Mr. Mark L. Burdette
Vice President Employee Relations
American Airlines, Inc.
P. O. Box 619616, MD5235
DFW Airport, Texas 75261-9616
Re: Your threatening letter dated April 11, 2007
Dear Mark:
After first learning about your impending “warning letter” to the unions of American Airlines in yesterday’s
Dallas Morning News, I received a copy of the letter directly from you later in the day. It appears that it was more important for you to create a media event than to address any legitimate concerns you have regarding APA’s plans for next week. Nevertheless, as the letter seems to suggest, I am making the full text available to our members for their reference even though I find it patently offensive.
As to the substance of the letter, you declare that you have “credible information” that “certain pilots represented by the APA” intend to participate in an “illegal sick-out or engage in other forms of unlawful disruptive activity on or about April 18, 2007,” the date set by American for the payment of significant bonus awards to certain members of American senior management. During our meeting yesterday, however, you failed to produce any such evidence. If you have any specific information in your possession with respect to any American pilot’s intent to engage in unlawful activity, it is your obligation to provide that information to us immediately.
As you are well aware, the Allied Pilots Association has planned various activities to mark the incredibly self-centered, ill-advised and divisive executive bonus payout, but as you have properly recognized, none of those activities is in any way illegal. As you also acknowledged at our meeting yesterday, APA has repeatedly and consistently informed its members of their legal obligations under the Railway Labor Act and has strongly advised pilots against any illegal acts. Your letter conspicuously omits any reference to APA’s responsible conduct in this regard, leading us to seriously question the motivation behind your letter.
Our dispute over executive compensation is with senior management, and not with our customers. That is precisely why we are conducting our demonstration next week at AMR headquarters and not at any of our hub airports. Your letter only serves to increase the likely number of pilots participating on their day off in this event. You have personally acknowledged that you know I truly believe any illegal actions only serve to weaken APA as an institution. We have repeatedly instructed our pilots to comply with the law and to take care of our passengers, and we will continue to do so. We have no reason to believe American’s pilots will act in any way other than their normal highly professional manner.
That said, I am struck by the reckless and pernicious nature of your threats against both the Association and individual AA pilots. As you are well aware, the pilots – like most line employees on the property – are already seething over the notion that certain executives will reap irrational and obscene financial rewards while the rest of the employees continue to sacrifice financially. This act is a gross violation of the moral compact entered into between management and labor in 2003 that promised all employees shared reward for shared sacrifice.
I can hardly imagine that your threat to pursue American workers for additional punitive sums will calm what is already an exceedingly tense situation. I’ve said this before, but it bears repeating – rather than continually throwing gasoline on the fire, management would be better served by addressing the underlying cause of this problem – the disparate rate of income recovery between senior management and line employees.
Sincerely,
/signed/
Captain Ralph J. Hunter
President
cc: The pilots of American Airlines
TC
