BOYCAPTAIN
Well-known member
- Joined
- Jan 16, 2008
- Posts
- 270
awa bud sent me this that is going around...
Ronald xxxxxxx Wrote:
Dear Capt. Bradford,
First of all, CONGRATULATIONS on doing something that I have been hoping would happen for the past 30 years, and that is....getting rid of the ALPA curse!
As I prepare to celebrate my 30th anniversary (April 26th, 1978 - April 26th, 2008) with this company and don the service pin with 3 diamonds, I look back on my career here at the combination of Empire Airlines, Piedmont, USair(ways) and now America West. I am greatly concerned about one last bit of ALPA business that may once again come back to haunt this pilot group, DATE-OF-HIRE seniority.
You may or may not remember how ALPA, during a push to unionize smaller airlines during the mid 1980s, was allowed, even encouraged, to make an example of the Empire Airlines pilots. To show what would happen if an ALPA carrier bought you and you were not ALPA, the pilots of Empire Airlines were stripped of their rightful place on a date-of-hire seniority list, and placed BELOW pilots that had not even started training...........sound familiar? I lost 7 years of seniority. I have been punished for the past 25 years. I have been denied the ability to bid holidays off, my choice of schedules, my chance of advancement.
What am I asking you to look at and consider? Just like that time long ago when ALPA failed to abide by a date-of-hire merger policy, and just as USAPA has professed to truly support and demand a date-of-hire integration, I ask that USAPA immediately place ALL Empire pilots (or any other group) in their true positions on our USAirways SENIORITY list so that if and when ALPA returns in one demon form or another (a merger?), USAPA will be able to hold it's head high and state with the utmost truthfulness, that we are, in fact, a DATE-OF-HIRE airline?
I am not asking for a windfall. I have paid the price for 25 years (A loss of about 2.5 million dollars just in DIFFERENCE in PAY). I am just asking that I be able to use my 30 years here to exercise my seniority just like any other pilot on our list. DATE-OF-HIRE is DATE-OF HIRE!!! There can not be any exceptions.....because 'EXCEPTIONS' were what ALPA was all about!
We are now the IN HOUSE UNION....just like Empire Airlines Pilots Association was.............when ALPA shows up again.....are we as USAPA pilots prepared to go to the BOTTOM of the list as Empire did so that ALPA can show, once again, what happens to pilots that defy ALPA's will?
Conditions, restrictions??? If you must...........but put my name and those of my fellow Empire pilot's on the seniority list where they always should have been, according to their DATE-OF-HIRE!!!!!!
Sincerely,
Ronald xxxxxxx
F/O B767-I PHL
Ronald xxxxxxx Wrote:
Dear Capt. Bradford,
First of all, CONGRATULATIONS on doing something that I have been hoping would happen for the past 30 years, and that is....getting rid of the ALPA curse!
As I prepare to celebrate my 30th anniversary (April 26th, 1978 - April 26th, 2008) with this company and don the service pin with 3 diamonds, I look back on my career here at the combination of Empire Airlines, Piedmont, USair(ways) and now America West. I am greatly concerned about one last bit of ALPA business that may once again come back to haunt this pilot group, DATE-OF-HIRE seniority.
You may or may not remember how ALPA, during a push to unionize smaller airlines during the mid 1980s, was allowed, even encouraged, to make an example of the Empire Airlines pilots. To show what would happen if an ALPA carrier bought you and you were not ALPA, the pilots of Empire Airlines were stripped of their rightful place on a date-of-hire seniority list, and placed BELOW pilots that had not even started training...........sound familiar? I lost 7 years of seniority. I have been punished for the past 25 years. I have been denied the ability to bid holidays off, my choice of schedules, my chance of advancement.
What am I asking you to look at and consider? Just like that time long ago when ALPA failed to abide by a date-of-hire merger policy, and just as USAPA has professed to truly support and demand a date-of-hire integration, I ask that USAPA immediately place ALL Empire pilots (or any other group) in their true positions on our USAirways SENIORITY list so that if and when ALPA returns in one demon form or another (a merger?), USAPA will be able to hold it's head high and state with the utmost truthfulness, that we are, in fact, a DATE-OF-HIRE airline?
I am not asking for a windfall. I have paid the price for 25 years (A loss of about 2.5 million dollars just in DIFFERENCE in PAY). I am just asking that I be able to use my 30 years here to exercise my seniority just like any other pilot on our list. DATE-OF-HIRE is DATE-OF HIRE!!! There can not be any exceptions.....because 'EXCEPTIONS' were what ALPA was all about!
We are now the IN HOUSE UNION....just like Empire Airlines Pilots Association was.............when ALPA shows up again.....are we as USAPA pilots prepared to go to the BOTTOM of the list as Empire did so that ALPA can show, once again, what happens to pilots that defy ALPA's will?
Conditions, restrictions??? If you must...........but put my name and those of my fellow Empire pilot's on the seniority list where they always should have been, according to their DATE-OF-HIRE!!!!!!
Sincerely,
Ronald xxxxxxx
F/O B767-I PHL