VIA EMAIL AND CERTIFIED MAIL
April 19, 2011
Tracy Parrella
Grievance Committee
U.S. Airline Pilots Association
5821 Fairview Road, Suite 400
Charlotte, NC 28209
Dear Tracy:
You contacted the three of us last week, asking for our assistance with a West pay training arbitration scheduled for next month. For the reasons that follow, we believe that you are pursuing this grievance in a manner that is deliberately contrary to the best interests of the West pilots, and that will subject USAPA to legal liability. Therefore, we must decline to participate.
1. Arbitrating this dispute is a direct and deliberate contract violation.
As you are aware, the grievance provisions in the West contract are detailed and regimented, providing for an orderly and expeditious adjudication of all disputes. These provisions were designed to prevent an untenable grievance backlog, such as the backlog that you currently deal with under the East contract. The language in these provisions are explicit in that any dispute not resolved through one of the three hearing procedures is to be docketed for arbitration as each case becomes unresolved. The provision does not give the company or the union any discretion to table, backlog, or hold in abeyance any dispute. This requirement exists so that no grievance becomes part of a back room horse-trade at the expense of the pilot(s) harmed by a grievance, and such that no political agenda can ever hamper the grievance process.
USAPA has not pursued a single West arbitration in the 3 years it has served as our bargaining agent. There were some disputes already on the books when USAPA succeeded as our bargaining agent, and there are several others that have accrued since then. It is our belief that at least some of these egregious contract violations by the company were only effected because of its assurance, by your deliberate inaction, that these disputes would never be arbitrated.
The point is that there are several other cases that require resolution prior to this one, and you have not provided us a single reason why USAPA seeks to end its 3-year moratorium on West arbitrations with this case.
Once you notified us of the upcoming arbitration, we immediately raised these contract concerns, and repeatedly asked you the purpose of pursuing this case out of the required order. In response to numerous queries, you either offered us false information, or skillfully avoided answering the simple question altogether.
At first, you informed us that the company - not USAPA - was requiring that this arbitration take place. However, we contacted the company and they informed us that USAPA unilaterally controls the grievance docket. You did not rebut this fact when we communicated it to you.
Second, you informed us that PHX Chairman David Braid was at least partially responsible for negotiating an agreement with the company to arbitrate this case. A quick phone call to him revealed that this statement was also completely false. You did not rebut David’s claim.
Third, you informed us that the company had threatened to begin unilaterally withdrawing pay from West pilot paychecks if we did not adhere to the May arbitration date. The company averred that they made no such threat. You did not disagree.
Given these facts, it is not unreasonable for us to assume that there is in fact no legitimate union purpose for violating the contract by arbitrating this case ahead of potentially dozens of others that have been awaiting resolution for 3 or more years. We have offered to assist you with properly docketing all pending West grievances in compliance with our contract, however you have refused to accept our assistance. Worse yet, you have unilaterally announced that USAPA will not postpone this arbitration, and you have still refused to provide a single reason to justify this decision.
2. We do not believe that you plan to arbitrate this case in good faith.
Given the current state of adverse litigation between the PHX based pilots and USAPA, we believe that USAPA has a conflict of interest in resolving this dispute. Since USAPA’s inception as a bargaining agent, it has been engaged in a concerted effort to financially hamper our legal efforts, beginning with the malicious RICO lawsuit that was filed against the 3 of us and 21 of our fellow pilots. The company claims that it intends to recover $2.6 million from the West pilots; an amount of money that we are certain that USAPA would be thrilled to see us pay. We also believe that your refusal to arbitrate other West grievances is motivated, at least in part, by USAPA’s concerted effort to financially impede West legal efforts. As we hope your legal counsel has informed you, federal law not only expressly provides for our right to sue our union, but that same law expressly also prohibits the union from attempting to limit that right in any way.
Your actions of the past few days support our contention. Apparently, this arbitration has been on the schedule for approximately one year, however, the West principals were only made aware of that fact this week, and you have made no effort to resolve other pending West cases in the interm. In addition, the covert planning of this arbitration and the obvious enthusiasm you share with the company for maintaining this arbitration date is evidence of collusion. Further, you have selected a Board member for this case that has a well-documented history of personal hatred of West pilots, and has apparently been the subject of company discipline for some of his spiteful communications to other pilots. Lastly, you have refused to comply with any of our repeated requests for information pertaining to this dispute; a clear indication that you plan to severely limit our ability to assist you properly resolve it.
In addition to your recent actions, we are also aware of a well documented history of arbitrary and hostile acts by you against West pilots. These acts include:
· Refusing all offers of assistance by the former AWA ALPA Grievance Chairman
· Removing two experienced and trusted West volunteers from their ability to assist West pilots with disciplinary issues
· Suspending two of our elected representatives from participating in their representational duties
· Seeking sanctions against a former AWA ALPA negotiator for allegedly refusing to assist with an arbitration, despite the fact that he did not participate in the negotiation of the disputed contract section
· Refusing to file individual West pilot grievances, despite the clear requirement of Section 20 and Ninth Circuit precedent to do so
· Refusing to arbitrate a single West grievance for 3 years (and counting)
· Advocating for an out-of-seniority recall of pilots from furlough in express contradiction to the USAPA Constitution and to the detriment of furloughed West pilots
· Refusing to arbitrate a case on behalf of a terminated West pilot
This list is not exhaustive, and we intend to make use of the disciplinary hearing you initiated against Capt. Doug Dotter as an opportunity to make a full and detailed record of these issues and others.
Our offer still stands to assist the USAPA Grievance Committee with the proper enforcement of our contract. However, for the reasons we have stated, we will not subject ourselves to legal liability from participating in the training pay grievance that you unilaterally scheduled in May.
Sincerely,
/s/ /s/ /s/
John McIlvenna Russ Payne Mitch Vasin
CC: USAPA Grievance Committee
USAPA Officers
USAPA Board of Pilot Representatives
Laura Backus, USAPA Contract Administrator
PHX Domicile
