Trumka's letter:
https://crewroom.alpa.org/ual/Deskto...cumentID=48746

Moak's letter:
https://crewroom.alpa.org/ual/Deskto...cumentID=48744

June 14, 2012
Ms. Linda Puchala, Chair National Mediation Board 1301 K Street, NW Washington, DC 20005-7011
Re: NMB Case Numbers A-13589 and A-135890 United Airlines and Air Line Pilots Association, Int’l

Dear Ms. Puchala:

I wrote on May 11, 2012, on behalf of the 12,000 pilots at United Airlines, to request that the National Mediation Board release the parties from mediation and proffer arbitration to resolve our long-running negotiations in accordance with the Railway Labor Act, 45 U.S.C. Section 155, First. Further explanation and support for that request was provided in my follow up letter dated May 30, 2012.
Throughout this period the NMB has undertaken extensive mediation efforts for which the Association and its members at United are very appreciative. With the Board’s assistance the parties have significantly reduced the number of open issues. The open issues are now, in essence, limited to compensation, benefits, and scope. Each of the open issues has been carefully discussed and both sides fully understand the other party’s position.

Both MEC Chairmen have been briefing me regularly on the progress of negotiations and firmly believe that a proffer is necessary to bring this negotiation to conclusion. While significant progress has taken place, a real and consequential deadline is now necessary to compel the parties to make the final decisions required to reach an agreement. A proffer of arbitration will add to, rather than reduce, the momentum that has been created and is necessary to complete this negotiation. Clearly, the 30- day cooling off period that will result from an affirmative response to our request is sufficient time to complete all open issues and reach a full agreement.

Throughout the last two weeks the Association’s bargaining team has made comprehensive proposals in an effort to narrow the differences and reach an agreement. It will keep making every effort to reach a new single agreement to replace the United and Continental contracts that resulted from bankruptcy and restructuring.

But it is long past the time that these concessionary negotiations should have been completed. United pilots deserve to be working under a new single agreement that recognizes their Company’s success and acknowledges the sacrifices they made during their Company’s critical periods -- and those that they continue to make each and every day by working under the terms of their old concessionary agreements. These negotiations have gone on too long and further prolonging bargaining significantly prejudices the interest of the United pilots and may well undermine the possibility of reaching a new single agreement.

Mediation has arrived at the stage that the Railway Labor Act contemplated for a proffer of arbitration. It’s now time for the Board to exercise the discretion provided under the RLA by setting a real deadline to achieve a full agreement.
The Air Line Pilots Association looks forward to the NMB’s favorable consideration of our request, and commits to continued hard work and good faith negotiations to enable the parties to reach a joint collective bargaining agreement. Thank you.

Sincerely,
Capt. Donald L. Moak, President

"If one is involved in negotiations with a party that does not share the same tenets of good faith and honesty, those negotiations will ultimately fail. Today, our Negotiating Committee will travel to New York to engage a highly compensated management team in the hopes of achieving an industry-leading contract, which should work to the benefit of our company and our pilots. It is with deep regret that I share the sentiment that I am not optimistic about this week’s negotiations with Team Smisek. There is an inherent value to compensating and empowering frontline employees that Jeff Smisek has failed to consider to date.

"We have all listened to the Company’s lies and innuendo for the past two years. At sCAL, we have been inundated with visits from Flight Ops management representatives who claimed that the Company was offering “Delta plus a dollar”—a lie. We heard that we were a billion dollars apart on a $1.3 billion contract—another lie. We’ve heard Team Smisek indicate that we need a contract that is “fair” to the company, while Smisek deemed it “fair” to triple his own pay. These are the basics, folks; no need for any Freudian analysis of management’s behavior here.

"I do not wish to convey a sense of defeatism in my update to you. In contrast, I wish to convey my optimism that the 12,505 of us can achieve a true sense of dignity and respect that is vital to the soon-to-be returned viability of our company. Representing the IAH pilots has been, and continues to be, the greatest opportunity of my professional career—an opportunity that I take very seriously. In my honest opinion, we should have achieved a CBA during the negotiations that occurred June 4–15. We didn’t achieve this goal for the basic reason that the Company did not desire to do so. Make no bones about it, lCAL management resides in the house that Frank (Lorenzo) built, not the one that Bethune and Brenneman temporarily renovated. Every pilot who has the stomach to do so should pull the Ops frequency up on speaker during the preflight if they wish to witness the basic failure of Team Smisek and the detriment associated with flawed management from those who do not understand the basic tenets of leadership.

"Once again, when embracing the core tenets of leadership, the answer is very easy to discern. If you happen to be a CEO or union representative, you must wake and decide, every morning, whether you are willing to put your team’s needs above your own. From this rep’s vantage, I do believe that every sCAL and sUAL MEC rep understands this. I have stood shoulder to shoulder with my fellow reps from the sCAL and sUAL MECs and have been impressed with the dedication that they exude. I do not believe that an equitable contract is achievable for our pilots, barring release to self-help. Historically, the incestuous relationship between our (lCAL, ALPA) union leaders and management has been the thorn in the side of sCAL pilots. The Company has grown accustomed to said relationship, as has our union. Release is the only way to achieve a ratifiable contract. Be advised that if Captain Heppner had not realized this fact and acted upon it, release would not be a matter of discussion at the present time.

"Captain Hunter and I remain focused on an industry-leading contract for all 12,505 United pilots. We have not seen anything produced in these negotiations worthy of ratification. Be advised that we are ready for battle and will not concede to any contract that will not place us at the top of the food chain. The Houston pilots love our spouses and children just as much as Delta and Southwest pilots do; the Company’s current offer is lacking. If they are not willing to present a reasonable contract, Houston will reject said offer on behalf of 12,505 United pilots and look to provide an additional remedy.

LEC 171 Vice Chairman"

Overall I like the letter, but this made me scratch my head about the meaning.

"We have not seen anything produced in these negotiations worthy of ratification."

I heard from my reps and the two "blast mails" that only the Compensation, Outsourcing and R & I" were still open. Admittedly these are big but the above statement implies the rest of the AIPs are also not acceptable, otherwise we have wasted all these years and are back at square one.

Tell me this is not what they mean, because if it is UAL Management has won the battle to split the pilots.

That line struck me as odd as well. I hope it was just a poor choice of words.

There is one item for today.

Item One: The Strike Vote

What is perhaps most ridiculous about management's refusal to negotiate in good faith for such an extended period of time for a JCBA, is the fact that the rationale for the terrible concessions we gave so many years ago, that is, the precipitous drop in revenue after 9/11, is long past. In fact, revenue at United not only recovered, it has grown by leaps and bounds since the year 2000, by any measure.

Specifically, according to the MIT Airline Data Project, United Total Revenue per Equivalent Seat Mile (TRESM) stood at 11.26 cents in 2000. By 2011, United revenue had skyrocketed to 15.43 cents per equivalent seat mile, an increase of 37 %. Total annual revenue has also drastically increased, from a combined $28.46 billion for Continental and United in 2000, to $37.33 billion in 2011, an increase of 31.2 %. As most of you undoubtedly know, the company also has tremendous reserves of cash.

We all know how the pilots fared between 2000 and 2011: we were completely gutted. Our combined pilot group has lost approximately $10 billion due to concessions. Despite the massively increased revenue of our airline, and its massive cash reserves, management has refused to provide us with a fair contract, for over two years past the merger announcement date. Every single month without a JCBA, our combined pilot group provides more than $100 million in additional concessions. Every single day without a JCBA, our pilot group provides more than $3.3 million in additional concessions. HAVE YOU HAD ENOUGH YET?

How would you like to make a much smaller investment of your time, a matter of just minutes, that will pay you not tens, but potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars over the life of our next contract? The task? It is as simple as logging into the ALPA website, clicking the button to VOTE, and voting IN FAVOR of providing strike authorization. The detailed instructions are provided below.

Please ask as many of your fellow pilots as possible, to do the same. Voting IN FAVOR of providing strike authorization gives our negotiating committee needed leverage to finally complete the contract that we all deserve, which is so ridiculously overdue.

When an overwhelming majority of our pilots vote IN FAVOR of providing strike authorization, we will send some loud and clear messages to management, the board of directors, the major shareholders, the traveling public, the National Mediation Board, Congress, and the White House:

Our pilots STAND UNITED.
Our pilots are fed up with our terrible concessionary contracts.
Our pilots are fed up with management's failure to negotiate in good faith.
Our pilots are not going to stand for this ANY LONGER.

Fraternally,

Chairman
Vice Chairman
Secretary-Treasurer

Air Line Pilots Association, International
Air Line Pilots Association, International

Here is a quick and dirty of what I am hearing.


1) The company is not willing to move on anything in the negotiations.

2) The company is now arrogantly dismissing the negotiations and the NMB.

3) The chance of having a tentative agreement on a JCBA on Friday is slim to
none.

4) We either need the RELEASE or a definite rejection of release by the NMB.

June 25, 2012
VIA ELECTRONIC MAIL

Captain Jay Heppner
UAL MEC Chairman
United Pilots Master Executive Council
9550 West Higgins Road Suite 1000
Rosemont, IL 60018

Re: Violation of Status Quo Obligations and Preliminary Injunction Order

Dear Captain Heppner:

As you know from the Company’s nearly daily communications with the United MEC's counsel Bob Nichols as well as System Scheduling Committee Chair Jeff Nooger, we have seen significantly high levels of sick usage among certain groups of subsidiary United’s pilots, primarily in the 777 fleet. This letter serves to confirm an even more significant recent increase in sick usage by 777 pilots and now the 757/767 fleets that began this weekend. As our Flight Operations leadership discussed with ALPA MEC leadership this past weekend, the involvement of the Company operation in management/union disagreements is completely and unequivocally unacceptable and this letter formally notifies you that we also believe this conduct is a violation of the RLA and Injunction.

These previously unseen levels of sick leave coincide with a relentless public relations campaign by the United ALPA MEC which includes communications creating artificial deadlines, first for June 15th, and now for the end of this week, for completion of JCBA negotiations. These communications also include an unfounded declaration that a release from the National Mediation Board leading to a right to strike will occur absent agreement by that date. In addition to this overt campaign, the Company is aware of nonstop online discussions among United’s pilots, which include United MEC leadership, regarding the tactical use of sick leave calls and junior manning refusals to interfere with the operation in protest of a lack of a JCBA. ALPA has failed to take necessary steps to stop these conversations since they began months ago. The Company's crew desk is also seeing pilots who are refusing to answer crew desk calls for junior manning requests, or when answering stating they cannot pick up the additional flying due to "the lack of a contract."

While you stated in your June 9, 2012 letter to the Company that you are well aware of your status quo obligations under the Railway Labor Act (“RLA”) and the November 18, 2008 injunction issued by the US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois (the “Injunction”), ALPA and the United MEC are now in violation of both. Issuing communications reiterating an artificial deadline of mid-June as you did in your June 9th letter not only fails to satisfy your required obligation to take all reasonable steps within your power to prevent any interference with United’s operations, but is evidence of your disregard for that obligation. This is confirmed by the continued high levels of sick usage since your July 9th response, as well as the further spike in sick leave and refusal of pilots to accept junior manning on a concerted basis over the weekend. Your letter to the pilots regarding the status of negotiations on the date of your artificial deadline, June 15th, was equally irresponsible and an additional disregard of your legal obligations.

This concerted action of subsidiary United pilots is now interfering with United’s operation, and causing harm and disruption to United, its employees and the traveling public. We have had at least one international flight cancel entirely this weekend due to pilot sick calls, despite the actions we are taking to cover all of the open flying that has unexpectedly occurred due to the sick leave use and junior manning refusals. We have attempted to reduce this disruptive behavior by sending an enote immediately upon seeing increases this weekend to all United pilots. But we cannot manage this situation on an ongoing basis with these measures alone. The situation and your legal obligations demand that you, the United MEC, and ALPA International immediately and in good faith cease from issuing communications imposing an artificial deadline for completion of negotiations and inciting pilots to engage in activity that violates the Injunction and the RLA. We demand that you, the United MEC and ALPA International immediately take all reasonable steps to ensure that all subsidiary United pilots return to normal pilot behavior and operations in compliance with the RLA and the Injunction, including but not limited to, immediately issuing communications to significantly reduce the dramatic increase in sick usage among pilots on the 777 and 757/767 fleets and the concerted refusal to accept junior manning.

As the Company emphasized in its June 8th letter, the Company desires to spend its time focused on negotiations for a JCBA, and not in court. Please do not underestimate, however, our willingness to protect the operation, our reputation, our customers and our co-workers and enforce the Company's rights under the RLA and Injunction during this busy summer season. We need immediate and unequivocal action by the Association to ensure this self-help abates and the operation returns to normal stability so we are not forced to pursue this option which is in no one's long term best interest.

Accordingly, please immediately upon receipt of this letter advise either me or Fred Abbott, Senior Vice-President of Flight Operations of the steps that ALPA and the United MEC intend to take in order to prevent further operational disruptions.

Sincerely,
Brett J. Hart
Executive Vice President, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary

cc:
Bob Nichols, Esq.
Arthur Luby, Esq.
Michael Abram, Esq.
Mike Bonds
Doug McKeen
Fred Abbott
Howard Attarian
Jennifer Coyne, Esq.

Whaaaaaa Whaaaaaaa, I can't get my way.... I think I will go tell mommy, aka big gov court!

Hopefully, court says get back and take your medicine... RLA should be abolished! Out of date law!

I got fatigued just reading that.