C34 Chairman and Chairman-Elect Update

January 2012



Ladies and Gentlemen of Council 34,

By now, you are probably all aware of the current, management-induced crisis-du-jour. Most pilots’ (I’ve been told almost 70%) February 1 paychecks are wrong. If you recall, many pilots who receive paper paychecks did not receive their January 1 paychecks until 10+ days after payday. During that debacle, after speaking with Captain Allen, I found out that there wasn’t even a mechanism in place to give an advance to pilots in domicile as in the “old days.” Eventually the problem was fixed, but, alas, a new month, a new problem.

Now, some pilots are being paid correctly, most are not. As a B-777 captain, I was paid B-767 rates—a shortage of almost $32 per hour. I know of an A-320 captain who was paid almost $180 per hour and yet another A320 Captain who was shorted $7 per hour. There is no rhyme or reason to this.

I spoke with Captain Allen last night about this issue, and I asked him to ensure that the SFO Flight Office will be able to issue advances to pilots immediately. He agreed to advocate for this from his superiors. Both he and Curt Hughes’ Enote stated that management will attempt to make whole as quickly as possible those pilots who were shorted. After speaking with Captain Allen this morning, he tells me he has been assured by his superiors that pilots who were shorted will be cut a check no later than Thursday, February 2. We’ll see.

As Curt Hughes said in his Enote and as the UAL MEC R&I Committee wrote in their communication to you last night, there is a method to report this issue through Skynet. If you have a problem with your pay, I would urge you to take the time to click on this link to report your problem to management. You may also click on this link to check your pay information on Skynet. You should be signed on to Skynet before clicking on these links. Unfortunately, I have it on good authority that payroll isn’t quite sure who’s inbox these “Pay Inquiries” end up in. Even though this report may end up in cyberspace, I would still urge you to do it. As usual, your Council Officers would sincerely appreciate you also take the time to fill out a UAL MEC PDR by clicking here.

It is your Council Officers’ recommendation to call the SFO Flight Office at 650.634.1722 if you would also like to report your problem to a real person.

Your Council Officers are absolutely astounded at the complete buffoonery perpetrated by management on an almost daily basis. I guess an $8+ million dollar bonus last year for co-worker Jeff only guarantees the perfunctory execution of a business plan. If we actually want him and his co-workers in senior management to perform, well that’s going to cost the Corporation extra! Can you even imagine how PSS day one is going to go? Management can’t even get United employees’ pay correct. Can you imagine them trying to merge two reservations systems with millions upon millions of records into one? Can you say, “Chaos” and “Cancelations?”

It has widely been reported in the press that DAL is looking at acquiring either US Airways or AA. At this point, I am begging them to take a look at UCH. At least DAL management knows how to do a merger. This crew…good luck! How sad and pathetic.

Mike, Ben, Dan, and I returned home from the MEC Meeting on Friday night. Instead of reporting on the meeting myself, I asked Dan to write the update so you can get it from his perspective. I hope you appreciate what he has written below:

Hopefully by now you have read the MEC updates concerning the events of the week. I don’t want to bore you with a complete re-hash of those events but I would like to share with you a bit of the flavor and color of how the meeting went.

There has been a lot of talk over the past 2 years about a dysfunctional MEC. About an MEC that could not vote its way out of a cardboard box. That is not the MEC that I saw in action. Under the new leadership of Captain Heppner, I saw an MEC that was professional, respectful, and focused on finding ways to get the JCBA done. I saw very little evidence of the tensions of the past as the MEC looks toward the future. One welcome change from the past was that Captain Heppner ran the meeting in such a way that kept it open and on the record for most of the time. This makes it much easier for us to disseminate information from the meeting to you, both in written form and on the line.

There are a few items that came out of the meeting that I would like to emphasize for you:

· Return of the furloughed pilots: 160 furloughed pilots have been recalled to CAL. To get these 160 pilots they went through 825 pilots on our list. 125 letters are currently being mailed to fill another 26 slots available at CAL.

· S-UAL plans on starting recall of pilots in September to match anticipated retirements.
· Management expects to change over to a single PSS on March 1. In spite of public assurances otherwise, this changeover is expected to be “problematic” at best and result in some cancellations. SA travel is not recommended.

· The MEC is conducting an independent outside review of management’s suspect“5%” profit sharing number. This number would result in LESS profit sharing for the pilots even though profits this year were higher. The MEC will report its findings back to you.

· The new FTDT regulations are NOT manpower negative for S-UAL pilots and will cause a drastic change in operations for some other airlines such as JetBlue.

Speaking of spreading the word, I know most of you do not frequent the UAL Pilots Forum. However, information and rumors told on the forum often spread around the line like wildfire. One message that was posted during the first day of the meeting accused the Master Chairman of saying that the contract would be“concessionary in various areas.“ I can say without hesitation that that is not the character or content of what Captain Heppner said. He did explain how our contract and Continental’s contract were very different and that negotiations to obtain a JCBA would result in changes to both contracts. However, he emphasized over and over that our JCBA would be anything but concessionary. Furthermore, even IF a concessionary contract were brought to the MEC (it won’t be), I don’t believe it would be passed on to the membership. Finally, even IF a substandard contract made it to membership ratification, you hold with you the power of your voice and your vote. If it is not the right contract then I expect you to vote NO. Another Forum poster claimed that certain resolutions were not passed because we didn’t want to offend the “oh-so-fragile CAL/Pierce sensibilities.” Again, nothing could be further from the truth. ALL of the resolutions were discussed, many in great detail, both in subcommittee and on the floor. No decision on some of the more contentious issues came easy, but in the end, the MEC did exactly what you elected us to do: Protect and further the interests of the L-UAL pilots.

On another subject I must commend the pilots of Council 34. I received an e-mail the other day for the ALPA Grassroots Coordinator concerning the participation rate in last year’s ALPA “Call to Action” alerts. The pilots of Council 34 had an overall participation rate of over 15%, which placed us 9th out of 91 US LECs. While I would always like to see the overall participation rate higher, our 15.4% participation rate reflects very well against the 5.9% national average. Well done Council 34 pilots!

Ladies and Gentlemen of Council 34, I don’t think it will come as a surprise to you when I say we are at a crossroads with United Continental Holdings. There will be a lot of news and information coming out in the coming weeks and months. Your LEC officers will do their very best to keep you informed, and I implore you to read what we publish. Staying informed is the best way you will be able to make a rational and informed decision on the matters before us. Jay Heppner cannot get you an industry-leading contract. The MEC or your LEC cannot get you an industry leading contract. You, the pilots of United, will be the ones to get us an industry-leading contract. Please report issues and problems you encounter though TVLLOGs, FSAPs, and MEC PDR reports, and, above all, be professional United pilots. We will get there. We are United.

Thank you, Dan, for this update to the pilots. I would also like to add more emphasis in a couple of areas.

Profit Sharing

As you can imagine, with the latest pay debacle, the MEC has almost zero confidence in management’s ability to deliver accurate profit sharing checks to the employees. To reinforce what Dan said above, rest assured we will use every means available to us to ensure an accurate payout. The Association will use ALPA’s E&FA, our financial advisors, Macquarie Capital, as well as our legal staff to ensure management is in compliance with our CBA.

Pass Travel

Many of you have contacted us about pass travel issues for your children between the ages of 18 and 26. In the past, UAL required that a child be only financially dependent and not necessarily a full-time student. The new "certification" screen on "Flying Together" makes us certify for pass travel that they're full-time students if over 18. Captain Pat Palazollo, UAL MEC Pass Travel, recently sent me the following:

CO interprets IRS regulations as requiring the child over a certain age to be financially dependent and a student. UA never only required them to be financially dependent. CO management is going to reexamine this. But for now this is what we're stuck with.

Expect more information on this in the months to come.

Conclusion

It has been a busy time for the UAL MEC. We are all refocused on attaining an industry-leading JCBA. Management seems to also have a renewed focus on “getting it done.” Time will tell. At the MEC Meeting, we were briefed on meetings held between UAL MEC Chairman Captain Jay Heppner and CAL MEC Chairman Captain Jay Pierce and HR senior managers Mike Bonds and Doug McKeen. We were informed that both Bonds and McKeen have promised that from now on a “decision maker” will be present at every negotiating session. This is important as it should enable “turns” of proposals from management to be accomplished in a more timely fashion.

With all the distractions provided to us by management, it is even more important than ever now to remain focused on your job. Don’t let management’s shortcomings distract you to the point of being unsafe. Remember, in all your dealings with other employees, please be professional, don’t raise your voice, and don’t use any profanity. Your leadership and your professionalism will eventually get us through this fiasco of a merger.

In Unity,