Via Fax and U.S. Mail
Mr. Paul R. Lovejoy
Senior Vice President
General Counsel and Secretary
United Airlines
1200 East Algonquin Rd.
Elk Grove Township, IL 60007
Re: Threatened Abrogation of Flight Attendant Collective Bargaining Agreement
Dear Paul,
Your letter dated May 6, 2005 neglects the real issue between the parties: United’s threatened abrogation of the Flight Attendant Collective Bargaining Agreement. United is simply incorrect in the view that it can unilaterally alter or terminate our contract without the usual consequences under the Railway Labor Act 45 U.S.C. § 151 et seq. (“RLAâ€).
The Company, not AFA, will have violated the Railway Labor Act if management follows through on its threats to abrogate our contract in whole or in part. Under the RLA, an employer that unilaterally modifies a collective bargaining agreement has created a "major dispute" over which employees may strike. Bhd. of R.R. Trainmen v. Jacksonville Terminal Co., 394 U.S. 369, 378-80 (1969); Pan Am. World Airways v. IBT, 894 F.2d 36 (2d Cir. 1990). "If the [carrier] is free [to] . . . resort to self-help, the union cannot be expected to hold back its own economic weapons." Detroit & Toledo Shore Line v. UTU, 396 U.S. 142, 155 (1969).
Your citation of Lodge 76, Int’l Ass’n of Machinists v. Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission, 427 U.S. 132 is as mistaken as it is self-serving. You know as well as I do that Lodge 76 was a case decided under the National Labor Relations Act (“NLRAâ€), not the RLA, and does not apply to airlines and other parties governed by the RLA.
I would refer you instead to the leading case on the subject of intermittent strikes under the RLA, AFA v. Alaska Airlines, Inc., 847 F.Supp. 832 (W.D. Wash. 1993) (“Alaskaâ€). In that case, the district court specifically refused to adopt the NLRA analysis you are suggesting and declined to declare AFA’s CHAOS program of intermittent strikes as unlawful under the RLA:
. . . this court finds it would be improvident to import such distinctions from the NLRA into the RLA and thus declines to determine whether the CHAOS work stoppages would be considered protected or unprotected activity under the RLA scheme. --- Alaska, 847 F.Supp. at 835.
Most important for our purposes in the current dispute, the Alaska court went on to enjoin the carrier from “indefinitely suspending, discharging, or threatening to discharge flight attendants who participate in CHAOS intermittent work stoppages†and ordered the reinstatement of seventeen flight attendants indefinitely suspended as a result of their participation in an intermittent work stoppage. Alaska 847 F.Supp. at 838.
In light of the Alaska decision I must advise you to immediately rescind the threats of discipline ‘up to and including termination’ for any flight attendant who engages in CHAOS activity and to cease and desist from making such threats in the future. Such threats are clearly unlawful. If the Company persists in these illegal threats, or if the Company takes the threatened action against any individual, AFA will take swift and decisive legal action to protect the rights of our members.
I will not address directly the lip service your letter gives to the need for consensual resolution of the disagreements between the parties. Suffice it to say that, for the past 29 months, AFA and the flight attendants we represent have played a positive role in the reorganization efforts of this Company. Our members have made life-altering sacrifices for the sake of saving their airline. But those sacrifices have been desecrated by executives who continue to line their own pockets -- with raises, bonuses and pension windfalls -- at the expense of the workers who built United Airlines. What those same executives do not seem to understand is that a never-ending series of devastating cuts to pay, benefits and working conditions is not a business plan; it’s a recipe for a labor relations meltdown.
Finally, I must remind you that CHAOS, and Create Havoc Around Our System™, are trademarks of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, AFL-CIO. Your use of those terms in your correspondence and in other written and electronic communication without proper acknowledgement of our ownership of the mark is a violation of AFA’s trademark rights. Please cease and desist in the unauthorized use of our trademarks or AFA will be forced to take appropriate legal action.
Sincerely,
David A. Borer
AFA General
So, what are you going to defend?
