ALPA vs APA Round 1

[Cleared Direct]

May 12,2003

VIA FACSIMILE AND U.S. MAIL

John Darrah
President
Allied Pilots Association
O’Connell Building
14600 Trinity Blvd., Suite 500
Fort Worth, TX 761 55-2512

Dear Captain Darrah:

This letter will confirm the positions taken by you and your Negotiating Committee during the meeting on Thursday, May 8,2003 among representatives of American Airlines, American Eagle, APA and ALPA. Our representatives reported as follows:

You stated that if necessary you will ask your Board of Directors to alter APA’s agreement with American Airlines to the effect that furloughed AA pilots will displace into EMB commuter jet captain positions, “as written.”

You suggested that if necessary you would utilize the provision of your tentative agreement that allows one issue to be renegotiated. You further suggested that you are prepared to ask your Board to accept additional wage concessions to cover the cost of providing what in your view would be additional captain seats for furloughed AA pilots. You stated that this “is not a bluff.” You estimated it would cost $10 million to achieve the above.

You acknowledged that ALPA was not involved in the negotiation of the new flow-back provisions of the recent AA/APA agreement. Captain White stated that if he was an Eagle pilot he would prefer the new AA/APA agreement to the implementation of Letter 3/Supplement W.

You and Captain White suggested that union-to-union dialogue is necessary. Captain White stated that he prefers negotiation to arbitration.

In response to the briefing that I received from our meeting participants, and in order to set the stage for potentially productive dialogue, Vice-chairman Dave Ryter contacted your office on Thursday, May 8, to arrange for immediate discussions. His contact information for Friday, Saturday and Sunday was left with your secretary. After receiving no response to Ryter's call, I asked ALPA President Duane Woerth to contact you on Friday May 9. His weekend contact information was left with your secretary as well. Again, there has been no response from you. Based on this and numerous past attempts at engagement by ALPA that have gone unanswered, it appears that you have no genuine desire to find solutions to the many flow back issues; solutions that are mutually acceptable to American Eagle pilots and American Airlines pilots.

This is unfortunate but not entirely unexpected, and as such, ALPA will continue to take all necessary steps to protect the contractual rights and expectations of the Eagle pilots. Longevity and seniority are basic tenets of our agreement. If I am misreading your silence, please feel free to contact me. ALPA representatives can be made available to meet in a four-party context. If you are interested in a productive dialogue, I do ask you to keep in mind that we will not respond to threats such as were delivered to our representatives last Thursday. Please keep in mind as well that all changes to Letter 3ISupplement W require four-party participation and consent. This should have been the case from the start.

Yours truly,
Herb Mark
Chairman, Eagle MEC

HM/et

cc: Duane Woerth
Eagle Master Executive Council
Jeff Brundage
Mark Burdette
Mike ########
Rose Doria

 

[Cleared Direct]

May 14, 2003

Captain Herb Mark, Chairman
ALPA - Eagle MEC
1101 West Euless Blvd., Suite 415
Euless, TX 76040

Dear Captain Mark:

I was sorry you were not able to attend the meeting between APA, ALPA, American and American Eagle management on Thursday, May 8. It was my impression this was to be a meeting between the principles of our respective unions to resolve our misunderstandings. I was surprised that none of the ALPA Eagle MEC Officers were present, and that instead your legal counsel was your primary representative.

Over the past couple of weeks, you and other ALPA Eagle representatives have made numerous misleading public comments not only to your membership, but also to others about recent events. You have intimated that APA has not disclosed the resulting provisions of our recent agreement or our intentions throughout our negotiations with you or other members of ALPA Eagle. To the contrary, we have been more than forthright with our intent during the past year.

It has always been APA’s goal to regain all flying done by AMR for pilots on the American Airlines pilot seniority list. This was our goal during Section 6 negotiations and our goal throughout the final days of our discussions with AMR management that ultimately led to our $660 million concessionary agreement that was reached on March 31. I say “regain all flying” because as you are aware, prior to our 1987 contract, American Airlines pilots performed all flying on behalf of AMR. It has been our pilots’ goal since that time to recapture this provision of our contract, just as it has been with many other provisos of our contract that we have conceded in the past.

In numerous meetings and discussions with you and your predecessors, we have been completely open about our intent with regard to not only all flying, but failing that, the recapturing of 51+ seat RJ flying for American Airlines pilots. Yes, we want all flying, and yes, we want a common seniority list for all AMR pilots, American Airlines and American Eagle pilots alike. But in the end, AMR management would not concede on these issues. We were therefore left with the prospect of either entering bankruptcy or conceding on these issues and the other $600 million-plus items that we ultimately did concede to management.

As you know, APA and ALPA Eagle have met several times over the past year to try to find common ground. Sometimes these conversations were successful, and sometimes they were not. During the week of Monday, March 17, APA Vice President Captain Bob Ames and I met with you, Eagle MEC Vice Chairman First Officer Dave Ryter and Executive Administrator First Officer James Magee to brief you on the status of our negotiations to that point. At this meeting, I expressly conveyed to you that AMR management had signaled a willingness to give APA pilots the 51+ seat RJs if APA would relax the restrictions on 50-seat and below RJs. Your only response was that ALPA Eagle had a no-furlough clause and that you did not see how AMR management could agree to anything that would result in an overage of American Eagle pilots.

It was not until the final days of these negotiations, March 30-31, that we negotiated changes to our Scope clause (Scope being the very last item negotiated besides APA’s upside provisions). Negotiations concluded the evening of March 31. That evening I checked my phone messages that I had not received due to my being in around-the-clock marathon negotiations, and noticed that you had called at the end of the week of March 28. The next morning I phoned the ALPA Eagle MEC office to speak with you. I was told that you were not available because you had gone to Spain for your daughter’s wedding. I asked for MEC Vice Chairman First Officer Dave Ryter and was told he was not available. I was informed that Executive Administrator First Officer James Magee was in the office, so I spoke with him. I briefed First Officer Magee on the status of our negotiations and he asked that I send him our contractual language. I told him that we were still working on finalizing the language and we would send you copies when it was completed.

The next evening I left for a week to hold a series of road shows throughout our system to brief the APA pilots on our tentative agreement. I then had a Board meeting the following week. During this time, members of your organization began a very public campaign of accusing APA of unfair treatment during our negotiations. I received no phone call from you prior to these public statements. I subsequently received a barrage of letters filled with legalese signed by you making what can only be characterized as false and inflammatory allegations and statements against APA.

I had hoped the meeting last Thursday would be an opportunity to finally resolve these misunderstandings. But as I said, neither you nor anyone else from the elected leadership of ALPA Eagle attended that meeting. Instead, the meeting took on more of the tone of a deposition, which was confirmed by the letter I received from you dated May 12.

Following that meeting, I attended a meeting with AMR CEO Mr. Arpey that concluded at approximately 6 PM. The next day, I was at APA for several hours and then left for the rest of the afternoon. That evening I had a voice mail notifying me that ALPA President Captain Duane Woerth had called late in the afternoon on Friday and would be calling again Monday afternoon. Contrary to your letter, he left no weekend contact numbers.

On Monday afternoon, I received a phone call from Captain Woerth. He called on your behalf to request that APA and ALPA meet to resolve our disagreement over the application of Supplement W. I told him that I had a Board meeting beginning on Wednesday, but I would be available the following week for a meeting. I then told him I would call him back on Friday to confirm the date.

Shortly after that phone call, I received a fax from you characterizing the meeting that I attended with your representatives the previous Thursday. This fax also contained a chronology of your Vice Chairman’s efforts to contact me late on Thursday. As of the receipt of that fax, I was unaware you had tried to contact me. I asked my Secretary, Sue Pyle, if you had called last week. She said you hadn’t, but that First Officer Ryter had called late on Thursday. I asked her why she hadn’t told me, and she said that I had already left for my meeting with Mr. Arpey when Mr. Ryter had called, and that she had sent a message to my personal e-mail at home. Furthermore, she was sick and did not come to work on Friday, so she could not confirm that I received the e-mail. I did not check my personal e-mail over the weekend. It was my anniversary and Sunday was Mother’s Day, so I took the weekend off from work.

continued on next post...........

 

[Cleared Direct]

continued........

While coordination and communication could obviously have been better by both parties, given what I have been dealing with, I have tried to keep ALPA Eagle abreast of the events at APA as best I can.

Your recent written communication and your representation at meetings by legal counsel, and not by ALPA’s elected leadership, gives me a clear indication where ALPA Eagle is concentrating its focus and more than likely its future efforts. You state that you seek resolution, but your letters are filled with antagonistic and confrontational sentiments.

In the context of your fax dated May 12, you state you wish to confirm the positions taken by my Negotiating Committee and me. Let me be clear that I do not agree with your counsel’s summation of that meeting. Secondly, in the closing paragraph you state I made a threat to your representatives-I did not make a threat, but simply told them what I am prepared to do. I am sorry if they believe this to be threatening, but it is reality.

With that said, I cannot understand how you, as the representative of more than 2,000 American Eagle pilots, are asking that we exercise our rights to forcibly displace more than 450 of your CJ Captains out of their positions in the name of complying with “your view” of the application of Supplement W. You surely understand this has been a contentious issue with our pilots from the outset of our tentative agreement. With regard to this issue, I have a tremendous amount of regret over the impact that our recently concluded agreement will have on our junior-most pilots-no different than the frustration being exhibited by you and your staff in the letters that you have been writing.

I have done everything I can to be as forthright with you as possible. It cannot be any surprise to you that APA secured 51+ seat RJ flying. We have told you from the outset that this would be one of APA’s goals and I informed you immediately following management’s positive response to us in mid-March. If someone in your organization or at Eagle management has misled you, that is a matter between you and them. But nothing in Supplement W prohibits us from reacquiring what we gave away in 1987, the 51+ seat RJ flying.

As for furloughs at ALPA Eagle, I can certainly sympathize with you and your pilots. No one knows better than the pilots of APA about the effects of furloughs. We will have more pilots furloughed from American Airlines than are contained on your entire seniority list. At last count, nearly 3,000 APA pilots will be without jobs by next May. As a byproduct of this furlough, hundreds of APA pilots will also lose their bids as Captains. So I can understand your pilots’ objections to the negative career implications from the application of Supplement W and APA’s agreement. But even with all that said, from what was briefed to us at our meeting last Thursday, it appears the effect of furloughs at ALPA Eagle is a matter between ALPA Eagle and Eagle management, not APA.

It was made clear at the meeting last Thursday that in ALPA Eagle’s view, furloughed American pilots do not have the right to displace into a CRJ Captain position even if the furloughed American pilot is senior to the American Eagle pilot on the American Airlines seniority list. In ALPA’s view, the only way to attain these positions would be to displace the ERJ Captains first by exercising our rights under Supplement W.

This position by ALPA Eagle raises some very interesting points. To prevent the occurrence of future grievances, we must all be clear on the application of Supplement W. Secondly, from my vantage point, it appears that under your interpretation of Supplement W, furloughed American Airlines pilots should displace your current ERJ Captains out of their positions. To do otherwise would likely place all parties in a very protracted grievance situation, given our differing views on APA’s latest agreement and the application of Supplement W.

As I stated earlier, the APA Board of Directors meets this week in DFW. I will brief the Board on these latest developments and the positions of the ALPA MEC.

Sincerely,

/signed/,
Captain John E. Darrah
President

cc: Board of Directors
National Officers
Captain Duane Woerth
First Officer Dave Ryter
Jeff Brundage
Mark Burdette
Mike Costello
Rose Doria