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Open Letter to Air Line Pilots Association President Lee Moak
Captain Moak,
After ALPA paid United pilots $44M in 2010 and TWA pilots $53M in 2014 to settle breached duty of fair representation (DFR) lawsuits, it’s amusing to discover ALPA President claims that $97M in litigation “settlements” is not an admission of guilt. On the other hand, it’s beyond infuriating to witness the irresponsible conduct of ALPA President after ALPA President as well as your collective inability to unify ALPA pilots instead of dividing them. Most disturbing is the union’s squandering of dues dollars in DFR legal defenses and court settlements, specifically dues dollars taken from those regional airline pilots who have suffered repeated breached DFR by ALPA and earn an annual income of less than $30,000. Captain Moak, both you and ALPA should be thankful regional airline pilots do not have the financial resources for sustained lengthy DFR litigation against ALPA. If they did, ALPA would undoubtedly cease to exist.
There was no need for you to make
“widely known” your views or ALPA’s actions in your January 22, 2014 letter (quoted in italicized font in this letter) to the ALPA membership. Your actions and inaction as well as those of the Air Line Pilots Association in the representation or more appropriately the systemic lack of representation of all regional airline pilots are well documented. First and foremost Captain Moak, how do you justify accepting an annual ALPA compensation package in excess of $500,000 when you’ve failed repeatedly and miserably as ALPA President in the representation of thousands of regional airline pilots who earn less than 10% of your annual income as ALPA President? How do you justify accepting such a ridiculous compensation package when you sit in your ALPA office speaking out of both sides of your mouth undermining the careers of thousands of regional airline pilots whose careers you’re duty bound to defend?
As the current ALPA President and former Delta MEC Chairman how do you defend your participation in the following events?
1.) The 1999 Delta MEC "RJ Plan" produced to undermine the economics of the regional jet with the objective of first blocking then significantly limiting the operation of the RJ in the Delta network.
2.) The 2003 Delta MEC "RJ70 Plan" produced to undermine the economics of the larger regional jet with the objective of blocking then significantly limiting the operation of the RJ in the Delta network.
3.) The 2003 Delta MEC-Delta management scheme designed to convince Comair pilots to fly the EMB170 for substandard pay rates.
4.) Two decades of Delta mainline pilot contract scope that has significantly limited career advancement and job security and contributed greatly to substandard pay rates, benefits and work rules for regional airline pilots.
5.) The 2012 Delta pilot working agreement you approved as ALPA President (and a Delta pilot) that knowingly violated the 2007 Ford vs. ALPA settlement agreement and negotiated the death of Comair.
In your January 22, 2014 letter you made the following statements:
“As hard as ALPA works to shape the landscape, we aren't in complete control of the industry changes underway, or company financial decisions to stop doing business like Comair…I firmly believe your Union's commitment to all pilots -- no matter what company they work for and what kind of airplane they fly -- has only gotten stronger.”
In response to those blatantly false statements, you’re invited to read the fact-based narrative Realities of the Regional Airline Industry posted on this website that clearly refutes those statements and numerous others you’ve shamelessly made without hesitation as ALPA President, further calling into question your credibility and the integrity of the Air Line Pilots Association.
“The life of pilots at Fee-for-Departure carriers is hard. Low pay, career stagnation, and aggressive management…”
Your repeated failure to admit your role and the role ALPA has played in creating these “fee for departure” consequences suffered by all regional airline pilots clearly illustrates you’re neither qualified to nor capable of advancing and defending the careers of regional airline pilots. Captain Moak, when provided the opportunity you’ve repeatedly refused to state how you as well as prior ALPA Presidents, ALPA and numerous mainline MECs have contributed greatly to the past hardships and current plight of all regional airline pilots through repeated anti-RJ tactics, destructive mainline contract scope language and the use of regional airline pilots as bargaining capital during mainline pilot contract negotiations since the early 1990s.
The most famous and infamous (if your Delta)
“hard-won” regional airline pilot contract is the one that ended the 89-day Comair pilot strike in 2001 that was intended to raise the bar in regional airline pilot contracts and reverse the concessionary trend. That contract was won due to the unity and determination of regional airline pilots and not any token “support” provided by ALPA or the ALPA President. However, ALPA and ALPA Presidents since the strike have played a significant role in ensuring those hard won gains were not only lost but more…much more…was taken from regional airline pilots. Comair pilots continued the fight well after their strike, opposing relentless attacks upon their contract by Delta executives and Comair management, as ALPA and the Delta MEC continuously undermined their efforts as a pilot group, until a concessionary contract was forced upon Comair pilots during the Delta bankruptcy in March 2007. ALPA and the Delta MEC then drove the final nails into the coffin of the Comair pilot group with the ALPA-Delta quid pro quo known as the 2012 Delta and 2013 Endeavor Air pilot working agreements.
Captain Moak, what's the difference between a pilot group committing the mortal ALPA sin of flying struck work during an ALPA pilot strike and you placing your signature of approval on the 2012 Delta pilot working agreement, resulting in the death of Comair, then placing your signature of approval on the substandard and offensive 2013 Endeavor Air pilot working agreement, ensuring Endeavor Air pilots' secured those jobs in the Delta network taken from Comair pilots? There’s a significant difference and one all regional airline pilots are confident you’ll never acknowledge or accept. A scab pilot has far more integrity than an ALPA President that first betrays a regional airline pilot group that he's duty bound to defend then publicly claims he advances and defends the careers of regional airline pilots. Captain Moak, what you lack in professional integrity you make up for in unprecedented ALPA hypocrisy.
The 2001 Comair pilot strike was not a 90-day strike as you stated in your January 22, 2014 letter. Your failure to accurately state the facts is not only expected but indicative of your way of doing business as both a former Delta MEC Chairman and the current ALPA President. ALPA pilot air safety volunteers discovered this fact during your Section 85 assault in July 2011 when you hijacked the ALPA Air Safety structure and irresponsibly compromised a 7-dacade air safety legacy, seizing complete control of an ALPA entity that was intentionally kept separate from the “political” side of the union for decades to preserve the integrity of ALPA’s reputation in the air safety arena. Your elimination of the ALPA Executive Air Safety Chairman and Vice Chairman positions and placing ALPA First Vice President Sean Cassidy (with zero air safety experience) at the helm clearly illustrated how you could neither be trusted nor make decisions that are in the best interests of the union. Despite unselfish efforts from dedicated long-serving ALPA pilot air safety volunteers, to keep you from doing so in order to preserve the integrity of a once proud and credible ALPA institution, you unfortunately achieved your objective.
After regional airline ALPA MECs were provided a detailed narrative of how Section 85 would compromise the ALPA Air Safety structure as well as your underhanded and deceitful tactics to achieve your objective, numerous MECs voted for Section 85, despite agreeing with the recommendation to reject it, doing so out of fear ALPA and the ALPA President would later impose sanctions upon any MEC that voted against Section 85 when ALPA resources were required. Despite this ill-conceived extortion logic, ALPA negotiated the death of Comair in the 2012 Delta pilot working agreement and has contributed significantly to the impending demise of other regional airline pilot groups that voted for Section 85.
Regional airline pilots are no longer fooled by your lip service Captain Moak. They understand the systemic conflict of interest that exists within ALPA and that any “support” provided by the union is token at best. Nothing will change in the regional airline industry until all regional airline ALPA pilot groups wise up and decertify the union on their respective property, then organize a union that will ensure their careers are advanced as well as defended and not just provide lip service. An ALPA President that continuously and shamelessly speaks out of both sides of his mouth without hesitation will only accelerate that process.
“ALPA is unyielding in its mission. Our Union will devote its full resources to protect and improve the careers of all our members. In the end, we are all pilots. And I believe in pilots – period.”
Your statement is amusing to say the least Captain Moak, since it directly contradicts your track record as ALPA President, ALPA’s entrenched mainline opposition to the regional jet and the pilots who fly them, the union’s decades of breached DFR of its regional airline members, the union’s use of regional airline pilots as bargaining capital to enhance mainline pilot contracts, the union’s participation in creating two classes of airline pilots as well as the actions attributed to you and ALPA in Comair’s demise and the union’s role in the impending demise of numerous other regional airlines. Most amusing Captain Moak is the fact the statement has come from not only the ALPA President but the ALPA President who is also a former Chairman of an MEC with a rich history of opposing the regional jet and the pilots who fly them as well as an MEC that for three decades has continuously sabotaged the careers of regional airline pilots for the betterment of their own pilot group.
Captain Moak, your further comments in the February 28, 2014 USA Today article were just as amusing:
"There is a shortage of pay and benefits for pilots in the regional airline industry, not a shortage of pilots who are capable and certified to fly the airlines' equipment," said Capt. Lee Moak, president of ALPA. "Congress, labor and the industry need to work together to create an airline industry that can offer jobs that are attractive to those who are interested in a career as an airline pilot."
Captain Moak, as a longtime ALPA volunteer and Delta pilot you’re well aware of the fact that labor (i.e. ALPA) has worked together with industry (i.e. mainline air carriers) for decades but the objective was never to “create an airline industry that can offer jobs that are attractive to those who are interested in a career as an airline pilot” where a career as a regional airline pilot was concerned. On the contrary, when the regional jet was introduced in the U.S. airline industry in the early 1990s, ALPA was obsessed (and internally still is) with ensuring the regional jet would never prosper, leading to its withdrawal from the industry and later when ALPA was unsuccessful in achieving that objective, elimination from all mainline air carrier networks. To achieve this objective, mainline MECs repeatedly negotiated contracts with mainline managements using regional airline pilot groups as bargaining capital to enhance mainline scope agreements to further restrict regional jet operations in a mainline carrier's network. In the process, ALPA was a willing participant in contributing to and enabling the downward spiral of regional airline pilot contracts that you now so outspokenly criticize. Most amazing is the fact you and your predecessors never envisioned that this ill-advised cooperative working relationship would one day create such dire consequences for the union and the airlines.
Whether it’s a United Airlines’ “meet and greet” with pilots from its regional airline “partners” or any other token gesture of "reaching out" to those regional airline pilot groups repeatedly exploited by their own union, it’s amusing to witness ALPA and its president now scramble to improve upon ALPA’s illusion of representing its regional airline pilot members after decades of betrayal as the media spotlight intensifies on the “regional airline pilot hiring crisis”. Regardless, all regional airline pilots look forward to the day you appear before Congress as a “subject matter expert” and attempt to put yet more lipstick on the pig you and ALPA have created. It will undoubtedly be quite entertaining to say the least.
Captain Moak, do you think USA Today reporter Bart Jansen had any clue he was talking to the person who, along with your predecessors, has led a union that is responsible for exploiting all regional airline pilots for decades, providing token representation as mainline ALPA MECs use regional airline pilots as bargaining capital thus contributing greatly to the very same substandard regional airline pilot contracts you now so outspokenly criticize? Do you think Mr. Jansen had any clue he was talking to the union representative that was an integral part of the relentless anti-RJ practices adopted by numerous Delta MECs listed in 1 thru 5 above?
Captain Moak, did you inform Mr. Jansen your signature of approval and those of your predecessors appear on every concessionary ALPA regional airline pilot substandard contract that you now so outspokenly criticize? Did you inform Mr. Jansen, as ALPA President, your signature of approval appears at the top of the final page of the 2012 ALPA-Comair Severance Letter of Agreement (LOA 12-04) specifically excluding 70 Comair pilots (and ALPA members) on a medical leave of absence? Did you inform Mr. Jensen that ALPA profited over six million dollars from the severance agreement and still refuses to make those 70 pilots whole at a fraction of the union’s severance agreement profit? Did you inform Mr. Jansen, as ALPA President, you then turned your back on the very same Comair pilots after they requested ALPA legal representation to ensure they received severance benefits? Did you inform Mr. Jensen you then used ALPA legal resources to oppose them? Captain Moak, why would a union that’s duty bound to defend the careers of its members oppose them so aggressively?
Captain Moak, did you inform Mr. Jansen the negotiations resulting in the 2012 Delta pilot working agreement as well as the actions and inaction of the Delta MEC prior to, during and following contract negotiations violated provisions of the 2007 Ford vs. ALPA settlement agreement adopted to protect all regional airline pilots? Did you advise Mr. Jensen of your conflict of interest as the ALPA President and a Delta pilot when you approved not only the enhanced Delta pilot contract (resulting in the death of Comair) but also the concessionary Endeavor Air pilot contract that further reduced already substandard regional airline pilot pay, benefits and work rules and ensured Endeavor Air pilots would take Comair pilot jobs? Did you advise Mr. Jansen you did so to complete yet another ALPA-Delta quid pro quo?
Captain Moak, your failure to inform Mr. Jansen of any of these facts is why you possess zero credibility and integrity with regional airline pilots. Yet you continue to make irresponsible statements to those who will listen, failing each time to give the actual facts and tell an accurate story. If you do appear before Congress Captain Moak, conduct yourself in a professional manner for once since you represent all ALPA pilots and come clean. Tell Congress everything you failed to tell USA Today reporter Bart Jansen, including your role, the role of your predecessors, the role of ALPA and the role of numerous mainline ALPA MECs in working with airline managements to repeatedly exploit all regional airline pilots, using them as bargaining capital at the negotiating table. Then and only then will you and ALPA become part of the solution Captain Moak. Judging from your January 22, 2014 propaganda filled letter to the ALPA membership, all regional airline pilots are confident you will do no such thing and that’s to be expected of you Captain Moak as both the current ALPA President and a former Delta MEC Chairman. Captain Moak, if you’ve read to this point, thank you for at least taking the time to do so. If nothing else, you’re now better educated on the devastating impact ALPA’s three decades of irresponsible and self-serving actions have had upon all regional airline pilots and the airline pilot profession. Regional airline pilots are confident you were well aware of these facts prior to reading this letter but simply do not care and will not until you're forced to do so.
Excluded Pilots
