Phoenix Domicile Update
Is this good for the pilots or is it politics?
Your PHX reps held a local domicile meeting on Tuesday, August 31st. And, to nobody's surprise, what should have been a normal event was again turned into yet another overly-dramatic political fight.
As everyone knows by now, USAPA is composed of local domicile representatives, which sit on the governing board known as the Board of Pilot Representatives, or BPR for short. Theoretically, this board is supposed to provide direction to the union’s four National Officers, who also have assigned duties and areas of responsibility.
The Secretary-Treasurer and the recently-elected Executive Vice President had asked your PHX representatives if they could attend our next domicile meeting for a couple of reasons. All National Officers are always welcome to attend any local meeting. As a matter of fact, it would be nice if a couple of the Officers would take the time to come out and meet some of the PHX pilots. The first and most important reason is just to simply get to meet and know some of the PHX USAPA members. Since we have never had a BPR meeting in PHX there has been little chance for interaction. Also, there have been plenty of questions lately about the "reconciliation" and other billing issues that the S/T could answer. We also believe that the new EVP should get to know some of the pilots that he represents, provide us with a briefing and also answer some questions related to the duties of his office.
These two gentlemen did make the effort and traveled all the way out to PHX to attend the meeting on Tuesday. However, on Tuesday morning, about 30 minutes prior to the start of the meeting, the EVP and S/T walked into the hotel and stated that they had been told that they were not allowed to attend the PHX domicile meeting. When we questioned them as to who had told them they could not attend (or why), we were told that they would not talk about it, nor would they give any more details. One thing that we can tell you is that these gentlemen were not happy about being denied access to the PHX pilots.
Later that afternoon, David sent an e-mail to the BPR informing them of this situation. In addition, David called most of the other board members for their opinion on the matter, and he also left a voice message for both the President and the Vice President. As of Monday, no one had responded at all to the e-mail. The calls that were made were well received with the exception of one. But, no one knew anything about whom or why a National Officer would be denied access to the PHX pilots. The Vice President did return the call but said that he did not prevent these two other officers from attending the meeting, though he did STRONGLY recommend against going. Since David has not heard from the President, we do not know what his reply would be. By connecting the dots it can be guessed that if the board members did not know about it, and the Vice President did not order it, there remains only one person with any perceived authority to direct two other (also directly elected) National Officers from attending a domicile meeting.
Your PHX reps find this denial completely unacceptable. We can only imagine what the reaction would be if National Officers were not allowed to attend an East meeting. The excuse we have heard (from the Vice President) was, "because there is litigation ongoing, these Officers should not answer questions about seniority." This is ridiculous, as they were only there to meet the pilots and answer questions in the areas of their expertise and duties. Using the excuse that "litigation is ongoing" in order to deny services or access to union officials is wrong. Your representatives are a bit baffled by this statement, as USAPA Communications has made it abundantly and repeatedly clear that the Addington litigation was found "not ripe," and as if it never even happened. In fact,
Addington has been characterized as "a legal nullity" by USAPA. So we are not sure what litigation was being referenced.
If the Company's case was the litigation being cited, well, both the West pilots and USAPA are co-defendants in that suit, so we do not know how preventing these Officers from attending our domicile meeting could possibly harm the DOH quest. The duty to represent ALL pilots does not pause, end or suspend while a court case works its way through the system. Of course, you would think that the uppermost leadership of USAPA would understand that running a union is not exclusively about achieving date-of-hire by now, but apparently that is not the case.
Well it appears that the transformation is now complete. IN OUR OPINION, USAPA has gone from the stated concept of a true "line pilot union" to a complete dictatorship in only 29 months. An e-mail was sent out on Tuesday evening informing the rest of the board that a serious overreaching of power had occurred. That some, as of yet unknown, union official had dictated that two other National Officers not be allowed to attend a PHX meeting. So far there has been NO response to this breach. The phone messages that were left with other BPR members have likewise gone unanswered. The President, now many days later, has yet to return a call to the PHX Domicile Chairman. From the lack of response and outrage we can only assume that a majority of the Board accepts this and has handed over the governing power to a single man.
We ask all US Airways pilots these questions: Is that what you wanted when you voted for USAPA? Are you willing to allow a single person to dictate the direction and action of your union? Is it acceptable for one elected official to ignore and violate the rights of other elected officials? Is USAPA still ONLY about DOH?
If you do not find this behavior acceptable, then we have to ask you: what are you going to do about it?
David Braid
PHX Chairman
