100/hour/5y
Well-known member
- Joined
- Nov 1, 2002
- Posts
- 188
In This Update
· Captain Heppner: Reality Check -- Time To Wake Up
· Tuesday's Agenda
Captain Heppner: Reality Check -- Time To Wake Up
MEC Chairman Captain Jay Heppner opened the week-long
MEC Meeting in Chicago with his address to the MEC.
Dear United Pilots,
It is time for a reality check about what are increasingly becoming unfriendly skies for United Airlines pilots as it relates to our contract negotiations. Based on the facts discussed below, as it relates to the management of United’s strategy to slow walk the negotiations so they can continue to outsource and offshore pilot jobs, we now have no recourse but to take steps to*****formally execute a release from our Section 6 negotiations under the Railway Labor Act (RLA) on April 30*****if United management does not commit to completing these negotiations by June 1. We have waited two years and made no progress – if executing a release is what is necessary to make sure U.S. commercial airlines jobs go to U.S. pilots and the safety of U.S. airline passengers is put first, we are ready.
It is now clear that United's management strategy is really just to fly in a holding pattern when it comes to these negotiations, seeking to fly in circles so that the longer we work without a contract, the more aggressive United can be about offshoring and outsourcing our jobs -- and not working to honor the commitment pilots made to the company dating back to 9/11.
The facts speak for themselves:
· Executive level decision makers at United refused to attend our negotiations at all in 2011, and only once since being held in the same city where these executives live and work.
· For nearly 24 months we have negotiated with little progress on the core issues related to the offshoring and outsourcing of our jobs.
· Throughout the entire negotiations, while saying one thing, United has continued to outsource to regional carriers and seek agreements to ultimately outsource all international flying at the expense of U.S. workers in America. Meanwhile United Airlines alone has 1,437 pilots who were laid off because of 9/11 and merger schemes, and they continue to be grounded.
· As the company moves forward post-merger, without contractual protections, it will continue to outsource domestic, and ultimately international, flying to the detriment of safety and U.S. jobs.
· And while the company talks about needing to be competitive it continues to compensate its executives at very non-competitive levels.
Simply put, enough is enough.*****
We are at a decisive moment in time when it comes to the offshoring and outsourcing of our jobs. This has implications for our ability to earn a fair wage for a fair day's work, the capacity for the United States to have a highly trained U.S-based commercial pilot work-force, and the safety of U.S. airline passengers.
As you are well aware, following 9/11, United pilots stood up and worked to help save the U.S. airline industry from going out of business, including substantial pay cuts, watching fellow pilots laid off and, subsequently, losing our pensions.*****
We agreed to economic sacrifices out of a belief that everyone needed to do their part and our trust in United's representations that once back on its feet, the company would honor our commitment by bringing back our pilots.
However, more than a decade after 9/11, United pilots are still laid off and the company, whose executives are compensated as well as any commercial airline executives in the marketplace, rather than hire U.S. pilots, has aggressively moved to increase its STAR Alliance partners, while securing Global Antitrust Immunity in the recent UAL/CAL Atlantic ++ Antitrust agreement approved in 2009. This agreement allows Open Skies in not only the Atlantic arena, but also in the South American and Pacific regions.
Offshoring of U.S. pilot jobs is an almost certain outcome without negotiated protections that we do not currently have in our contract that was stripped during Bankruptcy. A consequence of this action will be the compromising of safety for our passengers as both inexperienced and foreign pilots will be in our customer’s cockpits. The tragic incident in Buffalo is a prime example of the consequences of United management’s approach.*****
We have an obligation to our members and to the public safety to stand up and fight United’s outsourcing and offshoring - a strategy that is purely designed to put profits before safety.
United has close to 40 contracts with foreign carriers that it uses for international flights, which has eliminated thousands of U.S. jobs.
Further, the outsourcing to regional carriers has compromised the safety of travelers, as pilots with less training and experience than United flight crews are flying long hours for little pay, often into challenging airports and airspace. It should come as no surprise that a significant number of the incidents involving pilot errors, and virtually every airline crash in the U.S. for years now, have occurred with such outsourced pilots in the cockpit. The loss of life in the incidents in Buffalo and Louisville are but two such examples.
Against this backdrop, we have been working for some time to negotiate a fair deal with United that was seeking to address these issues of offshoring and outsourcing.
During the merger with Continental, the company pledged to Congress in oversight hearings that once the two companies merged, they would once and for all complete a fair deal with us.
Management has not made good on this pledge, which is merely the latest in a series of misrepresentations.
We made multiple concessions after 9/11 to support the company, including lay-offs.
Too many of our pilots have not been rehired, as United replaced them through outsourcing and offshoring.
We lost our pensions during the bankruptcy.
We listened to the company's representations before and during the merger.*****
We have seen them intentionally delay the negotiations so they can continue to outsource and offshore jobs.
And still the pilots at United and Continental Airlines are working under bankruptcy concession contracts.
Time and time again, United management has made clear that they will say one thing to us and then do another thing when it comes to actions vs. words.
Throughout all of this, there is one unmistakable, irrefutable, immutable lesson derived from the company's actions: United's strategy is to cut costs and compromise safety by offshoring and outsourcing our jobs. Their continued insistence of increased outsourcing in the new contract is testimony.
Attached to this email, please find a confidential analysis, THE UNFRIENDLY SKIES: UNITED AIRLINES AND THE OFFSHORING AND OUTSOURCING OF U.S. JOBS, which documents the company's outsourcing of American jobs since September 11, 2001.*****
This report reveals that if the company continues on its current course, United will eventually eliminate all of our jobs and replace us with less experienced and in many cases foreign workers. That is exactly why you received a letter from me Saturday explaining the rationale for why we might seek a "release" from our Section 6 negotiations under the RLA, which would allow us to pursue specific actions in relationship to management's refusal to negotiate in good faith.*****
I encourage you to read this report, as it shows how we worked with United in the wake of the 9/11 attacks – and in doing so helped save the airline from going out of business. In the years since 9/11, the airline has exploited the situation in many different ways, to include offshoring flights and outsourcing jobs. The result is compromised safety for passengers and loss of jobs for U.S. pilots – all the while United executives continue to pay themselves multi-million dollar compensation packages.
We Are United*****
Captain Jay Heppner
Chairman, United MEC
· Captain Heppner: Reality Check -- Time To Wake Up
· Tuesday's Agenda
Captain Heppner: Reality Check -- Time To Wake Up
MEC Chairman Captain Jay Heppner opened the week-long
MEC Meeting in Chicago with his address to the MEC.
Dear United Pilots,
It is time for a reality check about what are increasingly becoming unfriendly skies for United Airlines pilots as it relates to our contract negotiations. Based on the facts discussed below, as it relates to the management of United’s strategy to slow walk the negotiations so they can continue to outsource and offshore pilot jobs, we now have no recourse but to take steps to*****formally execute a release from our Section 6 negotiations under the Railway Labor Act (RLA) on April 30*****if United management does not commit to completing these negotiations by June 1. We have waited two years and made no progress – if executing a release is what is necessary to make sure U.S. commercial airlines jobs go to U.S. pilots and the safety of U.S. airline passengers is put first, we are ready.
It is now clear that United's management strategy is really just to fly in a holding pattern when it comes to these negotiations, seeking to fly in circles so that the longer we work without a contract, the more aggressive United can be about offshoring and outsourcing our jobs -- and not working to honor the commitment pilots made to the company dating back to 9/11.
The facts speak for themselves:
· Executive level decision makers at United refused to attend our negotiations at all in 2011, and only once since being held in the same city where these executives live and work.
· For nearly 24 months we have negotiated with little progress on the core issues related to the offshoring and outsourcing of our jobs.
· Throughout the entire negotiations, while saying one thing, United has continued to outsource to regional carriers and seek agreements to ultimately outsource all international flying at the expense of U.S. workers in America. Meanwhile United Airlines alone has 1,437 pilots who were laid off because of 9/11 and merger schemes, and they continue to be grounded.
· As the company moves forward post-merger, without contractual protections, it will continue to outsource domestic, and ultimately international, flying to the detriment of safety and U.S. jobs.
· And while the company talks about needing to be competitive it continues to compensate its executives at very non-competitive levels.
Simply put, enough is enough.*****
We are at a decisive moment in time when it comes to the offshoring and outsourcing of our jobs. This has implications for our ability to earn a fair wage for a fair day's work, the capacity for the United States to have a highly trained U.S-based commercial pilot work-force, and the safety of U.S. airline passengers.
As you are well aware, following 9/11, United pilots stood up and worked to help save the U.S. airline industry from going out of business, including substantial pay cuts, watching fellow pilots laid off and, subsequently, losing our pensions.*****
We agreed to economic sacrifices out of a belief that everyone needed to do their part and our trust in United's representations that once back on its feet, the company would honor our commitment by bringing back our pilots.
However, more than a decade after 9/11, United pilots are still laid off and the company, whose executives are compensated as well as any commercial airline executives in the marketplace, rather than hire U.S. pilots, has aggressively moved to increase its STAR Alliance partners, while securing Global Antitrust Immunity in the recent UAL/CAL Atlantic ++ Antitrust agreement approved in 2009. This agreement allows Open Skies in not only the Atlantic arena, but also in the South American and Pacific regions.
Offshoring of U.S. pilot jobs is an almost certain outcome without negotiated protections that we do not currently have in our contract that was stripped during Bankruptcy. A consequence of this action will be the compromising of safety for our passengers as both inexperienced and foreign pilots will be in our customer’s cockpits. The tragic incident in Buffalo is a prime example of the consequences of United management’s approach.*****
We have an obligation to our members and to the public safety to stand up and fight United’s outsourcing and offshoring - a strategy that is purely designed to put profits before safety.
United has close to 40 contracts with foreign carriers that it uses for international flights, which has eliminated thousands of U.S. jobs.
Further, the outsourcing to regional carriers has compromised the safety of travelers, as pilots with less training and experience than United flight crews are flying long hours for little pay, often into challenging airports and airspace. It should come as no surprise that a significant number of the incidents involving pilot errors, and virtually every airline crash in the U.S. for years now, have occurred with such outsourced pilots in the cockpit. The loss of life in the incidents in Buffalo and Louisville are but two such examples.
Against this backdrop, we have been working for some time to negotiate a fair deal with United that was seeking to address these issues of offshoring and outsourcing.
During the merger with Continental, the company pledged to Congress in oversight hearings that once the two companies merged, they would once and for all complete a fair deal with us.
Management has not made good on this pledge, which is merely the latest in a series of misrepresentations.
We made multiple concessions after 9/11 to support the company, including lay-offs.
Too many of our pilots have not been rehired, as United replaced them through outsourcing and offshoring.
We lost our pensions during the bankruptcy.
We listened to the company's representations before and during the merger.*****
We have seen them intentionally delay the negotiations so they can continue to outsource and offshore jobs.
And still the pilots at United and Continental Airlines are working under bankruptcy concession contracts.
Time and time again, United management has made clear that they will say one thing to us and then do another thing when it comes to actions vs. words.
Throughout all of this, there is one unmistakable, irrefutable, immutable lesson derived from the company's actions: United's strategy is to cut costs and compromise safety by offshoring and outsourcing our jobs. Their continued insistence of increased outsourcing in the new contract is testimony.
Attached to this email, please find a confidential analysis, THE UNFRIENDLY SKIES: UNITED AIRLINES AND THE OFFSHORING AND OUTSOURCING OF U.S. JOBS, which documents the company's outsourcing of American jobs since September 11, 2001.*****
This report reveals that if the company continues on its current course, United will eventually eliminate all of our jobs and replace us with less experienced and in many cases foreign workers. That is exactly why you received a letter from me Saturday explaining the rationale for why we might seek a "release" from our Section 6 negotiations under the RLA, which would allow us to pursue specific actions in relationship to management's refusal to negotiate in good faith.*****
I encourage you to read this report, as it shows how we worked with United in the wake of the 9/11 attacks – and in doing so helped save the airline from going out of business. In the years since 9/11, the airline has exploited the situation in many different ways, to include offshoring flights and outsourcing jobs. The result is compromised safety for passengers and loss of jobs for U.S. pilots – all the while United executives continue to pay themselves multi-million dollar compensation packages.
We Are United*****
Captain Jay Heppner
Chairman, United MEC
