sram63

I have been asking lots of the same questions and have thought about all the possible scenerios. I was told that YES they can force a Friday just as they were able to force Sat.'s. Now on the short work week. The new contract only guarentees us 32 hours so there is the possiblity of only working 8 hours for 4 days with no short work week on the remainder. I really don't have a problem with the vacation time issue. Think about it. 99% of the time everyone uses their time on Fridays. Now the lower seniority can't complain when all the Fridays in the summer are at cap. I haven't found an answer on the question of half days. Do you stay an hour after lunch with a first half or do you come in an hour after lunch for second half? :reading: :reading:

According to many sources. The die came in yesterday and they ran some parts that were good. Production as usual starting on Monday. Also big shake down on supervisors. Dave Scarlberry fired and Tom Cline from Maintenance will be taking his place. Also 26 other salary were to go today.

Unionist, I wasnt talking about you. I do know however there was a certain individual that came from St Louis that turned radical during common training and QUIT. They got their job back after walking out. Just curious if this is the same person who knows lots about the dunnage/ clean up jobs. They didn't like the Japanese puppets as they called them. Husband and wife unit with 45 grand apiece to come here. Friends of Deboot.

Did you get fired during common training???? And Deboot made Mary give you your job back?

Bet you can't wait to go back to Missouri!! You pretend to know what is going on at AAI and pretend to know about me. The 90% of my friends being transplants, if you would have used your brain would have known that was from the fact that I am on nights, dork!!! And I judge people by who THEY are, not where they come from nor their race, religion or their sexual preferences. I however do not like to work my A$$ off and watch whiny people try to get out of the work they should be doing and getting great money for, with the education they usually came in with. I hate to see relatives of older prominent workers that weasled their way in without actually having to do anything and then think that life is so easy in the auto industry. I am proud to be an auto worker, although I have told my children to make sooooo much more of their lives! I'm happy you have more seniority than I do. If you hate it so much, then why didn't you take the retirement buy-out and shut up. I am sorry....but I think you are the kind that will make the lives of the new incomming employees miserable. I'm sorry the work and the environment isn't the same as the plant you came from but...it is what it is. Life is not easy. As far as the line is concerned....the skillet conveyer, and all the line gadgets you spoke about came only at the time of the Mustang! And since you were never at AAI before that, don't pretend to know what life at Mazda, then AAI Services was like! Speak only of what you know....not of what you heard. Second hand news is like the old "pass the word" game....the story changes as it goes around. You discourage others from comming because of your own bitterness. It takes more than one opinion to create a forum. Such the word FORUM. And you talk tongue in cheek....so much you have said you have litterally retracted with BS. Take a tour of trim and get better aquainted with the root of our plant. You asked why my spouse took the buy-out?? Not that it is any of your business, but after being tossed around for so long and so many different plants when Willow Run re-tooled and spent tons of money on so much innovation, President Bush saw to it that they moved the operation to Arlington, Texas for his own political platform. It was a common sense move, just like the less than 10 yr. seniority people have to face now during our current buy-outs. I will not bore the rest of the readers with a long winded, repetative post and leave it as such. PLEASE: ALL TRANSFERS KEEP AN OPEN MIND...DON'T BE SWAYED BY ME OR ANY OTHERS!!!

Ok, I never said that all of which you stated was false. I have a feeling you are trying to discourage high seniority transfers. Let me start by saying the way I know we had it much more difficult than traditional assembly plants from the beginning, was from the fact that my spouse worked for 5 different ones in 5 yrs. in the 80's before taking a buy-out. After which time they became a TPT at AAI. Let me tell you, I never got so much sympathy for what I had been doing for less pay than they had been doing. My spouse worked in body, trim and PDI during almost a 2 yr. period and said they never had a job previously that was so busy and physical. Now, obviously you have not experienced the ergonomics in TRIM either or you would have known that Unit 11 in Trim and Final ends at station 32. Now as far as the open arms, I am not a selfish, lazy person. I welcome all Ford employees to AAI and to excercise their seniority rights. It is the way! And if I get bumped down, so be it. And as far as telling them that they will be stuck in trim or placed there, that is false also. We have many people that have posted out to departments in this last posting for which the deadline was tonight. Openings in all areas of the plant will be available to those that have the seniority. Not to mention the openings created by the buy-outs. True, if your seniority isn't above the early mid 90's you will probably have to take trim to keep days. I hope all people considering comming to AAI keep an open mind. 90 percent of my best friends are transfers from other plants. Yes there are some very selfish, self-centered transfers that want AAI to be just like the plant they left. As well as originals that don't want to earn a fantastic wage for the job they have to perform. Home....home is where you hang your hat. Please don't be scared off, it is good money, it can be what you make of it. As far as management stress goes. Yeah....it sure is there. But in my experience, (I'm sure it is different for all), the managers that started with Mazda work with the people so much better than the managers that came from Ford plants or outside the system. The arrogance is not there. They still remember the team concept and work as a team. I think you, (AnotherAutoWorker), feels sorry for yourself. It sounds like you made a big mistake and regret it. The door opens both ways.

I also am an original AAI member and the downweeks are as stated as above. I also am on nights by choice. Our shutdown is not officially set yet but the company has until April first to finalize it. It is unclear if they want to start it the week of the 4th since it falls on a Friday or force us to use all 10 of our vacation days. Much of the above stuff is true about the plant with the exception of the mind set. It is not "us" against "them". Our plant started out with employees only making 11/hour doing much harder work than a traditional plant employee. Know this when you come in. Please don't criticize the differences in the work environment and downgrade us for complying so long. We still have jobs at a great wage with numerous benefits. I feel very fortunate to still be able to provide for my family. If the seniority thing is an issue this may help. The Material Handling cusp between nights and days falls at 88-89 seniority. Bare in mind that the lowest 2 people in the units are not allowed to pick jobs during job picks. Those people are used as loan outs to all departments. Not exclusively MH. That is why the "Clean UP" or dunnage people bid out like flies. During periods of absenteeism the dunnage operations are shutdown and those people are loaned out to different departments. It isn't because they have to "Clean Up" like stated by a previous post. Hope all of this helps Milan girl. Good luck and looking forward to seeing you.