May 17, 2014
Dear Fellow Pilots,
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"The United strike effort clearly established a blueprint for successful labor battles in the deregulated airline industry. The technological and organizational capabilities developed in the 1985 strike represented the leading edge in labor's ability to positively influence the balance of power between management and labor."
--Excerpt from "From Wooden Wings"
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Twenty-nine years ago today, the 5,000 pilots of legacy United Airlines waited anxiously to see if they would be called upon to take to the picket lines at midnight. Management’s onerous proposals for B-scale wages on the property and 95% support of a strike vote authorizing a withholding of services by the pilots had set the stage. The 29-day strike that followed was, as one junior member of the UAL-MEC at that time put it, a “seminal event that started us on the road to where we are today. It permanently changed the United culture.” It is this history that formed the . . . . ALPA pin.
With staggering losses in the first quarter of this year and continued delays in implementation of our UPA, United pilots again find ourselves with our collective futures in our hands. It is our resolve to influence our management team that will shape that future. The pilots of United Airlines will do all we can to see our airline return to a company that engenders employee pride and shareholder profitability. We will do our part and hold management’s feet to the fire when necessary to ensure the long term viability of our airline. As the new United charts a course forward, the pilots will remain the essential component. Management teams come and go, but we are here for the long term.
Today we remember and celebrate the time-honored victory over an oppressive management. We celebrate the fraternity of being members of a union that was and is greater than the sum of its parts. We celebrate our pilot group’s unity and renew our commitment to each other, all 11,838 of us, to carry that spirit of unity forward.
Fraternally and in Unity,
Captain Jay Heppner
Chairman, United Master Executive Council
Attachment: From Wooden Wings