Things are really heating up in the battle to install an independent union at Delta Air Lines. Someone at the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA) leaked a personal letter between the President of American's Allied Pilots Association (APA) and ALPA's newly installed President, Lee Moak and The Delta MEC's newly installed Master Chairman, Tim O'Malley. The Delta Pilots Association's response was very interesting. You can read it all here . . .
DPA Response to APA Letter Leaked by ALPA
To all Delta Pilots, CAPA members and those also concerned,
In case you are unaware, Delta Pilots are in a battle over the future of our pilot representation at Delta Air Lines.
The following letter will attempt to provide you with a deeper understanding of ALPA’s conflicted nature and the methods it uses to manipulate Pilot sentiment. To grasp the full intended meaning of this letter, it is wise to read the attached links as you come upon them.
A recent letter from Captain Dave Bates, President of Allied Pilots Association (APA), to ALPA regarding the Delta Pilots Association was leaked onto several public forums today. DPA has been expecting this leak since late January, but chose to let ALPA show how it is using American Pilots in its defense against DPA. DPA was content to keep American Pilots insulated from the Delta battle by not dragging Captain Bates’ letter into the spotlight, but ALPA has chosen to continue the misuse of their relationship with APA instead.
The following timeline of events and associated explanations will help you clearly see the attempts by Captain Prater and Captain Moak, the previous and current ALPA National presidents, to manipulate American and Delta Pilots in an effort to squelch the advances of DPA.
On November 5th, 2010, American Airlines Pilots were brought onto the battlefield unwittingly when Captain Prater wrote to the ALPA membership about APA’s decision to hire ALPA for negotiation services. Here are some quotes from that letter from Captain Prater (then ALPA President) below:
"I believe it is in the best interest of ALPA and our members to use our resources and expertise to assist the APA in its negotiating process and continue our efforts to enhance contracts through positive pattern bargaining.
"At the same time, we recognize that our first responsibility is to our members, particularly the pilots at EGL [American Eagle]. This is why the EGL leadership has been involved in these discussions and in our decision to move forward with this services agreement.
"It also is why our agreement with the APA requires that we not perform any work that, in our judgment, will negatively affect ALPA pilot groups or interfere with our representation obligations to our members. The APA leadership understands and respects our concerns.
"This is a very difficult, complex, and important negotiation. I believe we should proceed to work with the APA and its new leadership team in an effort to move the profession forward for the benefit of all professional pilots."
DPA responded to that letter by reaching out to APA via telephone and letter on December 13th, 2010 to introduce DPA and caution APA about the dissatisfaction of the current DALPA membership with the services provided by our representation. We also wanted to understand how they would deal with the obvious limitation ALPA had placed on the relationship when letting APA know they couldn’t harm EGL. They will have no option but to recuse ALPA when it comes to the large portion of the contract that deals with Scope issues. Delta pilots do not have that option, only independent unions have the luxury of choosing who they hire. I included the following letter of introduction to Captain Bates:
DPA Letter of Introduction to APA
On January 25th, 2011, more than one month later, I received the following email from Captain Bates:
Email from Captain Bates to Tim Caplinger
Captain Bates’ letter came as a complete surprise as it was totally contrary to the essence of our telephone conversation. Our conversation was marked by mutual support and a positive introduction to our future relationship. Some inconsistencies are as follows:
1. “I want to be perfectly clear. In my opinion, a breakaway from ALPA would likely prove highly disadvantageous for the pilots at Delta and destructive to our profession. When APA broke away from ALPA in 1963 the labor environment for airline pilots in the United States was far different than it is today. JFK was the President at the time and had recently come out strongly in favor of organized pilots in the Southern Airways dispute of 1962. American’s pilots prospered during the benign days of regulation which ended abruptly with the onset of deregulation.”
This paragraph begins with a statement that is not supported by any opinion of how a breakaway would be disadvantageous or destructive. It then switches to an unrelated topic with little bearing on our situation. One could argue the Pilots at American Airlines actually benefited from deregulation. Post deregulation, the AA pilot group became the largest pilot group in the industry for a period of time. Ask the AA pilots that sat on the 707 panel for a decade, before deregulation, how fast they went from the Back Seat to the Left Seat and how large their retirement income is compared to their AA peers that retired before deregulation. History shows that the AA pilots benefited more from deregulation, than any other pilot group.
2. “I have always thought it is better to work within the existing political framework to achieve reform than by wreaking havoc upon one’s organization. After I was hired at American, I led the battle against the two tier pay system – not by trying to tear things apart, but by working within the system. Ultimately, with patience and perseverance, we prevailed.”
This paragraph suggests we are “wreaking havoc” and “tearing things apart”. I suggest DPA is unifying the Delta Pilot group toward a common goal – achieving superior representation through independence from a conflicted, wasteful structure. Also, many Delta Pilots have attempted to change ALPA through getting involved and submitting resolutions. Those attempts have been quashed at every level and DPA members know that this level of change is impossible from within.
3. “I view the Seham law firm as an organization which has done significant harm for a very long time to American organized labor. Over the years they have tried to raid nearly every union in the airline industry and succeeded in decertifying AFA/IBT/IAM and ALPA. Their predecessor firm, Seham, Klien & Zelman, represented management at a number of airlines and steamship companies and helped break unions at El Al and indirectly assisted Frank Lorenzo at Eastern Airlines.”
“Shortly after the Sehams were dismissed at APA, they began coordinating with a pro-management dissident group at American called the AICA which has been trying to destabilize and decertify APA. They are also involved on American’s property in a decertification effort with the TWU and were heavily involved with the disaster which occurred with the mechanics at Northwest.”
These paragraphs attempt to cast doubt on a legal firm that has already provided DPA with outstanding service. DPA sought out Seham, Seham, Meltz and Petersen, LLP, primarily because it is highly successful at accomplishing what its client wants. USAPA hired this firm to help them decertify ALPA. They accomplished that. Below please find a letter of praise from Captain Prater to Marty Seham and an additional accolade from Captain Chesley (Sully) Sullenberger of USAir. DPA is confident that we will be successful in decertifying ALPA and Seham, Seham, Meltz and Petersen, LLP, will assist us in that task.
Letter from Captain Prater to Marty Seham
Letter from Captain Chesley (Sully) Sullenberger to Lee Seeham
4. “I hope that you will carefully evaluate your present course of action. I know that institutional inertia is a difficult thing to overcome, however I think that a Delta breakaway from ALPA would further fracture and destabilize our profession and play right into the hands of management. I am working in exactly the opposite direction – trying to move pilot unions closer together. It might interest you to know that APA has recently signed a services agreement with ALPA to help APA in its efforts to negotiate a new collective bargaining agreement.”
This paragraph points to the duress under which the letter was written. The last sentence is written as if to inform DPA for the first time that APA has hired ALPA. This information is the heart of our December 13th conversation and the primary reason I called.
5. “Please do not continue to misrepresent my position. I stand strongly behind the leadership at ALPA and have been working diligently to forge closer cooperation and coordination between APA and ALPA. To be clear, I will yield my veto power at CAPA to defeat any attempts by the DPA to make any sort of overtures to CAPA.”
This paragraph is particularly interesting. Captain Bates refers to “misrepresenting my position” yet does not delineate how that is occurring. He does not quote DPA nor ask us to change specific wording in any publication. The vagueness of this request gives me no guidance on what may be incorrect. He then refers to “yield my veto power at CAPA”. Membership into CAPA is approved by a simple majority vote of the five Directors. It is CAPA policy that no member of the Board of Directors has “veto power”. American is one of the Directors, but does not hold special “veto power”. DPA is confident Delta Pilots will be an asset to that organization.
Judging by the inconsistency and incoherence of the letter from APA President Captain Dave Bates, we have to assume ALPA has exerted extreme pressure on Captain Bates to assist them in damage control. You will note remarkable similarities between the email from Captain Bates to DPA and the letter leaked by ALPA, but you can feel the stress Captain Bates was under when he wrote them. The letter was written as if he made these statements under duress, similar to a POW being forced to make a statement of propaganda on camera. The leaked letter has clearly been polished by ALPA communicators.
In the January/February 2011 issue of Air Line Pilot magazine, ALPA President Captain Lee Moak responds to the interviewer’s question “What are the greatest threats to ALPA today?” Captain Moak responds with, “Independent “unions” are one of the greatest threats.” This stands in utter opposition to the comment by Captain Prater that, “In 2008, the ALPA Board of Directors, in establishing the strategic priorities for the union, reaffirmed a 1998 Executive Board resolution regarding interaction with independent pilot unions. This resolution included provisions for ALPA to provide services to be paid for under a services agreement, acknowledgment of the services agreement, and inclusion of the means to establish closer relationships in the future.”
Apparently, through establishing this service agreement with the independent union representing American Airlines Pilots, ALPA determined that independent unions should benefit from the use of OUR RESOURCES. ALPA member dues brought these resources into existence and now these resources are being used to aid and abet what Captain Moak believes to be “one of the greatest threats” to ALPA. “Our resources” should be used for the sole benefit of the members who pay for them, not our competition.
This issue boils down to one simple problem, failed leadership. ALPA leadership has forgotten what is most important to its very survival, protecting and enhancing the MAINLINE jobs that brought ALPA into existence in the 1920’s. ALPA leadership chooses to support the competition for our jobs by using “Our Resources” to assist regional carriers and independent unions that seek to obtain our flying and, therefore, our livelihoods. Even worse, ALPA is now LEGALLY BOUND to these conflicted relationships or face Breach of Contract lawsuits or Duty of Fair Representation lawsuits from these entities.
Captain Moak continues to reveal the confusion prevailing at ALPA National when he states in the same answer to the “greatest threat” question that, “Going it alone is never successful.” The Pilots of APA have hired the services of an organization that believes APA, an independent union, can never be successful. The fruits of that service agreement are certainly questionable at best. Evidently, the Pilots of Southwest Airlines or other independent unions can never be successful as well.
Clearly, the lack of a long term strategic plan for ALPA has allowed confusion and irreconcilable conflicts to creep into the very roots of the organization. Delta Pilots no longer need tolerate the lack of leadership. We have an option and we are exercising it.
DPA views APA as unfortunate POWs in a battle waged on other soil. We do not hold any contempt for APA leadership or American Pilots and sympathize with the pressure they are now experiencing. We remain resolved to one day stand with American pilots and all other members of CAPA to seek industry-wide solutions to problems facing the profession. We do not take this letter as an affront to DPA nor do we believe it will have any lasting impact on our departure from ALPA.
DPA members need to realize the war has begun and the soldiers need to report for duty. DPA expected foul play to rear its ugly head in this battle. ALPA has mastered the art of manipulation of pilot sentiments and this event is no exception. It is unfortunate that APA members were brought into the middle of the duel by ALPA. When ALPA trumpeted to its members about APA hiring its services, it directly involved APA in the fight.
DPA will stay on the high ground and continue seeking what is best for Delta Pilots. All DPA Members are reminded to maintain a high standard of professional behavior as this contest progresses.
We wish our future brothers and sisters at American Airlines success in their next contract and highly recommend they keep a sharp eye on the scope negotiations in progress. ALPA cannot harm EGL, so it will be up to the pilots of American to take that flying back should they desire it. Good luck ladies and gentlemen of APA. We stand with you despite this momentary turbulence. DPA looks forward to joining the formation flight of independent associations to a new destination of success.
Sincerely,
Tim Caplinger
Interim President
Delta Pilots Association
For a Complete PDF of this Document Click Here (file size 1.1MB)
Thursday, February 10, 2011
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