A copy of this is also being sent to you by U.S. mail.
November 3, 2010
Dear JetBlue Pilot,
JetBlue pilots have expressed widespread interest in, and support for, the Air Line Pilots Association, Int’l, with an organizing committee that is the largest in our history—more than 250 strong—and with hundreds more calls and e-mails to ALPA from line pilots.
Yesterday, the Association’s Executive Council, representing nearly 53,000 ALPA members in the United States and Canada , unanimously endorsed the JetBlue ALPA Organizing Committee’s (JAOC) work and authorized the next step in your efforts to gain legal representation, a strong voice for the future, and a binding and enforceable contract. ALPA’s members and leaders are deeply committed to helping you achieve your goals.
In our meetings, the JAOC has conveyed the importance of negotiating meaningful merger protection language because of future industry consolidation and the desire for health and retirement benefits tailored to JetBlue pilots and your families. Some JetBlue pilots have even expressed to us frustrating firsthand experiences of trying to enforce personal service agreements on an individual basis.
JetBlue pilots, with ALPA representation, will establish your own goals, contract priorities, and relationship with management. But you will also have the support of pilots at other airlines, teams of professional negotiators, economic and financial analysts, your own scope attorneys, benefit specialists, safety experts, and ALPA’s financial backing to help achieve your collective objectives. These resources don’t exist for you today.
Now it’s your turn to join fellow JetBlue pilots in the effort to achieve ALPA representation. By signing and returning the enclosed Authorization for Representation Election card, you indicate interest in having a representation election and getting more information about ALPA. If a strong majority of JetBlue pilots signs and returns the cards, ALPA will petition the National Mediation Board (NMB) to conduct a secret-ballot election. Your participation in the process is important, and, in the end, the decision is yours.
Over the next several months, the JAOC and ALPA pilots and professional staff will share the ways that ALPA pilot groups make decisions for themselves and access union resources. During our visits to JetBlue domiciles, I encourage you to ask questions about ALPA, the election process, and how things work at other ALPA pilot groups that have hands-on experience.
We recognize that both JetBlue pilots and ALPA are stronger when we speak with a collective voice. Professional airline pilots throughout North America are making strong gains in the four cornerstone contract areas of job security, benefits, work rules, and pay in the current negotiating environment. I hope that you will decide to participate in this bargaining cycle to help advance your future and our profession by signing one of the enclosed cards and giving the other one to a fellow pilot.
You’ve taken great first steps to make your voice heard and to secure your future. The members of the world’s largest pilots union support your efforts to secure ALPA representation. Along with the Executive Council, I look forward to welcoming JetBlue pilots as members of the Air Line Pilots Association, Int’l.
In Solidarity,
Capt. John H. Prater, President
