The gift that keeps on giving........
[background=rgb(245, 245, 245)]Why - it was Dave Ciabattoni of course! And my take is that Dave is still taking advice from Seham. No, I am NOT kidding. Not only does this sound like the kind of crap that Seham would concoct, but consider the background:[/background][/sizeI]
[background=rgb(245, 245, 245)]Compass Correction is the creation of Dave Ciabattoni, USAPA's current Grievance Committee Chairman. He has authored nearly all of the Compass Correction updates even though he has his surrogates sign them. Dave is one hell of a politician, but to anybody that has been paying attention – like me – has noticed that he is really a Mike Cleary but without the psychosis or constantly wearing his emotions on his sleeves. In fact, Mike and Dave were VERY good friends for 20+ years right up until they both became USAPA Officers in 2009 and their gigantic egos clashed.[/background]
[background=rgb(245, 245, 245)]Dave is very good at creating giant messes, but then escaping blame for them, and then positioning himself as a hero.[/background]
[background=rgb(245, 245, 245)]Dave was the PHL (Council 41) FO Rep on the East MEC, and the “DOH or death” strategy that MEC employed was predominantly led by him. He was the one to convince a majority of the other MEC members that their merger attorney and the arbitrator were WRONG, and he threatened to remove any merger committee members that even THOUGHT about backing away from date of hire.[/background]
[background=rgb(245, 245, 245)]During that time, Dave made “buddies” with a few West pilots with similar meat-head mentalities. Of course, Dave could really care less about them, but he found that they were naive and gullible enough to trust him. Dave used these “friendships” as a weapon against the West MEC by feeding “information” to them that would end up on U-Turn. In fact, I think Dave even wrote some of the U-Turns himself.[/background]
[background=rgb(245, 245, 245)]When the Nicolau Award came out, Dave QUICKLY jumped on-board the USAPA bandwagon. He buddied up with Bradford and became USAPA’s #1 spy on the East MEC. While on ALPA flight pay loss, Dave spent his time working with Seham to write the USAPA Constitution. Dave also then positioned himself to become a martyr by intentionally navigating the PHL Council into trusteeship. So even though Dave is the one who really “caused” the Nicolau Award in a sense, he became a HUGE hero for fighting it.[/background]
[background=rgb(245, 245, 245)]When USAPA won the NMB election, Dave quickly cashed in on his West “friendships” by asking a couple of them to serve as USAPA reps. In exchange, his “friends” provided USAPA with AWAPPA web-board postings that were ultimately used in the RICO suit. One of those “friends” was even on USAPA’s witness lists to testify against the West pilots in the Addington trial. Oh – and by the way – those “friendships” still exist, as Dave apparently was just very recently trying to get two of them to serve as USAPA System Board members.[/background]
[background=rgb(245, 245, 245)]In 2009, Dave was elected to USAPA national office. Of course, shortly into his term, USAPA lost the Addington trial, and the union was beginning to fail miserably. One more time, Dave was quick to avoid responsibility for any of the mess he had a large part in creating by starting an underground movement to blame all of USAPA’s failings on Mike Cleary. In typical Dave Ciabattoni fashion, he avoided responsibility for the situation and became the martyr by publicly resigning from office, and blaming Mike Cleary for everything wrong with USAPA.[/background]
[background=rgb(245, 245, 245)]Although Dave’s public resignation was not quite as successful as he hoped initially, it did serve as the impetus for his creation of the Compass Correction. Dave also maintained his friendships with Bradford and King (also clueless, naive idiots) and began plans to put their faction back in charge of the union. First, Dave found a surrogate to run a recall campaign against Cleary. Of course, that effort failed miserably because the West didn’t support it. However, Dave knew that national officer elections were coming up, so he pooled together a few other surrogates to run for office. Dave knew that even despite his “heroics,” that the opposition could and would expose him for what he was – so Dave needed an impressionable “clean slate” candidate to run for president. That’s where Gary Hummel came in.[/background]
[background=rgb(245, 245, 245)]Gary has no union background at all, and until very recently, had never lifted a finger for the pilot group. He had served many, many years in the training department as a check airman where he earned himself a decent reputation with the pilots. However, Gary was FIRED from the training department early into USAPA’s existence. Although Gary claims that he was fired for his opposition to the “fuel school” issue, I have heard other versions of that story from more reliable sources. Nonetheless, it is undisputed that Gary was FIRED, and Gary’s termination began his “career” in the union world. And Gary’s anger combined with his complete lack of representation experience really made him fit in well with the other knuckle-heads. In fact, one of Gary’s first ideas as the training committee chair was to require that all pilots only communicate with management via certified mail![/background]
[background=rgb(245, 245, 245)]So Dave had found himself the right group of puppets to seek national office, and his plan worked. Of course, both Bradford and Hummel, having really no CLUE about union matters, were relying heavily upon Dave for advice and guidance. In fact, for all intents and purposes, Dave has effectively been the USAPA President since April. The decision to appoint Burdick (one of Dave’s West “friends”) to the NAC and Stravers to the MC were all part of Dave’s subtle but evil plan to play West politics again. You have to admit – Dave is a hell of alot smarter than Cleary was. Cleary’s overtly hostile actions did nothing but unify us. Dave – having every bit as much contempt for us as Cleary did – knew that he could divide us by playing a very delicate game of West politics. [/background]
[background=rgb(245, 245, 245)]Remember that in Cleary’s final weeks, he ran a vilification campaign against Seham, and fired his firm. The Bradford / Hummel crowd – as guided by Dave Ciabattoni - defended Seham and continued to communicate directly with him. Seham too capitalized on Cleary’s failures as a means to clear his firm of any blame, and to try to keep a line in on the money flow from the US Airways pilots.[/background]
[background=rgb(245, 245, 245)]So – things seemed to be going well for Dave Ciabattoni and his hand-picked USAPA officers, but then came the MOU and it really threw a wrench into things. USAPA’s trusted outside advisors STRONGLY advised Hummel and Bradford to take the deal on the table, for many of the same reasons we have discussed here. But Dave – an obstructionist at heart - didn’t like that plan, and he left Hummel and Bradford high and dry. It is rumored that Dave is the author of the BPR update that helped sink the MOU, as well as the author of the recent Compass Corrections. Once again, Dave is positioning himself to be the guy who saved the US Airways pilots from another “cram down,” and Seham is positioning himself to be the guy who once again tells the US Airways pilots what they want to hear (for a small fee of course). And both Dave and Seham are being very careful to keep their names out of the press until the time is right. [/background]
[background=rgb(245, 245, 245)]I firmly believe that Dave Ciabattoni and Lee Seham are looking to make a comeback, and are using this MOU as the proper platform to do it. In the meantime, we have a completely clueless officer corps, a BPR that is being heavily influenced by Dave Ciabattoni and Lee Seham, and a disjointed, confused rank and file that really has no choice but to trust management more than the union.[/background]
