Response to Kravit
01-08-2012, 08:12 AM
#1
Line Holder
Thread Starter
Joined APC: Apr 2007
Posts: 30
Response to Kravit
From another forum...
It is a long honored right of passage in America for little boys to jump in the mud every chance they get. They can’t pass a mud puddle without stomping in it, playing in it, and perhaps even throwing mud on others. However, with the passage of time, boys are supposed to grow into responsible men, and the urge to continually play and wallow in the mud passes as we become more responsible and mature. Alas, sadly, a few, thankfully a very few, never grow up. They remain petulant, spoiled children trapped in the bodies of men. While small boys playing in the mud can be amusing, petulant, spoiled boys masquerading as men playing and wallowing in the mud, soiling themselves as they attempt to soil others, is significantly more annoying, and in the end, sad. The mud that they sling on themselves and others is almost always more indicative of their own lack of character, ethics and integrity, than an indication of ethics and integrity of those they so tirelessly try to belittle and soil.
It is with that thought that I’m so very disappointed to have to reply to the baseless and disgraceful allegations and deliberate smear campaign of one of my former colleagues. One of the truths of life is that allegations that remain unanswered eventually become thought of as truths. Therefore, these baseless allegations, as despicable and out of line as they are, must be answered.
I learned many things growing up with a father who taught me so much about integrity, respect and ethics. I learned that you must always lead your life with the highest levels of integrity, for even one slip will be remembered long after a lifetime of living and acting with integrity is forgotten. Ethically, you treat others as you would like others to treat you. I was raised to respect the opinion of others, even though I may disagree with their opinions or positions. There’s no reason that people of intelligence can’t disagree respectfully. I was taught that leadership is a sacred responsibility, to be sought when possible, and to always be carried out with integrity, ethics and respect. One of the most difficult aspects of leadership is telling those you lead things that you know are right and just, yet that you also know will still be received negatively. It is a fool or coward who assumes a leadership role, only to fail their constituency by telling them what they want to hear, rather than what can at times be the cold, hard truth.
This all brings me to the unfortunate reason for writing this. Lately, the former United MEC Vice Chairman has taken to a massive, intentional email campaign, directed ostensibly at the legacy United pilots. I say ostensibly, because make absolutely NO mistake about it, these emails and forum posts are actually aimed directly at the legacy Continental pilots. In short, former UAL MEC Vice Chairman, Captain Garry Kravit, has undertaken an effort to exert his influence over the CAL pilots, to influence who leads you, and to destroy your faith and trust in your MEC leadership, specifically in your MEC Chairman, Captain Jay Pierce.
First, let’s look at an overview of this amazingly brash and despicable campaign. Stop and think of the arrogance, lack of foresight and sheer stupidity it takes to try to influence the leadership of a unionized group to which you do not currently belong. Imagine how you would feel, as an American, if the President of a foreign country were to launch a massive campaign aimed at the citizens of our country, attempting to destroy the confidence of our people in our leadership. Whether you support our President or not, you would almost certainly be offended at the sheer audacity of an outsider meddling in our business and you would likely show significantly more contempt toward the unwelcome meddler than to the target, your democratically elected leadership. As a United pilot, Captain Kravit has his own leadership team to represent him, one assembled and voted for by the pilots of legacy United airlines, who they are elected to represent. Captain Kravit had his chance to lead, and at the time of his attempted re-election, the pilots at legacy United decided to remove him and replace him with someone else. Honestly, I have little interest in why, as it’s none of my business.
Captain Kravit howls with self serving indignation about how our MEC Chairman supposedly abandoned the joint T&PA extension negotiations, conveniently forgetting that it was the company that walked away, not us. Where were Captain Kravit’s self serving calls for a one for all, all for one sense of fair play when the UAL pilots were getting profit sharing and we weren’t? Where was his opposition to that? I didn’t see him offer to give up UAL’s profit sharing to “match” ours. I didn’t hear one word from him in protest of that lack of equality between the two groups. It’s only when Kravit doesn’t get his way that he stamps his feet, screams and tries to harm those who he perceives as standing in the way of getting what he wants, regardless of if they actually did so or not.
As Continental pilots, you owe it to yourself to look not only at whether or not what Kravit says it true, and it most certainly is not ,you must also ask yourself why is he launching this all out attack, aimed at discrediting the CAL MEC Chairman, and targeting the message to the CAL pilots? What does he have to gain, and perhaps more to the point, what does he have to fear? I believe that after a few moments of thought, those answers will become plainly self evident to all of you.
We have too much to accomplish in the coming months to allow noise and the unwelcome intrusion of outsiders with much to gain by deliberately causing chaos within our ranks to throw us off track. I would expect disgraceful tactics like this from the company, not from someone who calls himself a Unionist. How dare he try to discredit and overthrow the democratically elected leadership of our Union. Again, the question to be asked is why is he doing this? Is it because he fears a strong leadership of our Union, one that he can’t bully so that he gets his way in the tasks to come down the road?
Your officers respect and work as best we can with whomever our brothers and sisters at UAL elect to lead them. Clearly that courtesy is not reciprocated by Kravit. His theory seems to be that if you can’t out work and out think them, discredit them and get rid of them. This seems to be his way of doing business. Fellow CAL pilots, you are absolutely the target of this campaign to discredit your leadership. Don’t fall for it, and don’t believe the lies. He clearly thinks that you are not smart enough to see through the charade. Your leadership, having worked with you and for you, knows you better than he ever will, and we have faith and trust that you see this despicable breach in Unionism for the self serving charade that it is.
How dare an outsider like Kravit try to discredit and take away your rights to elect and support your own leaders. The arrogance, stupidity and sense of entitlement indicated by this campaign is staggering. Don’t fall for it. Turn a deaf ear to the noise and focus on the task at hand. Together, ALL of us will prevail.
In Unity,
First Officer Doug Marotta
CAL ALPA MEC Vice Chairman
It is a long honored right of passage in America for little boys to jump in the mud every chance they get. They can’t pass a mud puddle without stomping in it, playing in it, and perhaps even throwing mud on others. However, with the passage of time, boys are supposed to grow into responsible men, and the urge to continually play and wallow in the mud passes as we become more responsible and mature. Alas, sadly, a few, thankfully a very few, never grow up. They remain petulant, spoiled children trapped in the bodies of men. While small boys playing in the mud can be amusing, petulant, spoiled boys masquerading as men playing and wallowing in the mud, soiling themselves as they attempt to soil others, is significantly more annoying, and in the end, sad. The mud that they sling on themselves and others is almost always more indicative of their own lack of character, ethics and integrity, than an indication of ethics and integrity of those they so tirelessly try to belittle and soil.
It is with that thought that I’m so very disappointed to have to reply to the baseless and disgraceful allegations and deliberate smear campaign of one of my former colleagues. One of the truths of life is that allegations that remain unanswered eventually become thought of as truths. Therefore, these baseless allegations, as despicable and out of line as they are, must be answered.
I learned many things growing up with a father who taught me so much about integrity, respect and ethics. I learned that you must always lead your life with the highest levels of integrity, for even one slip will be remembered long after a lifetime of living and acting with integrity is forgotten. Ethically, you treat others as you would like others to treat you. I was raised to respect the opinion of others, even though I may disagree with their opinions or positions. There’s no reason that people of intelligence can’t disagree respectfully. I was taught that leadership is a sacred responsibility, to be sought when possible, and to always be carried out with integrity, ethics and respect. One of the most difficult aspects of leadership is telling those you lead things that you know are right and just, yet that you also know will still be received negatively. It is a fool or coward who assumes a leadership role, only to fail their constituency by telling them what they want to hear, rather than what can at times be the cold, hard truth.
This all brings me to the unfortunate reason for writing this. Lately, the former United MEC Vice Chairman has taken to a massive, intentional email campaign, directed ostensibly at the legacy United pilots. I say ostensibly, because make absolutely NO mistake about it, these emails and forum posts are actually aimed directly at the legacy Continental pilots. In short, former UAL MEC Vice Chairman, Captain Garry Kravit, has undertaken an effort to exert his influence over the CAL pilots, to influence who leads you, and to destroy your faith and trust in your MEC leadership, specifically in your MEC Chairman, Captain Jay Pierce.
First, let’s look at an overview of this amazingly brash and despicable campaign. Stop and think of the arrogance, lack of foresight and sheer stupidity it takes to try to influence the leadership of a unionized group to which you do not currently belong. Imagine how you would feel, as an American, if the President of a foreign country were to launch a massive campaign aimed at the citizens of our country, attempting to destroy the confidence of our people in our leadership. Whether you support our President or not, you would almost certainly be offended at the sheer audacity of an outsider meddling in our business and you would likely show significantly more contempt toward the unwelcome meddler than to the target, your democratically elected leadership. As a United pilot, Captain Kravit has his own leadership team to represent him, one assembled and voted for by the pilots of legacy United airlines, who they are elected to represent. Captain Kravit had his chance to lead, and at the time of his attempted re-election, the pilots at legacy United decided to remove him and replace him with someone else. Honestly, I have little interest in why, as it’s none of my business.
Captain Kravit howls with self serving indignation about how our MEC Chairman supposedly abandoned the joint T&PA extension negotiations, conveniently forgetting that it was the company that walked away, not us. Where were Captain Kravit’s self serving calls for a one for all, all for one sense of fair play when the UAL pilots were getting profit sharing and we weren’t? Where was his opposition to that? I didn’t see him offer to give up UAL’s profit sharing to “match” ours. I didn’t hear one word from him in protest of that lack of equality between the two groups. It’s only when Kravit doesn’t get his way that he stamps his feet, screams and tries to harm those who he perceives as standing in the way of getting what he wants, regardless of if they actually did so or not.
As Continental pilots, you owe it to yourself to look not only at whether or not what Kravit says it true, and it most certainly is not ,you must also ask yourself why is he launching this all out attack, aimed at discrediting the CAL MEC Chairman, and targeting the message to the CAL pilots? What does he have to gain, and perhaps more to the point, what does he have to fear? I believe that after a few moments of thought, those answers will become plainly self evident to all of you.
We have too much to accomplish in the coming months to allow noise and the unwelcome intrusion of outsiders with much to gain by deliberately causing chaos within our ranks to throw us off track. I would expect disgraceful tactics like this from the company, not from someone who calls himself a Unionist. How dare he try to discredit and overthrow the democratically elected leadership of our Union. Again, the question to be asked is why is he doing this? Is it because he fears a strong leadership of our Union, one that he can’t bully so that he gets his way in the tasks to come down the road?
Your officers respect and work as best we can with whomever our brothers and sisters at UAL elect to lead them. Clearly that courtesy is not reciprocated by Kravit. His theory seems to be that if you can’t out work and out think them, discredit them and get rid of them. This seems to be his way of doing business. Fellow CAL pilots, you are absolutely the target of this campaign to discredit your leadership. Don’t fall for it, and don’t believe the lies. He clearly thinks that you are not smart enough to see through the charade. Your leadership, having worked with you and for you, knows you better than he ever will, and we have faith and trust that you see this despicable breach in Unionism for the self serving charade that it is.
How dare an outsider like Kravit try to discredit and take away your rights to elect and support your own leaders. The arrogance, stupidity and sense of entitlement indicated by this campaign is staggering. Don’t fall for it. Turn a deaf ear to the noise and focus on the task at hand. Together, ALL of us will prevail.
In Unity,
First Officer Doug Marotta
CAL ALPA MEC Vice Chairman
01-08-2012, 08:39 AM
#3
HOSED BY PBS AGAIN
Joined APC: Mar 2005
Posts: 1,713
I've come to the point I will not even post on the "other" forum. Any CAL pilot comment there is completely discredited and torn to pieces by the UAL pilots within seconds. It's really embarassing to say the least. I guess their idea of "unity" is to berate the CAL group as much as they can and hope we don't object to it. I guess we were supposed to let the company PARK and TAKE AWAY our 767-200 flying with nothing being done on our side. Fortunately, our union leadership said, "no way", you OWE us for this, and in return we got our PS. What this came down to at the last hour was getting something for our 767 GRIEVANCE. You can call it "negotiating outside the JCBA all you want", but it was money paid to settle a grievance.........PERIOD. Folks it's time to move along and work as a team. Great letter Doug.
Last edited by ewrbasedpilot; 01-08-2012 at 10:16 AM.
01-08-2012, 08:44 AM
#4
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Jan 2008
Posts: 400
No time to play
Let's move on folks and leave the kids to their mud. I'd be standing shoulder to shoulder with my CAL bro, focused on the JCBA and our collective future if I wasn't out here on furlough, watching this petiness and foolishness from the street.
In unity.
In unity.
01-08-2012, 08:44 AM
#5
Banned
Joined APC: Jun 2008
Position: A320 Cap
Posts: 2,282
Without commenting on the CAL vs UAL TPA debacle, Pierce shouldn't feel bad about getting a manifesto from Mr. Kravit. In the past couple of weeks I've read about 5 of them, aimed at pretty much anybody and everybody in both the CAL and UAL MEC's. I don't know anything about Kravit personally, as I've never met him, but from an outsiders perspective, it seems someone is more than a little bitter about not being re-elected. There is a little "loose cannon" quality to his rantings that make me glad that he didn't.
Here's to hoping for a JCBA SOON that recognizes the ridiculous sacrifices of both work groups.
Here's to hoping for a JCBA SOON that recognizes the ridiculous sacrifices of both work groups.
01-08-2012, 09:03 AM
#6
Pilot Response
Joined APC: May 2011
Position: A320 Captain
Posts: 479
Without commenting on the CAL vs UAL TPA debacle, Pierce shouldn't feel bad about getting a manifesto from Mr. Kravit. In the past couple of weeks I've read about 5 of them, aimed at pretty much anybody and everybody in both the CAL and UAL MEC's. I don't know anything about Kravit personally, as I've never met him, but from an outsiders perspective, it seems someone is more than a little bitter about not being re-elected. There is a little "loose cannon" quality to his rantings that make me glad that he didn't.
Here's to hoping for a JCBA SOON that recognizes the ridiculous sacrifices of both work groups.
Here's to hoping for a JCBA SOON that recognizes the ridiculous sacrifices of both work groups.
Last edited by NFLUALNFL; 01-08-2012 at 01:09 PM.
01-08-2012, 10:13 AM
#7
HOSED BY PBS AGAIN
Joined APC: Mar 2005
Posts: 1,713
Without commenting on the CAL vs UAL TPA debacle, Pierce shouldn't feel bad about getting a manifesto from Mr. Kravit. In the past couple of weeks I've read about 5 of them, aimed at pretty much anybody and everybody in both the CAL and UAL MEC's. I don't know anything about Kravit personally, as I've never met him, but from an outsiders perspective, it seems someone is more than a little bitter about not being re-elected. There is a little "loose cannon" quality to his rantings that make me glad that he didn't.
Here's to hoping for a JCBA SOON that recognizes the ridiculous sacrifices of both work groups.
Here's to hoping for a JCBA SOON that recognizes the ridiculous sacrifices of both work groups.
01-08-2012, 10:19 AM
#8
HOSED BY PBS AGAIN
Joined APC: Mar 2005
Posts: 1,713
Believe me, we are trying to get you back.............to either side. Hopefully you'll get the call sooner than later and be glad to finally be back. If you come to the CAL side and end up in EWR on the B737, let me know and I'll take you for a nice "welcome" steak dinner. Just send me a PM and we'll go from there. Frats..............
01-08-2012, 10:21 AM
#9
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Feb 2009
Position: 73 CA EWR
Posts: 514
GREAT POST........................this stuff has become so petty it's ridiculous. Seems like the same four or five renegades at both companies want to do nothing but stoke the fires of discontent amongst our groups. It's SAD. I'm all for us or them, or whoever, getting MORE for their side as soon it will mean gains for BOTH sides. I wish we had UPS's pay, but we don't............and that doesn't mean that my friends that fly over there aren't some of the best guys/gals around. We are ALL in this together, and the sooner some realize this, the better. Thanks again for the post........you hit the nail on the head.
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