Arado 234

A Cultural Problem at APA?

By now all of us at American Airlines can easily identify a cultural problem in our work place. It began many years ago with a CEO that identified us as merely “cost units” and then acted to bring down the cost of those “units”, no matter if it resulted in a toxic workplace environment and an unmotivated workforce.

After the bankruptcy this cultural rot morphed into a company that makes agreements at the bargaining table it never intends to keep, and strips benefits from its most disadvantaged employees, some of whom have become disabled during dedicated service to the company and are now out of work, out of money and out of options.

Any company that actively works to abrogate both the letter and the spirit of its employees’ contracts by intentionally delaying complete contractual implementation for years despite billions in profits by claiming there is a lack of software developers or that there was yet another misunderstanding at the bargaining table has a cultural problem endemic in its DNA.

A company that constantly seeks to FORCE its employees to go to work on days off, holidays and weekends instead of rewarding employees that WANT to work on those days, albeit for a premium over their base pay, not only has a core cultural problem but is operating with an antiquated industrial-revolution era human resource strategy, It is either too stupid to realize there is a better more efficient way of scheduling its employees by encouraging them to work these undesirable shifts or too stubborn and obtuse to try a different way of doing business.

In our case this practice results in an abundance of reserves doing practically nothing midweek but never idle on the weekends and holidays. Despite this anachronistic scheduling practice, the company still finds itself short-manned on the holidays and weekends and must resort to exotic and extra-contractual means to force its line-holding employees to man the schedule against their will and despite their wishes. Has the company ever allowed an employee to bypass recovery obligation as defined in the contract and specifically delineated as “shall not be unreasonably withheld”? While all of this is probably legal, that doesn’t make it right.

There is a saying that a “a company gets the union it deserves”, and there can be no better evidence of the wisdom in this saying than the contentious relationship between AA and APA. However, our contentious relationship with our employer has unfortunately not resulted in unifying us at APA, but rather, in dividing us. Witnessing the result of the company’s rotten cultural core has not made us better, stronger or more unified. It has not given us the resolve we need to keep our house in order. Rather, we seem to be increasingly fractured and divided.

The mass defections from our committee volunteers at APA is the most recent sign that all is not well with the workplace culture of our union and that the environment is so bad at APA that our own volunteers no longer desire to contribute their time or talent to the organization. When our union President goes over the Training Committee Chairman’s head to fire a committee member for making a C&R post critical of the President’s unprecedented actions in withholding a pending resolution from being posted, a resolution that is critical of the President’s spending habits, all is not well.

When committee chairmen who dared have differences of opinion with our President are shown the exit or made so increasingly uncomfortable in their workplace environment that they see no choice but to resign, such as our former Chairman of Contract Compliance and 13 others, or the fact that our Aeromedical Chairman now walks the halls of APA office-less due to his prior disagreements with the President, there is a problem. How many more volunteers or employees are there that have not succumbed to the President’s efforts to stack the house with cronies and are now ready to leave? Who will replace them?

When a President utilizes tens of thousands of dollars of his members dues money to pursue courses of action that weren’t deliberated on or approved by the board or aren’t part of a cohesive strategy or coherent plan such as his $63,000.00 contributions to the Irish Airline Pilots for newspaper ads or multiple unprecedented charitable contributions that weren’t run by the board (and although not required, really SHOULD have been run by the board or at least been a part of some cohesive charitable strategy), there is a problem in the building. When a President goes over the heads of his committee chairman without notice to utilize their budget money for his own personal agenda, there is a problem.

When our President changes the course of action directed by the board of directors and approved after long budget deliberations and contentious closed-door debate without requesting the approval of the board or generating a consensus as to why a change is necessary, we have a problem in the building.

Witness the President’s decision to stand-down all Family Awareness Committee activities and then raid the budget of that chairman without prior notice or justification for his actions. Some of the money was given to the Avianca pilots during their strike, a noble gesture, but once again, unapproved and not what the money was intended for. After protest from the board he finally reinstated several of those activities, including the concourse meetings, where he handed out cards with an agenda the board had not reviewed nor was part of a cohesive well-defined strategy that was deliberated on and approved by the organization. Yet another indication we have a problem in the building.

When a President asks for board approval of an FRMS document that formally allows the Section 21 discipline process to enter into our fatigue agreements, substitutes formal Pro-Standards involvement for Pro-Standards “trained” personnel thus putting our pilots who utilize fatigue one step closer to formal discipline, and denies our members specific protections delineated in Section 15K of the contract and justifies his actions by stating “they are already doing it”, thus attempting to codify the company’s non-compliance instead of forcing the company’s compliance with our contract and our agreements, we have a problem with the leadership at our union.

When a President, flanked by his personal $600,000.00+ per year lawyer whose sole reason for existence seems to be to justify the President’s actions, “sells back” dozens and dozens of member grievances protesting scheduling violations of the contract and then agrees to “hold in abeyance” fourteen important Presidential grievances representing possibly hundreds of additional violations of these same scheduling practices which safeguard our members’ quality of life instead of holding the line, insisting on the arbitration of these grievances, and thus fortifying the grievance process, (one of the only ways we have left under the RLA of enforcing our contract), we have a problem. Even if only a few of these grievances succeeded, we would have improved the quality of scheduling life of our members and set a precedent that dissuades the company from violating our contract in the future.

The problem with most of these actions is that although they are not right, by our constitution and bylaws, they are allowed. Section VII A. states the “While the President’s actions are subject to review by the board of directors, the President’s actions shall be presumed valid unless the Board of Directors elects to review and disapprove a particular action taken by the President.” This sets up a cumbersome process whereby any actions of the President that are questionable must be “disapproved” by the Board of Directors instead of “approved”. The C&B and policy manual cannot dictate every allowable action by the President, and with $600,000.00+ worth of legal muscle to justify the President’s every move and a multi-million-dollar PR firm at his disposal to “spin” his actions, APA’s President is given unprecedented latitude.

With Section VI looming over the horizon and our future pay and benefits agreement up for negotiations by this same union that seems so inept and rudderless at this critical point in time, action is required to impel APA to get its house in order. It is never too late. We must insist that the President use leadership skills instead of force and cronyism to direct APA. We must insist on strict adherence to our financial safeguards. We must insist on strict adherence to our governing documents by our President and bring to light any evidence of violations of the spirit and intent of these safeguards in the hopes that the questionable behavior will stop.

I fully expect the President to retaliate for this Blast and put the full weight of his PR machine behind discrediting me and this message instead of working to unify our union and direct and focus its actions towards company compliance with our current contract, obtaining a better contract in 2019 and ensuring a better quality of life for all of our members, not only the ones who have triple digit seniority numbers. I would ask that every member of this union also demand accountability from each of its elected representatives.

President Carey is scheduled to attend the Miami domicile meeting this Wednesday at Dave and Buster’s in Hollywood, Florida. Please plan on attending and ask the President face-to-face if we can expect a change in culture at APA or if instead of strengthening our union his ultimate plan is to set it adrift and convert it to ALPA in the hopes of securing the Presidency of that organization.

Sincerely,

Ed Sicher

MIA Vice

Al Czervik

Could not agree more. Tides are changing. I hate to say it but the younger/newer pilots here aren’t going to put up with this anymore. The DFW election was the bow shot to APA. We are paying attention.

Arado 234

Rumor has it that Ed is ready to throw the towel. We need more guys like him.

Sliceback

Al - the DFW election removed a guy who was perhaps the biggest opponent to the president’s actions and replaced him with a guy who had the president as his biggest supporter and who’s defended the president’s actions.

The younger pilots, perhaps unwittingly, strengthened the president’s position.

It looks like the PR spin might have worked.

Sliceback

The BOD majority supports the president’s actions. They havn't reined him in. We went through this in 2008-2011(+/-). But back then the BOD fought back.

As a BOD rep, perhaps minority member, said in open early this month “now the members are seeing what we’ve been dealing with for the last year.”

EMBFlyer

Yeah, that's it. No chance it was because that the former chairman only cared about senior pilots and believed that junior pilots should just shut up and color and that their issues didn't matter. No chance at all that was the reason.

Al Czervik

We’re gonna throw all of them out Slice. All you have to do is watch.

FLPS30GRDWN

Perhaps it was wittingly done.

Sliceback

You won’t catch me crying. We cleaned house starting in 1988(?) and took control in 1991(?). This time is worse. But the transfer of ginttil will happen regardless due to retirements. Will the new hires actually start punching before retirements hand them control? Or will they identify effective leaders and advance them before retirements hands them control on a platter? The battles back in the late 1980’s were epic. You’d have about 1/3 of the base (50% of the guys off) at some domicile meetings. The chairman and VC would be in opposing camps.

I think the PHL (?) election has four FO’s listed. I’d vote for anyone who has no APA service and who isn’t endorsed/supported by the current reps. We might end up with some bums but over time the ship will right itself.

Sliceback

I doubt that. The overwhelming majority of guys I know have no clue what’s going on inside APA. The DCA chairman and MIA VC have, finally, presented the issues to their bases.