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The ongoing saga of life at Continental

Old 06-04-2009, 04:24 AM
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[Magenta Line for Wednesday, June 3, 2009

“We got you guys the Rolls-Royce of PBS bidding systems!” - Continental’s President and COO, Jeff Smisek, to Council 170 Secretary-Treasurer Captain Kaye Riggs during his very brief stay on Captain Riggs’s jumpseat, July 6, 2007. Mr. Smisek and his sizable entourage were on their way to Seattle for the rollout of the 787.


Today is Wednesday, June 3, 2009 and there are 10 items for discussion.


Item 1: Don’t Be Givin’ Up Yer Hostages, Matey

A couple of issues back, we alluded to management hostage-taking in lieu of giving us, as your reps, a good spanking. Actually, we did more than allude to it, we gave you specific warning that management would be taking these actions against our pilots. While we have seen a few incidents that veered dangerously close to the line we will not allow management to cross, since the Flu Crew incident was resolved, management has been fairly meek. Then we go and help them out.

Last week, the issue of the “red bracelet” reared its scarlet head and the next thing we knew, we had a Captain’s dispute with his First Officer go directly to the chief pilot’s office, do not pass Pro Standards and no soup for you. Gentlemen—ladies—this, frankly, is not acceptable. Only two things can come of this, neither of them good:

1)The guy that turns the other guy in paints a target on his own back, and,
2)The guy that gets turned in may be the very next, and completely innocent, hostage.

If we bombard the chief pilot offices with our own hostages, it will become difficult to separate the ones we dropped from the ones management shoots down.

Professional Standards exists for one reason: to mediate disputes between pilots without involving management. Management is not our friend and serving up our fellow pilots to them does nothing for anyone—except management.

You got a problem with that? Call Pro Standards.


Item 2: We Have Met the Stone Wall—and It is Them

We usually talk to the guys in the MEC home office a couple of times a week. Makes it easier to coordinate our communications plus we get information that we otherwise might not get because it isn’t necessarily important. In our recent conversations, we picked up on some underlying tension between our leadership and management and that maybe management was a little irritated with all of us these days. Now, why do you think that is?

Could it be that your EWR reps love slipping the ole leather mask in place and chasing management down the road, chainsaw held high? Could it be your EWR reps and your MEC leadership’s weekly exposure of management’s pettiness, avarice, and ineptness has caused things to cool? Maybe it’s the love we feel whenever we peel the cover off another chief pilot doing something really stupid and mean that used to pass without anyone outside the union finding out. Or maybe it’s the daily coordinated attack your EWR reps and the MEC leadership have mounted. No matter, whatever it is, we love it. We love turning these office wonks into guys who now have to look over their shoulders before they do anything to one of our pilots.

This is a shout out to our EWR pilots: We love you guys! We love you helping us turn the heat up by reporting to us all the really dumb stuff management does so that we may focus our efforts upon them.

Now, the short-term results of our hatchet-wielding have been for management to not talk to us. Yes, they took their toys (which will soon be ours) and went home. And while there was a little bit of movement earlier this week on the hotel room upgrade issue, the bulletin from flight operations management is far from satisfactory and they continue to stonewall a solution to this issue that we would accept. They’ve stonewalled any and all solutions to the jumpseat problems, both CASS and cabin, other than alternate access for Continental pilots several months ago, and they’ve stonewalled any number of smaller but nevertheless important issues so they could show us who wears the pants around here.

Note to management: we will remember every cold glance, every unreturned phone call, every unanswered e-mail. We will remember Jackson Martin and his silly game-playing on the hotel issue which has allowed the flight attendants the freedom to openly challenge the authority of the Captains of several of our flights. We will remember Fred Abbott every time we hear of jumpseat denials because an agent was either “too busy” to process the cockpit jumpseat or hadn’t a single clue about the operation of CASS or the alternate clearance procedure. And we will remember every heavy-handed slap meted out to every one of our pilots by every assistant chief pilot.

Our memories are long—and they are expensive.


Item 3: I’m Sorry, Room Service Isn’t Answering

In this week’s installment of the flight attendant hotel room confiscation plan update, we have this: Not much.

Although we were advised that a new memo from flight ops management was freshly interred on the e-bulletin board (aka the CCS Pilot Bulletin Leper Colony), what we unearthed after some laborious digging was far from buried treasured. This woefully inadequate memo still leaves in question the proper order of room assignments, fails to disavow the current erroneous bulletin circulating among the flight attendants, and leaves gaping holes for abuse by flight attendants who have a “special” relationship with the layover hotel.

Since flight operations management is sulking in the corner and won’t concern itself with any flight operations management stuff, how are all those planes getting anywhere? Oh, that’s right, the pilots of Continental Airlines continue to do their jobs day in and day out acting as flight planners, dispatch, crew trackers, ground service coordinators, ramp supervisors, catering problem-solvers—and, oh yeah, pilots, and all this so we can be dumped on by the flight attendants when we get to the layover hotel.

So, anyway, we have a new bulletin—and they’ve got the old one, turning crusty with age there in the Inflight manual, still out there circulating through the hands of every one of our flight attendants. Meanwhile, flight operations management is still hiding under their desks high above Smith Street, afraid to cross the only employee group who was never cowed by management into accepting a career-stopping contract. And we sit and scratch our heads wondering why we cannot get management to generate a bulletin without the weaseling, back-peddling, language tricks, and kow-towing.

In some ways we can certainly understand why flight ops management has taken a powder on this: standing up for the men and women who work for you is hard, especially when you don’t have to deal with them face-to-face every day. True, it’s somewhat easier for them when they have a couple of useless dead-weight low-level managers whose sole contribution to Continental Airlines was helping deliver Contract ’02 to their new masters down on Smith Street, but, all in all, it ain’t nuclear physics; it’s leadership. And there ain’t any leadership anywhere in flight operations management.

Leadership means looking after the guys who are the reason you have a job in the first place, leadership is the willingness to make yourself unpopular in the face of opposition from other departments—including Inflight—and leadership means you don’t hide behind your lackeys and have them do the dirty work. Leadership is looking at the supervisors of the other employee groups and saying, “These are my guys, they are the most valuable employees on the property, and they will not be taking a back seat to any of your guys. When your guys learn to fly and have invested the blood, sweat, and tears my guys have, get back to me. In the mean time, take your ‘memo’ and stick it in somebody else’s inbox.”

Instead, we have a guy who sits in a chair in an office on Smith Street. The sign on the door says, “Vice-President of Flight Operations”. We’re not sure what’s hanging in his office closet—because every other department head is wearing the pants around here.
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Old 06-04-2009, 04:26 AM
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Item 4: Then and Now; It’s Enough to Make You Cry

The history of Continental Airlines is rich. While we are not airline historians, we do appreciate irony when it mows us down.

As many of you know, Continental Airlines began life in 1934 as Varney Speed Lines. In 1936, Bob Six, a true airline pioneer, took a majority stake in the company—and led it for the next 40 years. There aren’t many around today who worked for Mr. Six—but those who are still here remember one thing about him above all: he was a real “airline guy”.

None of your EWR reps were on the property; two of us came to work under Frank Lorenzo (aka “Satan-in-a-Suit”), and the third is a relatively recent addition to our pilot group. Two of us, however, had the chance to fly with the guys who made Continental Airlines what it was throughout the ‘60s and ‘70s: THE premier airline in innovation, customer service, and quality of flight operations.

To be chosen to fly for Continental in those days was somewhat akin to being selected for the astronaut corps. Continental had its pick during those glory-years and both your LEC Chairman and Secretary-Treasurer had the benefit of flying with many of those wonderful guys. But time never retreats, it only marches on, we got older, we moved up, and they faded into retirement leaving us only memories—and the stories of what this profession used to mean during those brief years of pride and glory.

The stories…

Flying MAC charters to Vietnam, the American carrier serving more cities in Australia than anyone else, New Zealand, Tahiti, the El Paso base, the formation of Air Mike…Air Mike survives, the rest are gone—to be replaced not with more and better destinations or a higher quality operation but with the likes of Lorenzo, Lewis Jordan, and all the other forgettable “managers” who fouled our nest and left Continental in ruins.

There was a transition period to be sure—a few guys like Frank Tullo, who created our CRM program—and spent years as a guest of the North Vietnamese after having his Thud shot out from under him—and Chester James, and Matt Bomis, and Gene Cotteen, and all the others, even Andy Childers—they survived and bridged the chasm between the “good old” and the “bad news”. These were the guys we looked up to, these were the guys with the stories, these were the guys we wanted to be but could never become—the airline business had changed, Lorenzo saw to that, and was leaving them and their ways behind. They stuck around for a few years—but they were dinosaurs—they were extinct, and probably knew it—but maybe not. Maybe Chester did—but that was likely because he outlasted the Lorenzos and Jordans—and became part of the rebirth of Continental under Gordon and Gregg and C.D.

Today, who do we have? Who fills the shoes of Chester, and Frank, and Matt, and Andy?

Fred Abbott? Jackson Martin? Tom Stivala?

We would say, “Say it ain’t so!”—but it is. The pioneers have been replaced with the pretenders. The airline innovators have been replaced by the airline under-cutters. The visionaries have been replaced with the venal. Oh yes, like all who measure their worth by the figures on their spreadsheets, they know the cost of everything—and the value of nothing. They know how much they can put in their pockets by taking it out of ours—but they know nothing, either of the value of a valued employee, or the cost of an angry, abused one.

Larry Kellner is the archetypical “new airline manager”. He’s taller and has a nicer smile than Frank Lorenzo but he has the same undertaker’s heart, the same willingness to advance himself by pushing all others aside, and the same easy way with other people’s money—even if it came from our retirement funds.

We often hear stories that begin: “If only Mr. Kellner knew, he’d do something about it.” As we have learned, Mr. Kellner and Mr. Smisek know—they know it all. They know of the abuses of flight operations management and they know that if they want the pilots brought to their knees during negotiations, one good way of doing it is to let others—flight attendants, gate agents, chief pilots—do the dirty work.

And others will. They will be told that money for us means no money for them, that if we get something, they must give something up. Like most of management’s message, it is a lie. But the truth is we will fight, we will endure the lies, and we will never be forced to our knees before management. Not today, not tomorrow, not ever.

Continental Airlines was here long before the Lorenzos and Kellners and Smiseks—and will be here long after they are gone. While they will endure in our memories as infamous, the others, the pioneers, the Frank Tullos, the Chester James’s, the Gene Cotteens, the Matt Bomis’s, will endure for years to come as the men who were great cockpit companions—and who made Continental great in return.


Item 5: Mr. Kellner’s Pay Calculator

Mr. Kellner earned his money this week. We still don’t have a contract, over five months past our amendable date.

According to Forbes Magazine (April 30, 2008 issue) Mr. Kellner’s total compensation for 2007 was 10.3 million dollars. Extrapolating forward, this means that Mr. Kellner has made:

This week: $198,072.00
June 1, 2009 to date: $198,072.00
2009 year to date: $4,102,920.00

That’s enough for a couple good suits and a new pair of sneaks.


Item 6: Last Chance: Do Not Let June 10th Pass You By

This is the last shot we have to get you to come to Houston for a day of fun, frolic and management torment. You want “The Contract”? Then get to Houston. It’s that simple. If you are able to attend and you do not do so, go cry in someone else’s mirror while you’re searching for someone to blame for the failure of Contract ‘08.

We will not sugar-coat it: management is watching, they are counting hats and maybe red wristbands. A bad turnout for us means more months of fruitless negotiations and less leverage for our Negotiating Committee.

As we’ve mentioned, there is a friendly wager between EWR and IAH as to who will bring the most pilots to Houston on June 10th. While the sporting aspects of this event are interesting and fun, the real attraction is in the numbers we show management. Management thinks you won’t “waste” a day off to get the contract of your career. We know differently.

The uniform of the day is summer WITH HATS (so management can count them).

To top it off, for those of you coming in the night before, there will be a reception at the union hall on the evening of June 9th. Jay has promised us to use the good silverware this time. A fun evening will be had by all but you gotta show up to have the fun, right?

Sign-up details are here: http://calpickets.alpa.org

We have received a few reports of trouble using the site. If you have any difficulties with the sign-up, please call the union office at (281) 987-3636

There are no excuses for not attending.
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Old 06-04-2009, 04:28 AM
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Item 7: Request for Committee Volunteers

All of our committees need volunteers. If you are one of the many somewhat selfish and untested among us, if you are interested in committee work, if you have special artistic talents of any kind, or if you just like to chew the legs off your dining room table, we want you to help your fellow EWR pilots. If you are interested or have previously expressed interest via e-mail or a phone call, please confirm your continuing interest in an e-mail to Captain Kaye Riggs, Secretary-Treasurer, LEC 170 at [email protected]. Please put your name and the word “Volunteer” in the subject line.


Item 8: Special Request For Chairman of the EWR Council 170 Membership Committee

Due to numerous foul-ups with membership issues, we are conducting a search for a EWR Council 170 Membership Committee Chair. Duties include many thankless tasks for no pay, a heapin’ helpin’ of abuse, and probable recall and humiliation if union business runs its normal course.

In the mean time, you will bask in the glow of the light of your cell phone screen as you make the requisite hundred or so calls a week to Herndon trying to sort out why Captain Smith, freshly returned from LTD, now owes 1.7 million dollars in back dues or why First Officer Jones, now in his fifth year as an ALPA member never had payroll deductions for his obligations and now has a lien on his kids.

We are not trying to become union collection thugs—it is vital that everyone is in good standing prior to contract ratification to be able to vote our TA up or down.


Item 9: Next Meetings

Please join us at our next local council meeting. Check back here in a couple of weeks for the date.

Our next MEC meeting has been scheduled for July 14-17, 2009 at the union building in Houston.
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Old 06-04-2009, 04:28 AM
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Item 10: Chairman’s Editorial

On behalf of your LEC Officers, I would like to sincerely thank the countless number of pilots who have taken the time to send all of us the hundreds of e-mails of encouragement and praise, and the many who have personally sought us out when they have seen us in the terminals to thank us and pass on their support. This truly means a lot to all three of us and we are all very proud to serve the EWR pilots as your elected representatives.

I came to work for Continental Airlines in April 1987 as a 21 year-old wet-behind-the-ears B727 new hire Second Officer. For the first few years with our company, I was based in Los Angeles and then Houston. During the time I sat in the learning seat, I learned how to fly in a real airline operation from some of our finest aviators during the waning glory days of our profession. I learned other things, too, like trade unionism. When my teachers first came to work for Continental, it really meant something; if you wanted the best west coast airline, you came to work for Continental. The old Continental pilots, referred to by many with awe, or those from the Robert Six regime, unfortunately are long since retired. Sadly, they were the last pilots from the era when pilots were truly pilots.

You could say I have grown up at Continental since I have spent over half of my life working as a pilot for this company. My message to Continental management? You get what you so justly deserve. Twenty-two years of a management style devoted to marginalizing pilot pay, benefits, quality of life, Captain’s authority and the trivialization of us as both pilots and fellow employees to every other employee group. As bad as it was under Lorenzo, it has further deteriorated significantly since the departure of Gordon Bethune. What has management’s path yielded? A group of hard core in-your-face trade unionists that now lead the largest Council within the Continental MEC—and an LEC Chairman that considers retired United Airlines Captain Rick Dubinsky to be his union mentor. Most remember Captain Dubinsky’s infamous quote during the United pilot’s Contract 2000 mega-battle: “I don’t want to kill the golden goose, I just want to choke it by the neck until it lays every last egg”. That is exactly my objective for our Contract 08 campaign. Many recent actions of total disrespect by our flight operations management team have only served to galvanize my resolve for an Industry-Redefining contract.

Speaking of Industry-Redefining contracts, our MEC Chairman, Captain Jay Pierce, has called a special MEC meeting for mid-July. This meeting is being called so your MEC can receive a brief by our Alliance and Oversight Committee and other subject matter experts on Continental’s proposed anti-trust immunity, A ++, and various STAR Alliance issues. We will also spend a couple of days with our Negotiating Committee. Every representative will have the chance before the entire MEC to define their contractual goals and to give final direction to our Negotiating Committee. Your EWR LEC representatives are going down to IAH to ensure that our contractual goals are heard loud and clear.

Tara, Kaye and I came up with the term “Industry-Redefining” because, simply put, “industry-leading” isn’t good enough; most of us have probably noticed that our industry hasn’t been so hot since 911 and we refuse to accept the degradations to our lives that today’s “industry-leading” contract would entail. The contract we negotiate today we’ll have to live under, more than likely, from five to seven years. During that period, our company will once again being making money hand over fist. Of course, management will claim poverty and that they can’t afford to pay us. Would you expect any less? Continental is a premiere world-class airline with a premium revenue advantage over our competitors. We deserve nothing less than a world-class contract, a contract that places us at the very top of our industry at the date of signing. Continental will never admit that now is a good time for significant contractual increases—it’s always later, always some excuse. When Contact 95 was negotiated we were told “next time”. The same was said for Contract 97. We all know what occurred with Contract 02. If not now, when?

What is your LEC Officer’s definition of Industry-Redefining? Massive gains in each and every section that will be industry-redefining by all accounts. We define our industry as American, Delta, United, Southwest, Fedex and UPS—not Alaska, Spirit, Virgin America, or US Airways. The outcome of this MEC meeting will create the frame work within which all remaining sections of Contract 08 will be negotiated. If you agree with your EWR LEC Officers and our desire for an Industry-Redefining Contract we ask you to do the following: Show up on June 10th for our Stockholders Meeting unity event in overwhelming numbers and e-mail the other members of the CAL MEC and tell them of your desire for an Industry-Redefining contract .

I touched on the June 10 CAL MEC Stockholders unity demonstration above but I want to restate: today there is nothing better you can do to support your union and demonstrate your unwavering resolve for an industry redefining contract. Show up in Houston on June 10th, it’s that simple. Although this event isn’t as elaborate as the previous Wall Street and Smith Street events, it’s no less important. You have my word: we will shortly appoint a new SPSC Chairman, restart ALPA’s time proven successful two-way communications medium, Pilot to Pilot (P2P), and once again move forward towards building a credible strike threat. Although I would strongly prefer not to have to resort to a legal strike, it is my belief that a strike is likely; our management team is so out of touch they have sorely underestimated the unity and resolve of this pilot group.

In closing, I want to pass on to you what one of my predecessors, IACP Captain Representative and ALPA LEC 170 Captain Representative and Chairman, Russ “Rocket” Fisher, so eloquently told many of our pilots numerous times while we were preparing to negotiate Contract 02. During countless LC 170 meetings, Rocket would ask, “How many pilots in this room would like to earn $100,000 per day?” Of course, everyone would raise their hands. He would then say, “Look at the recently negotiated United and Delta (pre 9/11) contracts and compare them to Contract 97. The average pilot would gain over a million dollars during the term of the contract.” He said, “Well, if 5000 pilots give me ten days of their time over the contract campaign to do what I ever I ask, like show up for a stockholders meeting, come to an informational picketing event or a rally, we can derive the leverage or at least build a strong foundation of leverage to negotiate such a contract. However if only 2500 pilots show up then I am going to need twenty days of your time,” and etc, etc, etc.

If this doesn’t work to get you to show up on June 10th, then I will ask you to help me win my bet with IAH Captain Representative Wayde Beckman. I say that more EWR pilots will show than IAH pilots. Hey, after several months on reserve (which allowed me ample time to do union work), I bid a line last month. My trips consisted of visits to several casinos in Europe and South America and let’s just say I made more deposits then withdrawals, so, hey, at least help me make an easy $100 bucks; I think the EWR pilots are a sure bet.


As we close this week, please remember our 147 hostages and their families.


“So, Captain Riggs, if you’re so unhappy here, what other airline would you rather be working for?” - Continental’s President and COO, Jeff Smisek, hired March 1995, to Council 170 Secretary-Treasurer Captain Kaye Riggs, hired July 1987, during his very brief stay on Captain Riggs’s jumpseat, July 6, 2007. Mr. Smisek and his sizable entourage were on their way to Seattle for the rollout of the 787.


Captain Jayson Baron, EWR Council 170 Chairman
[email protected]


First Officer Tara Cook, EWR Council 170 Vice Chairman
[email protected]

Captain Kaye Riggs, EWR Council 170 Secretary-Treasurer
[email protected]

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Old 06-04-2009, 05:42 AM
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So what's up with the FAs and the hotel rooms?
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Old 06-04-2009, 05:47 AM
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Any chance you guys, (JTK), can secede from CAL ALPA and start your own Union?

I'd love to see your guys running the show at the MEC level and call managements bluff.

Too bad the other LEC's don't get it and still tap dance around our incompetent management.

Thank you for your efforts.
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Old 06-04-2009, 06:07 AM
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1987 Hire at 21 years of Age? Is your Chairman a SCAB??????????????
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Old 06-04-2009, 07:06 AM
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Originally Posted by Commando View Post
1987 Hire at 21 years of Age? Is your Chairman a SCAB??????????????
The strike occurred from 11/83 to 10/85. Jayson and I were hired in 1987.

The only Pilot who ever called me a scab was a big fat UAL guy who muttered it to me as I stepped off the bus at a hotel in LA back in the early '90's.

I was with a full term striker Captain who wore his ALPA battle star proudly on his tie. As I made my way to intercept ol' fatty, the Captain grabbed me and told me not to bother.

This guy walked the picket line for 2 full years and explained to me that you can't change ignorance and to let it go.

Learned a lot from both Pilots that day, graciousness from a guy who truly got the Union message and how stupid Pilots can be who do not take the time to see who their throwing insults at.
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Old 06-04-2009, 07:24 AM
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UAL pilots have called me a scab when I worked at CAL Express.
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Old 06-04-2009, 07:47 AM
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Thanks for the update guys! It is a great idea we all keep a pulse on each others negotiations. We are in this together, and CAL/AA are in it right now!

Keep up the good fight!

AA
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