This is a response to a posting by Alexis Boilini on another message board by Jeff Bott, former APFA Vice President. It also mentions the errors of Art Cline's posts.
Alexis,
While I would like nothing better than to not have to respond to your message, leaving it alone would give the impression that it is correct and truthful. Since it is not, I proceed. Correcting your untruthful statements is not about getting votes for anybody from my vantage point. When you choose to attack others in a maligning manner with factual inaccuracies, they won’t go unanswered.
First, I was responding to your message. You started the exchange, so there was nothing for you to get sucked into. You made the choice to leave a message that involved others and me, and I responded to that message. Yet now you twist and attempt to make it sound like I attacked you. Not so.
Next, the message I wrote to Art responded to his inaccurate attacks on Laura. I pointed out where his facts were flawed. I can’t change what happened regardless of how it portrays you and others. Reread what I said about Laura. “No negotiator worked harder than Laura.†I stand behind that statement. This is not just my opinion, but also many of the board members at that time as well. Take a look at her website and see those who are supporting her.
Your account of the last hours of negotiations in 2001 is incorrect and fabricated. Everything was not done. Problems obviously arose after we left the NMB. Negotiations continued and there was no agreement as you say. Contrary to your assertion, the matter was serious enough that John was contacted by the mediator, Linda Puchala that evening, and he attempted to involve Norm Mineta to no avail. Otherwise, there would not have been the struggle that ensued afterward that Laura successfully resolved. You acknowledge that fact but try to taint the intent. You wrap the events in a cloak of conspiracy (a conspiracy to obtain the industry leading wages we were seeking?) because it is the only way you can justify transpiring of events and your being absent. Arguing with you about what happened that night any further serves no useful purpose. You acknowledged that you weren’t there and thus cannot respond with anything other than conjecture about what you believe happened.
The next morning, you had no complaints of any clandestine plot. You blamed us for “caving†and used what had transpired as a shield from responsibility. You did not recognize the contract as industry leading. You stated and I quote: “the winners are coming over to shake hands with the losersâ€. Once you realized the membership was pleased with the results, your tune changed.
As far as the extension of recall rights for furloughees, John has stated that you tried to achieve this during the RPA negotiations but were unsuccessful. Are you now saying that you really didn’t try to achieve this and John’s statement was false? Or is this really sour grapes because we were able to help accomplish something that you could not? I have not been involved in board discussions, so I can’t speak to what the board does or does not know. Since you are not a board member, you obviously are repeating something someone else is telling you anyways. It is my understanding that there a resolution that was passed unanimously by the board that supports and seeks this result, so I have a hard time seeing how you can call this matter clandestine.
Your statement about the 777 award is an outright lie. It seems as if you have been able to replicate your self-admitted ability to manipulate numbers to manipulating facts as well. I was very upset when told that you were contemplating giving up the award. I brought a copy of the award to the Learning Center to each of you and requested you read it before you decided to give it up (since none of you had looked at it and knew it only by name rather than content). You went ahead without even complying with my request. Only you five table members had votes as to what would go into the RPA. You, Art, and Thelma voted to give up the award. John and Laura did not. That is the truth. You voted on it with me right there. Fortunately the Company erroneously believed they could circumvent the award without paying for it. Only because of the Company’s short sightedness were we able to use the methodology in the award later as related to the 737. As I’ve already stated, our use of that methodology generated the money to eradicate the most egregious short layover rest.
Since you like to paint the picture that I “cave†and give in to fear, let’s skip the rhetoric and look at the facts. I point this out merely to show that the facts don’t support your suggestion, since I am not even a candidate for office. First in the RPA, the only thing I negotiated was healthcare. We fought off Company changes to our healthcare, upped our 1 million-lifetime max for actives to 5 million (which wasn’t achieved in 2001), covered psychotherapeutic drugs for actives and retirees, added spousal insurance and a vision plan option, and incorporated our health care for the first time ever. Are there any other improvements in the RPA?
After my team worked for over a year on the 777 staffing and won an arbitration award of over 8 million dollars, I protected that award by negotiating title to two Super 80s as collateral and interest on the money until American paid it in full. I also negotiated the ability for flight attendants to use the money for extra vacation days since they lost vacation in the RPA. I will put my record up against yours any day of the week. This will illustrate the real picture of what you have negotiated and what I have negotiated and who forced the Company to do what. We can thereby measure results instead of rhetoric.
You comments on your numerical skills and the RPA sound like “waffling†and reminds me of your conduct in 2001. Others “caved†but you knew better. I can’t really tell from your writing whether your purported mathematical skills concluded that we did reach that limit of figuratively “throwing up our arms†and walking away or not. It seems your ambiguity is purposeful and with good reason. If you say we did reach that point, then you contradict what John is saying on his website. If you say we didn’t reach that point, then why not just say so or why bring it up at all? (maybe because then you would have to put yourself in the very “caver†category you fondly accuse others of being in).
As long as we are talking about results, John was in office after the restructuring agreement was in place for over a year prior to being forced out of office by the DOL and Tommie Hutto Blake being rightly installed. What did he change during that time? What did he try to get back? What did he tell the membership he was going to do? This is something we all should be thinking about.
Feel free to respond if you like. The more we go back and forth, the more your readers are going to see that you can only manipulate the facts, like you purport to do with numbers, for so long. Eventually the twist gets so tangled that even master manipulators like you can’t keep from getting tangled in the web you weave.
Jeff Bott
JFK
Jeff Bott is the former APFA Vice President during the Ward Adminstration. He is now a JFK line FA. Needless to say, he is not a supporter of John Ward, Art Cline or Alexis Boilini. It was Jeff Bott, Laura Glading and an APFA attorney who reached the final deal on the 2001 contract. The team, with Ward, had been told by the NMB that there would be no strike allowed. They would proceed directly to the PEB (arbitration) where they would go by industry standard, thereby more than likely achieving less than TA1 going into 9/11 with no contract.
Alexis,
While I would like nothing better than to not have to respond to your message, leaving it alone would give the impression that it is correct and truthful. Since it is not, I proceed. Correcting your untruthful statements is not about getting votes for anybody from my vantage point. When you choose to attack others in a maligning manner with factual inaccuracies, they won’t go unanswered.
First, I was responding to your message. You started the exchange, so there was nothing for you to get sucked into. You made the choice to leave a message that involved others and me, and I responded to that message. Yet now you twist and attempt to make it sound like I attacked you. Not so.
Next, the message I wrote to Art responded to his inaccurate attacks on Laura. I pointed out where his facts were flawed. I can’t change what happened regardless of how it portrays you and others. Reread what I said about Laura. “No negotiator worked harder than Laura.†I stand behind that statement. This is not just my opinion, but also many of the board members at that time as well. Take a look at her website and see those who are supporting her.
Your account of the last hours of negotiations in 2001 is incorrect and fabricated. Everything was not done. Problems obviously arose after we left the NMB. Negotiations continued and there was no agreement as you say. Contrary to your assertion, the matter was serious enough that John was contacted by the mediator, Linda Puchala that evening, and he attempted to involve Norm Mineta to no avail. Otherwise, there would not have been the struggle that ensued afterward that Laura successfully resolved. You acknowledge that fact but try to taint the intent. You wrap the events in a cloak of conspiracy (a conspiracy to obtain the industry leading wages we were seeking?) because it is the only way you can justify transpiring of events and your being absent. Arguing with you about what happened that night any further serves no useful purpose. You acknowledged that you weren’t there and thus cannot respond with anything other than conjecture about what you believe happened.
The next morning, you had no complaints of any clandestine plot. You blamed us for “caving†and used what had transpired as a shield from responsibility. You did not recognize the contract as industry leading. You stated and I quote: “the winners are coming over to shake hands with the losersâ€. Once you realized the membership was pleased with the results, your tune changed.
As far as the extension of recall rights for furloughees, John has stated that you tried to achieve this during the RPA negotiations but were unsuccessful. Are you now saying that you really didn’t try to achieve this and John’s statement was false? Or is this really sour grapes because we were able to help accomplish something that you could not? I have not been involved in board discussions, so I can’t speak to what the board does or does not know. Since you are not a board member, you obviously are repeating something someone else is telling you anyways. It is my understanding that there a resolution that was passed unanimously by the board that supports and seeks this result, so I have a hard time seeing how you can call this matter clandestine.
Your statement about the 777 award is an outright lie. It seems as if you have been able to replicate your self-admitted ability to manipulate numbers to manipulating facts as well. I was very upset when told that you were contemplating giving up the award. I brought a copy of the award to the Learning Center to each of you and requested you read it before you decided to give it up (since none of you had looked at it and knew it only by name rather than content). You went ahead without even complying with my request. Only you five table members had votes as to what would go into the RPA. You, Art, and Thelma voted to give up the award. John and Laura did not. That is the truth. You voted on it with me right there. Fortunately the Company erroneously believed they could circumvent the award without paying for it. Only because of the Company’s short sightedness were we able to use the methodology in the award later as related to the 737. As I’ve already stated, our use of that methodology generated the money to eradicate the most egregious short layover rest.
Since you like to paint the picture that I “cave†and give in to fear, let’s skip the rhetoric and look at the facts. I point this out merely to show that the facts don’t support your suggestion, since I am not even a candidate for office. First in the RPA, the only thing I negotiated was healthcare. We fought off Company changes to our healthcare, upped our 1 million-lifetime max for actives to 5 million (which wasn’t achieved in 2001), covered psychotherapeutic drugs for actives and retirees, added spousal insurance and a vision plan option, and incorporated our health care for the first time ever. Are there any other improvements in the RPA?
After my team worked for over a year on the 777 staffing and won an arbitration award of over 8 million dollars, I protected that award by negotiating title to two Super 80s as collateral and interest on the money until American paid it in full. I also negotiated the ability for flight attendants to use the money for extra vacation days since they lost vacation in the RPA. I will put my record up against yours any day of the week. This will illustrate the real picture of what you have negotiated and what I have negotiated and who forced the Company to do what. We can thereby measure results instead of rhetoric.
You comments on your numerical skills and the RPA sound like “waffling†and reminds me of your conduct in 2001. Others “caved†but you knew better. I can’t really tell from your writing whether your purported mathematical skills concluded that we did reach that limit of figuratively “throwing up our arms†and walking away or not. It seems your ambiguity is purposeful and with good reason. If you say we did reach that point, then you contradict what John is saying on his website. If you say we didn’t reach that point, then why not just say so or why bring it up at all? (maybe because then you would have to put yourself in the very “caver†category you fondly accuse others of being in).
As long as we are talking about results, John was in office after the restructuring agreement was in place for over a year prior to being forced out of office by the DOL and Tommie Hutto Blake being rightly installed. What did he change during that time? What did he try to get back? What did he tell the membership he was going to do? This is something we all should be thinking about.
Feel free to respond if you like. The more we go back and forth, the more your readers are going to see that you can only manipulate the facts, like you purport to do with numbers, for so long. Eventually the twist gets so tangled that even master manipulators like you can’t keep from getting tangled in the web you weave.
Jeff Bott
JFK
Jeff Bott is the former APFA Vice President during the Ward Adminstration. He is now a JFK line FA. Needless to say, he is not a supporter of John Ward, Art Cline or Alexis Boilini. It was Jeff Bott, Laura Glading and an APFA attorney who reached the final deal on the 2001 contract. The team, with Ward, had been told by the NMB that there would be no strike allowed. They would proceed directly to the PEB (arbitration) where they would go by industry standard, thereby more than likely achieving less than TA1 going into 9/11 with no contract.
