Found on the internet------Subject: Re: What Happened in that closed door BPR Meeting? Here it is....
[background=transparent][sup]I wrote a letter this week demanding that the BPR open the proceedings of the special session closed door meeting on the MOU and allow us to find out what happened in that meeting. In that meeting, they voted to send the MOU out to the pilots and then voted unanimously to approve it.[/sup][/background]
[background=transparent][background=transparent][sup]Spike, Mike Gillies, Bill McKee, Steve Crimi and Dwight Ingram subsequently asked that the proceedings of that meeting be made available to the pilots to show how the decisions were derived. They were not asking to divulge information on the MOU which is not allowed under the terms of the NDA that USAPA agreed to as a condition to negotiate. However, that request was voted down by a 6 to 5 vote.[/sup][/background][/background]
[background=transparent][sup][background=transparent]USAPA was founded with the promise of transparency. Gary Hummel ran his election on that promise and Steve Bradford made that promise repeatedly during the campaign to replace ALPA with USAPA. In addition, it seems that these six representatives cast their vote in a self-serving effort to keep vital information from us just to protect themselves. [/background]
I was not asking for confidential information concerning the MOU, but wanted information about how we got the MOU and why each BPR representative voted the way he did. There is no reason that this information should not be made public. It has nothing to do with the NDA and the APA has made its meetings public without giving any information on their MOU. We need this information to make better decisions on upcoming elections and to decide if several BPR members should be re-called. So, if the BPR had nothing to hide then they should have no reason to hide anything. But once again we see USAPA morphing into ALPA under this leadership in that secret meetings take place, efforts are made to hide the truth about what happened in those meetings, and decisions are made behind closed doors that have wide ranging affect on our lives. Gee, sound familiar? Think pensions.[/sup][/background]
[sup][background=transparent]So, I'm not surprised that a majority of the members voted to keep that information from us. Six of them have good reason for keeping what happened secret. T[/background][background=transparent]he reason I'm not surprised that this information is being kept from us is that that the DCA Representatives Joe Stein and Pete Dugstad along with the PHX Representatives and PHL Rep Jamie Weidner voted to approve the original MOU and send this substandard MOU back to the pilots for a vote to approve it. They wanted a deal at all costs no matter how bad this MOU was.[/background][/sup]
[background=transparent][sup]They were backed by Gary Hummel, Steve Bradford and the NAC along with our attorneys. They all said the company needed this deal and this was the best we would get. A tremendous amount of pressure for a 'yes' vote was being exerted by these people. All that was needed was a cave in by those that felt we could do better and that it was now or never.
As the discussion began, it was obvious that our leadership and our advisers along with these Reps were just giving the company line by trying to convince the more skeptical Reps and explained how they can't make changes because they feared the company wouldn't accept them and would pull the MOU. Fear and a pathological need to "just get along" was the driving force here. They were channeling Parker and Kirby.[/sup][/background]
[background=transparent][sup]Hearing enough to turn his stomach, Charlotte representative Steve Crimi all but stopped the proceedings, jumped up and demanded that these other representatives send the MOU back to the company to get better terms. This was the same MOU negotiated in secret by Hummel and the NAC that previously the BPR unanimously voted NOT to support and were now asking for a reversal. From what I understand Crimi got very heated with each of these individual pro MOU reps, Hummel, the NAC and the attorneys. He especially had it out with Jamie Weidner since he represents the PHL pilots and was the only rep from that base willing to cave in.[/sup][/background]
[background=transparent][sup]Crimi and the other reps with him understood that it was useless to try to convince the the DCA Reps and they were never going to take a tough stand and vote for a better deal. But it did not deter Crimi nor the other Reps that supported his position. Jamie Weidner refused to budge in spite of the pressure that Spike and Mike Gillies exerted to force Weidner to side with them on this. By Weidner's actions, the BPR now had a 6 to 5 split to keep this substandard MOU costing us tens of millions. [/sup][/background]
[background=transparent][sup]This meeting got even more and more contentious as it continued with five representatives demanding more from the company and the other six representatives willing to take whatever the company was willing to give us. But these five knew they had some leverage and by their refusal to back down, demanded the MOU be sent back to be renegotiated. [/sup][/background][background=transparent][sup]The results are that we now can thank Philly Representatives Spike and Mike Gillies and Charlotte representatives Bill McKee, Steve Crimi and Dwight Ingram for their steadfastness and insight. Also, a big thank you goes out to Paul DiOrio that pointed out the deficiencies in the first MOU and where we could do better. I understand we now have an MOU that may be industry leading in many respects. Thank God we have men courageous enough to do the right thing.[/sup][/background]
[background=transparent][sup]What was this leverage? During this meeting, the BPR was told that the company wanted the BPR to approve the MOU so they could take it to the Unsecured Creditors Meeting. These five representatives quickly understood that we had some leverage and we were not taking advantage of it. These five representatives by refusing to support the MOU, forced the union to send it back to the company with new demands, thereby forcing the company to give us substantially better terms. As I understand it the company also wanted a unanimous BPR vote for the MOU to show the Creditors that USAPA was on their side and again these five representatives once again used that knowledge as leverage forcing the company to give us an even better MOU. The company needed something from us and we wanted something from them. This is how negotiations work. Quid pro quo.
I can tell you right now that more information will eventually come out. We will be able to compare the original MOU with the one we got. The information I am providing here just tells us how we got it. We have a right to know and by keeping this a secret just makes it worse for those involved. I can understand there may have been some fear if this had backfired. But it did not thanks to the five courageous reps and we now have a much better MOU. We elect people on the basis that they will fight for us, recognize when we can use leverage to get better terms and are supposed to make the tough decisions. If you're not willing to stand up for the pilots you represent and not willing to make tough choices to get us the best deal we can, then please set step aside and allow people that will or Weidner's case, we will elect someone that can. This is why elections count and why having a "yes" man on the PHL BPR almost tipped the vote 6 to 5 in favor of a terrible MOU.
I started hearing rumors as to what happened so I began to check those rumors out to separate fact from fiction. I never asked and no one volunteered any information on the specifics of the MOU. The information I have comes from several different sources. No one pilot representative, officer or committee member has given me all this information, but all of these sources told the same story. Some of you have heard much of what I am writing about here already. One thing that rings true is that if we had a united Board and leaders, we probably would've gotten more in the MOU. I have heard that we left about $200 million on the table that should have gone to us if we had been more united. The company has used this disunity to keep us where we are for all these years, yet we seem to continue to shoot ourselves down. Maybe we need to go back to strong, well defined leadership not specializing in giving us the company line.[/sup][/background]
[background=transparent][sup]For the more skeptical of you that somehow this information may not be true, the vote to withhold that information on the meeting was voted 6 to 5 to keep it all a secret. That vote more than any evidence I can give you points to the evidence of what happened. The rest is all just fill-in. [/sup][/background]
