the facility since the merger. We have recently insourced work to our Tulsa team like the CFM56-5B engine overhaul, and plan to hire more mechanics for the base this year. We’re also adding 250 AMTs to our line maintenance operation system-wide and are opening a new line maintenance station in Houston.