However, four-hundred and thirty-five pilots and their families on furlough struggling to make ends meet and over two-thousand pilots retiring over the next ten years don’t have that luxury. So, I’m truly sorry if I have insulted or hurt anyone’s feelings by sharing my frustrations with you. All of the individuals I mentioned in this letter are very dedicated and talented union volunteers or employees of ALPA. We have to approach this contract and how we operate this union as a business and not let personal feelings or agendas interfere.
I worked very hard to help bring ALPA back to Continental. Every time I go to work I wear – with pride - my ALPA pin and ALPA watch given to me by ALPA President Duane Woerth. I don’t think we’re using the ALPA tool box to its full potential, and I don’t believe our MEC is doing everything it can to secure the best contract possible. That is why I feel obligated to speak out. I want you also to know that I plan on publishing this letter publicly so our membership can also understand my serious concerns.
In closing, I would like to remind our MEC of the following: It’s approaching three years now since four-hundred and thirty-five of our pilots and their families have been on furlough, flow-back, or some form of leave of absence. Many of them are extremely frustrated and feel they have been forgotten by our union and our active membership. I am amazed to hear that some of our pilots don’t realize or care that we still have pilots on furlough.
Please do everything you can to reach out to these brothers and sisters. We need to continue to do everything legally available to educate the remaining pilots about the effect of bidding all vacation and what effect the picking up of open-time has on the staffing needs of our airline.
Again I urge you to please take the time to listen to P2P conference call on the CALALPA web site. You will hear first hand many of the points I expressed in this letter.
Fraternally,
Jayson Baron
cc: Negotiating Committee