Alaskan

OK, here ya go: Re JB's "painstaking review" of the evidence: When asked, point blank, by an ALPA attorney at a termination hearing, why the pilot was actually being terminated, JB was unable to answer. He had a 13-page termination letter in front of him but had no idea what the actual charges were. He turned to a Labor Relations lawyer for help. That attorney said "it's all in the letter." When pressed by ALPA to cite the actual page and paragraph, the attorney (RT) spluttered and stumbled. In desperation he referred to page 12, but then couldn't find the accusation he hoped was there. Finally he came up with a charge (fraud) that wasn't actually mentioned in the letter.

By the way, JB can't have reviewed "all the evidence," because, as some of you know, pilots going through the internal disciplinary process can't introduce their own evidence or even challenge agency testimony and cross examine witnesses. They are allowed to answer questions posed by the company – that’s it. And company lawyers are devious enough to avoid questions that could involve unfavorable answers. They completely control the battlefield. This internal forum doesn't come anywhere close to meeting the standards of procedural due process under US law. JB probably doesn't know any better because Labor Relations can function better when it keeps guys like him in the dark, but the accused pilots, and ALPA attorneys, do.

And claiming that because lots of pilots and other company employees are married, this proves the company doesn’t discriminate based on marital status? ***??? Is this like an antebellum cotton plantation owner saying he doesn't discriminate against African Americans because he "employs" lots of them? The fact is, married pilots in the FDA locations have to work under different conditions than single pilots do. Although their marital status has no bearing on the performance of their primary duties as pilots, they can only have the HA if they can somehow control every move made by another adult and prove to the company’s satisfaction that they and their spouses meet the double secret criteria the company refuses to divulge. In 20 states, that's prima facie marital status discrimination.

JB is either in the dark himself, having delegated all responsibility for this (apart from his role as the company’s mouthpiece) to others, or he is lying. Your choice. Either alternative indicates a leadership failure. He can expect a call from a state human rights commission in the near future. He’ll have some ‘splanin to do, and he won’t have the company’s PR experts feeding him copy.

Wild Bill

We can all take away the following facts from the letter:

-Company did not act optimally in every circumstance leading up to the disciplinary actions that needed to be taken.

-There are still huge holes in the FDA/contract.

-We learned that manpower and money are being used to compile files on each of us from this site, facebook, Linkedln, google, LexisNexis or any open source. (I didn't even know LexisNexis existed as a pay gateway for access to open source information internet or otherwise.)

-People filled out the culture surveys that circumvented the union.

-There are facts, but the term "most questionable facts" questions integrity versus what happened. (I'd like to know some of the least questionable facts.)

It's interesting that this is being tried in the court of public opinion with limited facts. Most of us aren't lawyers and none of us are jurors here, but I guess we'll all watch this closely. It looks like a battle is unfolding with inevitable causalities on all sides.

Alaskan

Yeah, he's completely disappeared, all posts deleted and no longer listed in the APC members list.

Unknown Rider

Ok, you seem to have some inside info on the appeals themselves. But you didn't dispute the actual action of the pilots that JB outlined in his post. Actions such as spouses and families actually living in another local other than HKG and spending almost no time in HKG. Don't get me wrong, I realize there may more info out there other than what we've been told so far, I'm just surprised nobody is disputing those actions purported by the pilots. They seem pretty incriminating. You can argue the LOA all you want, but if JB is to be believed, those pilots didn't come close to relocating there families. Again, there may be more info out there, I'd just like to hear it.

Wild Bill

Although an immediate rebuttal would be interesting in the court of public opinion it looks like this is going to play out in the long term in many real courts.

Unknown Rider

Sure it will, but this has been playing out here for a while, and a lot of non-specific allegations have been made on both sides. And now with some specific allegations being made by JB, is no one going to refute them? If these allegations are close to being true, I'm not surprised things have gotten to the place they are now.

Alaskan

And what, pray tell, does a pilot need to do to relocate her or his family? What constitutes relocation? I guess it's not defined by the US government's criteria because the pilots met those standards, and Hong Kong won't consider you a resident until you've lived there for at least seven years. Fred must have his own (unpublished) sovereign rules.

Contracts that require one of the parties (= the pilot if you aren't quite following me here) to do something "impossible" -- i.e meet a performance standard subject to a circumstance or condition beyond that party's control -- are void. Maybe in your world, you completely control your (female?) spouse. That's not they way it works in most American marriages these days, thank goodness.

By the way, the pilots WERE NOT fired for failing to relocate their spouses. (Spouse and kids = chattel, e.g. FedEx package, to be relocated at the sole will of the employee.) They were fired because the company asserts they lied, fraudulently accepting the HA. Which means the company will have the burden of proof in establishing this "fact" in arbitration.

Nightflyer

Alaskan,

OK, you're a lawyer, good on ya'.

But good lawyers know when they have no case.

Please explain how Pilot 4 did nothing wrong, assuming the company's assertions are correct.

Paraphrasing the company, the FDX pilot said she would move her family to HK and took the allowance. The husband of the FDX pilot lived in ANC instead, and swore to that on his job application to FDX, as well as taking the tax rebate from the state of AK, you know, the one that requires you to live in AK? I am sure you are familiar with it.

So, either the FDX pilot lied when she said her spouse lived in HK, or the FDX pilot's spouse lied when he said he lived in ANC. Which one is it? Since he took money from the state of AK, he'd better stick with living in ANC if he wants to avoid tax fraud. So that means she lied when she said he lived in HK. Bottom line, you can't "live" in two places at once.

So, how much is my union going to spend to defend this pilot?

You keep running back to "you can't force a spouse to live somewhere he does not want to live". Guess what, she said he was living in HK. She, if the company is to be believed, lied to the company. Last time I checked, that was grounds for firing. Case closed.

Now, if you have another side of the story, or anyone on this board can say the company didn't tell the whole story in its recent communication, I am all ears.

Oh, I know, you want everything secret until you get to trial. But if you really have the inside scoop, I'd love to hear it. Feel free to PM if you want.

The company has chosen to play this out in public. Perhaps it is time the union did as well. If they have a good case, let's hear it.

If these folks did what the company said they did, don't put me on the jury, because it looks like we are going to spend a lot of money on an arbitration that we are going to lose (again).

skypine27

Honesty dudes, there is no point in discussing any further here.

I'm 100% behind the pilots.

This is going play out in real courts in front of real, non-pilot, juries.

Let it be settled there and not argued about here. It's simply a waste of time discussing it on APC.

Nightflyer

There are always the 1% in any group who make it hard on the rest of us.

If these 4 are part of the 1%, and they really did what the company says they did, i.e., they lied to the company in the attempt to gain compensation they were not entitled to, how can you support them 100%?