ewrbasedpilot

Somehow their actions certainly aren't matching their words.

socalflyboy

I got SICK just reading that sorry letter.

tmac3333

Has anyone else noticed that Ms. Linda A. Puchala's term as chairman of the NMB expires on 30 June? Wondering if this will have any impact on things and if she is automatically going to have a 3rd term or if someone new is appointed.

Airhoss

It is the strong opinion of everybody with the slightest clue of what's really going on here. That the very best solution to prevent future operational disruptions would be to fire every single sorry ashed SOB in upper management and start over with a fresh new bunch of competent, line oriented managers. Ivory league lawyers need not apply!

SoCalGuy

Time's Up!
C57 Secretary-Treasurer



Brothers and sisters,



The time has come for a decision. It’s time for ALPA National and the NMB to
stand up for the United Airlines pilots whom have suffered in bankruptcy too
long. Bankruptcy, pension loss, home foreclosure, divorce, and even sadly
suicide! We (UAL ALPA) have behaved well, and have bargained in good-faith for
three years now, two years since the merger announcement, and 16 months in
federal mediation. That’s long enough for any negotiation process. This
country has tremendous uphill battles and problems to deal with, but the demise
of labor and the middle class should be at the head of the line when it comes to
help. U.S. pilots represent the top technical labor force in America; are we to
go the way of the Merchant Marines? With regards to fixing the system at this
juncture, we simply do not have the time to make that happen through changes in
the RLA, but we can use the current system in a professional, corporate like
manner, to create a concrete good faith bargaining opportunity with a thirty day
clock to enforce it.



But, we need some help doing that …



We just concluded a Special Meeting this past Sunday the 23rd regarding
negotiating items that could lead to a JCBA, but this pilot is realistic that
this company is most likely going to do the same thing they’ve done for the past
16 months in mediation – stall! I hope I’m wrong, but that leads us to other
alternatives. Should either a contract or a proffer of arbitration/release to a
30 day cooling off period not become reality this week, in my opinion we are
doomed to be captives to a system that cares nothing about you and me, and that
goes all the way up to the highest levels of our government. Keep in mind
though that this is a bottom up process, we’ve got to want to help ourselves in
order for those above us to step in and lend a hand.




Captain Moak addressed some concerns in his letter this weekend and the most
encouraging comment was:



“Either our long overdue JCBA will be completed, or the Association will again
demand that the National Mediation Board (NMB) recognize that a critical
juncture has been reached and that it is time for a release.”

Bingo: “JCBA” or a “proffer of arbitration/release.” That’s it folks – time’s
up – this needs to happen!



Captain Moak followed the above statement with this paragraph, which was a topic
of discussion on a conference call we had with him Sunday:



“We all know that the NMB itself – not ALPA, not the Company, and not Congress –
gets to decide the question. As a pilot who is used to being in control of my
airplane, I don’t like it any more than you that we aren’t in control of this
decision. The Railway Labor Act gives the NMB full authority to make the call.
We can continue to pressure the agency through all the political channels
available to us, but we cannot make the decision for them.”

Look folks, the National Mediation Board is a bureaucratic entity inside our
government, created as part of the process for the Railway labor Act. Nothing
more, nothing less. This is not a slight, nor a disrespect of the agency, it is
just a fact. They have no power to compel either side to negotiate, and they
have no power to set a date or timeline for success – except one, which I’ll
cover in a moment.



Further they only monitor/look for good-faith bargaining, which is such a broad
brush of a definition that it seems that simply having the two sides just
showing up, present and accounted for, gets labeled as “good-faith”. Oh sure,
they have in the past flexed their muscles by “parking” the parties into periods
of no mediation, but that mechanism was not developed with the thought that it
would be used as an endless loop to never ending negotiations.



The one trigger or deadline or concrete (actual) tool that the NMB does have is
to proffer arbitration/release to both parties, and if either turns it down a 30
day cooling off begins. To be clear, our Master Chairman and the JNC have
indicated that a non-binding arbitration would be considered during this period,
but recognize that the release to a 30 day cooling off period is a necessary
step to enforce the process being successful in the first place. It is the only
way we will ever see an acceptable contract given the kind of management that we
are dealing with unless a miracle happens this week.



So with that in mind, who really makes the call here folks? Is someone going to
tell me that the NMB can arbitrarily drop a “release” or “rejection” on the
administration without first consulting them? It’s ludicrous! If that were the
case, politically they could do things at critical times to either help or hurt
an administration – and that just is not going to happen in Washington D.C.
given how the NMB is chartered and set up. Just as committees in your union do
not act autonomously, without consulting with Committee Chairman or the Master
Chairman (or they get recalled), the NMB does not act in a vacuum without
consulting higher powers. Does anyone honestly think that in our government a
lower level board like this would be empowered to unilaterally make such a
decision concerning the commerce of our country? The answer is no!



This does not mean we cannot be “released” based on this being an election year
or other circumstances, etc. – we have friends in Washington D.C. that want to
see good-faith labor contracts achieved for all United employees following the
devastation caused by 9/11 and the ensuing global economic crisis. However,
it’s clear that given this management we need the pressure of an actual internal
clock to get it done. That is a “proffer of arbitration/release” folks.



Attached to this letter is a response from the mediation board to the AFL-CIO (
"NMB Response to AFL-CIO" - sent 5 days after their request). They pretty much
blew them off. There are virtually no rules or standards of review to go by
when it comes to the NMB. Without concrete standards for review of some sort,
and it appears there are none, it means you could be stuck in a maze forever
unless someone/something moves the process forward. Old time Kings and Lords
handed down decrees with closed and unquestionable processes this way, and that
is why in America we generally set concrete legal standards or
requirements/processes as part of the law. This is called a "standard of
review."




The reply by that lower echelon NMB servant was the most milquetoast,
condescending, do nothing/say nothing letter I’ve ever seen at this level of the
game. Especially so given that we are a huge labor force breaking under 10
years of concessions and loss of pensions while management has engorged
themselves on the fat of our hard work. I have to ask myself why our President,
Captain Moak has not taken issue and replied? What is the ALPA standard of
review? What rises to the level of a rebuke of some sort?



We (ALPA), on the other hand, have received no response from the NMB despite
sending three requests dated back as far as May 11th, 2012. I find that very
curious, and very troubling.




Again, with these basic facts before us, we need an answer from the NMB this
week but should have had it a month and a half ago. If the answer is a “proffer
of arbitration/release”, then the NMB will help this country move on by
enforcing concrete deadlines that lead to success within 30 days. If they
reject our request, then all of us will respectfully want to know when the
contract is coming and how in the world they expect us to get it without simply
caving to all of management’s whims and desires.



Two items to consider:



1. “Negotiations are proceeding significantly and going well.” This is what
the NMB is telling key Congressional offices, oversight committees, and others.
If that is true (and our reports from the Negotiating Committee state
otherwise), then where is the contract?



2. “A rejection would only happen if we are far apart in negotiations without
hope.” You can’t have it both ways folks. We are either close because
significant progress has been made but are at an impasse – which means that we
need a “release” to help us finish it up. Or we are far apart and at an impasse
– which means we never made significant progress in the first place. Which is
it?

Those who would say the latter do so in the face of what some have said but it
really matters not – if we are at a log jam a proffer/release MUST come our way
or we are condemned to die on this vine, mired in an endless process that only
serves those who make their money by taking part in the process!



For a whole raft of reasons, this is the week we have left to secure a JCBA or
get busy with a 30 day process that will enforce a serious effort to complete a
JCBA. Chairman Puchala needs to give our pilots, whom have suffered for close
to ten years now, an answer to our request – up or down. It will move us to a
new game board with a new strategy and a new debate that will reach all the way
to the highest levels of our government. We (UAL ALPA) have worked to get this
done and have thought outside ALPA’s traditional box to use the RLA and our
friends in D.C. in an efficient, good-faith manner. We have worked hard and we
have identified a pathway to success, plotted it and laid out, but our requests
are being ignored.



Let me ask you, do you understand why we need an official response from the NMB,
and why Captain Moak needs to demand it? The AFL-CIO got a reasonably quick
response (5 days) – so why haven’t we received one? Is it because some don’t
ever want us to get one?!



Some say that we have not been released because the prospects for getting a
contract are/have been good. If the prospects are good for obtaining a
contract, then consider the attachment to this message – " Violation of Status
Quo Obligations and Preliminary Injunction Order" . Now consider that the
company sent this letter at the beginning of the last week of viable
negotiations for the summer!



Excuse me?? It’s a salvo! And in my opinion a clear indication that the
company fully expects there will be NO JCBA by week’s end. I sure would like to
be proved wrong on that!



Management is making wide sweeping accusations to intimidate, scare, and create
fear amongst the pilot group by taking coincidence and making it reality.
Everyone knows United Airlines is ill prepared for the summer rush and is an
improperly manned the airline, so now they want/need to force people to come to
work on their days off using threats of legal action and retribution. The
judge, should it go there, must be advised that there are 1437 pilots currently
on the street waiting to come back! Yet in the face of these
aggravating/goading letters we are confronted with the truth of FAA facility
fires, a CAL pilot group that is being flown so hard that they are falling over
fatigued, some UAL fleets that have virtually no way of meeting their scheduled
flying, thunderstorms and weather, a pollen count that is the worst it has ever
been according to my doctor (and that is for the entire country), and just for
added spice – forest fires in parts of the U.S. that have given many pilots fits
with their lungs. On our planes these past days all I heard was people coughing
and sneezing continuously!



No, the letters and (very real) threats are nothing more than the company
telling us, “You are not getting a contract, and we are going to take you to
court for the sake of driving that fact home.” It is nothing more than a
distraction. Our lead scope attorney had to spend a lot of time on Monday
addressing these accusations from our company, wasting time in a day of what
could have been fruitful negotiations regarding Scope. I sure hope the NMB is
paying attention to this!



Yes, it’s disgusting , but they’ll do it if that’s what they need to stall the
negotiations yet again. The reality now, however, is that we are in mediated
negotiations, under the direct gaze of the NMB, and we will address this
professionally and with integrity if this is where the company wants to take
it. It’s sad, in this pilot’s mind, that the company would stoop to such levels
to avoid negotiating in good faith or facing up to the fact that all United
employees deserve fair compensation and working contracts – not just the top
floor brass.



In yet another unbelievable development yesterday, one of our ALPA advisors
stated, “Getting a release was never gonna happen.” This ALPA advisor, who is
paid with your hard earned dues dollars, said the same thing to me a month ago,
despite the fact that I know that an NMB connection from Washington had already
told him at a luncheon they attended that, “A release is not out of the
question.”




So what the heck is going on here folks? Is ALPA National working against us to
be released?? In order to get the answer to this question I think it’s gotten
to the point now that, quite frankly, each of you should just find out for
yourselves by contacting ALPA President Lee Moak: [email protected]



In summation then, by week’s end we need to see a JCBA or a proffer of
arbitration/release. At a minimum we need a definitive response to ALPA’s three
requests. If not, we will be under our current contract for a very long time,
and everyone will have abandoned us. I do mean everyone!



Ladies and gentlemen, we need a win! We need results, not more of the same.
As ALPA President Moak was elected his slogan provided comfort and hope to the
pilots of United: “Results not Rhetoric!”



WE ARE UNITED.

LifeNtheFstLne

Well said. If anyone thought National was going to come through for us, you can forget it. The responsibility of securing a contract yesterday lies squarely on the line pilot's shoulders. We give leverage to our negotiating committee. Wake up guys! When tomorrow comes and goes and nothing has changed, I encourage everyone to consider their individual role in making a difference. At a minimum: vote 'yes' on the strike authorization ballot. The rest goes without saying. Fly safe.

skippy

Tmac.
While the repub nmb chic resigned, the next nmb chairman will be the ex twa captain (dem). But since puchala began the ual negotiations, she gets to finish them.

tmac3333

Thanks skippy.

Mwindaji

According to Biography of Linda Puchala
she was President's Obama's nomination for NMB chairmain.

Mwindaji

I should not post early in the morning and until I am fully awake. Sorry for the spelling and grammar.