ualratt

April 14, 2012

Dear United Pilots:

Many of you have heard or used the term “release” while our Railway Labor Act (RLA) Section 6 negotiations have been in mediation for quite some time. I would like to explain this term and how it may factor into our future. Perhaps the most important item to understand is what release is not; it is not a release from the status quo or our obligations under the injunction. Neither the company nor employees are free to engage in self-help when first “released.”

While negotiating under the Railway Labor Act (RLA), either party may request to be released from mediated negotiations. If the National Mediation Board (NMB) agrees, it will proffer arbitration and if, after 10 days both parties do not agree, then an impasse would be declared and a 30-day “cooling off” period would begin.

The term “cooling off” is a misnomer; your union, the NMB and certainly management would all be extremely busy during this 30-day countdown. The parties should then be committed to negotiating the JCBA if they are truly serious about its completion – more so than hitherto. This would be the beginning of the end-game to bargain under the RLA. While the RLA was written to protect the flow of commerce, the risk of interruption of that flow is finally a legal point of leverage.

ALPA National, and by extension our MEC, has a vast array of tools at their disposal to assist local Councils and our pilots. Technology is helpful, but the determining factor in any release scenario is the dedication of the individual pilot and his/her desire for a successful outcome.

There is a generic strike handbook published by ALPA. I tasked our SPSC to work with our counterparts at CAL SPSC to create and publish a “Joint United and Continental Strike Preparedness Manual 2012.” This will be our reference manual for training and job assignments. It is very explicit, technical and accurate. It is ready.

I, the MEC, and its Officers will determine if and when we ask to be released. That is our responsibility and we don’t take it lightly. The decision will be influenced by the pace, participation and desire of the parties currently engaged in our negotiations to reach an agreement. If a release is called for, I ask you to stand firm with your brother and sister pilots and their families. It is no longer their family or your family – it is our family. The other airlines and their families in this industry are counting on us to succeed, to make this again a profession of which we can be proud. Together, we cannot fail. Our future depends on it; our children’s future depends on it.

It bears repeating that United has obtained a preliminary injunction against ALPA and the United pilots, barring the United pilots and ALPA from interfering with United’s operation prior to the end of the 30-day cooling-off period. Self-help prior to this time can lead to discipline and fines for contempt directed against individuals, fines directed against our union, interference with our ability to engage in self-help at the appropriate time and other negative restrictions on us that would otherwise not exist and that would seriously damage our bargaining leverage. We cannot let our frustrations provide management a tool that can only harm our interests and prevent us from exercising our legal rights under the RLA.

We value our customers and are proud of what we deliver. I know I speak for all pilots when I say that. As your leader I want you to know that the needs of our customers are also a top priority and no matter what transpires in the coming weeks, we owe it to our customers to provide them with information and clear guidance so that their travel plans are not disrupted.

Talk is cheap, but mergers are expensive. Problems need to be solved and sometimes the solutions cost money. That money should not come from the pockets of the pilots.

We are United,


Captain Jay Heppner
Chairman, United Master Executive Council

AxlF16

Hmmm.... I think it may be time to dust off our followership skills. Unfortunately I think a very vocal group of UAL pilots will do everything they can to dissect and discredit this communique. That would be bad form. I hope this is the beginning of the end game.

I'm quite surprised that this email hasn't generated massive forum activity. Probably lots of mouthpieces calling their handlers to see how to proceed

LeeMat

Nah, probably just shaking in their boots!
Last week we had the SPC chair put out a message on being financially ready for the fight and by reading many of the responses here and other forums, I don't believe it was taken seriously.

APC225

Dear United Pilots,

It is time for a reality check about what are increasingly becoming unfriendly skies for United Airlines pilots as it relates to our contract negotiations. Based on the facts discussed below, as it relates to the management of United’s strategy to slow walk the negotiations so they can continue to outsource and offshore pilot jobs, we now have no recourse but to take steps to formally execute a release from our Section 6 negotiations under the Railway Labor Act (RLA) on April 30 if United management does not commit to completing these negotiations by June 1. We have waited two years and made no progress – if executing a release is what is necessary to make sure U.S. commercial airlines jobs go to U.S. pilots and the safety of U.S. airline passengers is put first, we are ready.

It is now clear that United's management strategy is really just to fly in a holding pattern when it comes to these negotiations, seeking to fly in circles so that the longer we work without a contract, the more aggressive United can be about offshoring and outsourcing our jobs -- and not working to honor the commitment pilots made to the company dating back to 9/11.

The facts speak for themselves:

· Executive level decision makers at United refused to attend our negotiations at all in 2011, and only once since being held in the same city where these executives live and work.
· For nearly 24 months we have negotiated with little progress on the core issues related to the offshoring and outsourcing of our jobs.
· Throughout the entire negotiations, while saying one thing, United has continued to outsource to regional carriers and seek agreements to ultimately outsource all international flying at the expense of U.S. workers in America. Meanwhile United Airlines alone has 1,437 pilots who were laid off because of 9/11 and merger schemes, and they continue to be grounded.
· As the company moves forward post-merger, without contractual protections, it will continue to outsource domestic, and ultimately international, flying to the detriment of safety and U.S. jobs.
· And while the company talks about needing to be competitive it continues to compensate its executives at very non-competitive levels.

Simply put, enough is enough.

We are at a decisive moment in time when it comes to the offshoring and outsourcing of our jobs. This has implications for our ability to earn a fair wage for a fair day's work, the capacity for the United States to have a highly trained U.S-based commercial pilot work-force, and the safety of U.S. airline passengers.

As you are well aware, following 9/11, United pilots stood up and worked to help save the U.S. airline industry from going out of business, including substantial pay cuts, watching fellow pilots laid off and, subsequently, losing our pensions.

We agreed to economic sacrifices out of a belief that everyone needed to do their part and our trust in United's representations that once back on its feet, the company would honor our commitment by bringing back our pilots.

However, more than a decade after 9/11, United pilots are still laid off and the company, whose executives are compensated as well as any commercial airline executives in the marketplace, rather than hire U.S. pilots, has aggressively moved to increase its STAR Alliance partners, while securing Global Antitrust Immunity in the recent UAL/CAL Atlantic ++ Antitrust agreement approved in 2009. This agreement allows Open Skies in not only the Atlantic arena, but also in the South American and Pacific regions.

Offshoring of U.S. pilot jobs is an almost certain outcome without negotiated protections that we do not currently have in our contract that was stripped during Bankruptcy. A consequence of this action will be the compromising of safety for our passengers as both inexperienced and foreign pilots will be in our customer’s cockpits. The tragic incident in Buffalo is a prime example of the consequences of United management’s approach.

We have an obligation to our members and to the public safety to stand up and fight United’s outsourcing and offshoring - a strategy that is purely designed to put profits before safety.

United has close to 40 contracts with foreign carriers that it uses for international flights, which has eliminated thousands of U.S. jobs.

Further, the outsourcing to regional carriers has compromised the safety of travelers, as pilots with less training and experience than United flight crews are flying long hours for little pay, often into challenging airports and airspace. It should come as no surprise that a significant number of the incidents involving pilot errors, and virtually every airline crash in the U.S. for years now, have occurred with such outsourced pilots in the cockpit. The loss of life in the incidents in Buffalo and Louisville are but two such examples.

Against this backdrop, we have been working for some time to negotiate a fair deal with United that was seeking to address these issues of offshoring and outsourcing.

During the merger with Continental, the company pledged to Congress in oversight hearings that once the two companies merged, they would once and for all complete a fair deal with us.

Management has not made good on this pledge, which is merely the latest in a series of misrepresentations.

We made multiple concessions after 9/11 to support the company, including lay-offs.

Too many of our pilots have not been rehired, as United replaced them through outsourcing and offshoring.

We lost our pensions during the bankruptcy.

We listened to the company's representations before and during the merger.

We have seen them intentionally delay the negotiations so they can continue to outsource and offshore jobs.

And still the pilots at United and Continental Airlines are working under bankruptcy concession contracts.

Time and time again, United management has made clear that they will say one thing to us and then do another thing when it comes to actions vs. words.

Throughout all of this, there is one unmistakable, irrefutable, immutable lesson derived from the company's actions: United's strategy is to cut costs and compromise safety by offshoring and outsourcing our jobs. Their continued insistence of increased outsourcing in the new contract is testimony.

Attached to this email, please find a confidential analysis, THE UNFRIENDLY SKIES: UNITED AIRLINES AND THE OFFSHORING AND OUTSOURCING OF U.S. JOBS, which documents the company's outsourcing of American jobs since September 11, 2001.

This report reveals that if the company continues on its current course, United will eventually eliminate all of our jobs and replace us with less experienced and in many cases foreign workers. That is exactly why you received a letter from me Saturday explaining the rationale for why we might seek a "release" from our Section 6 negotiations under the RLA, which would allow us to pursue specific actions in relationship to management's refusal to negotiate in good faith.

I encourage you to read this report, as it shows how we worked with United in the wake of the 9/11 attacks – and in doing so helped save the airline from going out of business. In the years since 9/11, the airline has exploited the situation in many different ways, to include offshoring flights and outsourcing jobs. The result is compromised safety for passengers and loss of jobs for U.S. pilots – all the while United executives continue to pay themselves multi-million dollar compensation packages.

We Are United
Chairman, United MEC

Pilotbiffster

Time to man up, Jay Pierce, or just be a management lackey

UalHvy

[QUOTE=EWR73FO;1169141]This is great and all but when Jeff is so far isolated from the true operation and has hoards of yes men blowing perpetual smoke up his arse, telling him how great things are going, it won't matter what we print, stamp on a billboard, email to the pilot group, or run in the USA Today.



Jeff knows exactly what is going on. Jay Heppner talks to him on the phone almost every day. He just doesn't care. We need to make him care.

Captain Bligh

Wow, & I thought I lived in the past. Never climb out of the trench. This is exactly the situation the new inhabitants of the Willis Tower will be looking for. The perfect chance to set a few examples and lay down the law.

When you "realize the synergies" of vindictive management married with corrupt and PWNED EUNUCHS that we call our union, the pilot that thinks he is going to "set the record straight" with a crew tracker on a mission to deliver junior manning or drug test notification, is really a trail-blazer.

May I suggest we instead:

1) Demand integrity from the semi-professional political gamers that represent us, before putting your own head on the chopping block. If you're really a "47Dog", you might be a little long in the tooth to suffer becoming the first hostage. Hostages are never made whole even after the grievance. You'll never recover from the damage they will target you with. Your current powerless (hostage policy-void) office job wanna-be representatives, will do nothing to aid you in your struggle. Particularly if doing so would conflict with their own career goals.

2) Let the crew tracker bang on the door. Screw pleading your case, it's long since been lost. Find a better way and get even. You're smart enough. Make it benefit yourself. Make it cost far more than what ever you would have achieved with a sit-down shout-out in the CPO. Bethune proved that pilots can't change their managerial philosophy from the bottom up. This is how they want to play, let's beat them at their own game. If we don't, it's going to be a long summer.