July 19, 2011
Fellow Pilots:
As most of you are aware, the US Airways pilots have been subject to a far-ranging assault on our right to communicate with one another concerning our collective interests. Pilot terminations have escalated, the USAPA Safety Committee Chairman has been threatened with termination in response to insistence that the Company maintain a safe working environment, and newly-installed video cameras in the crew rooms, which were supposedly installed to deter theft, are instead being used to monitor your actions and conversations - as we suspected they would be.
Most recently, the Company has issued a new directive that seeks to eliminate the use of union lanyards as part of a new ID holder policy. In the context of recent events, the new policy must be viewed as a further assault on our statutory rights.
The Railway Labor Act, in many respects, is less supportive of employee rights than its National Labor Relations Act counterpart. Nevertheless, with respect to union-related communications it has been held that the RLA "does not offer any less protection than the NLRA..." Hurley v. Horizon Air Industries, Inc., 613 F. Supp. 2d 1229, 1232 (W.D. Wash. 2009); Skywest Pilots ALPA Organizing Committee v. Skywest Airlines, Inc. 182 L.R.R.M. 2485 (N.D. Calif. 2007).
Even in the RLA context, it has been specifically held that:
[E]mployees have the right to visibly demonstrate their support [of] ... a particular bargaining representative absent some exceptional reason for curtailing such expression.
Adams v. Federal Express Corp., 470 F. Supp. 1356, 1362-63 (W.D. Tenn. 1979), aff'd, 654 F.2d 452 (6th Cir. 1981).
In our view, there is no "exceptional reason" that would justify the Company's ID holder policy, and I have indicated this in a response to US Airways COO Robert Isom, which is available on the USAPA web site and attached to this letter. We consider the new policy to be simply a component of a policy of intimidation, undermining union activities, and subordinating safe operations to corporate profit.
The lanyards are a symbol of our solidarity toward our safety campaign, and Management knows that. They may well be able to strip us of the symbol temporarily until the matter can be litigated, but they have no way to strip us of the solidarity. Their feeble and transparent attempt to do so is but one more illustration of just how clueless they are in the field of employee motivational tools. Exactly what was the last act by our management that demonstrated any positive motivation of the employees? They know of no other way but to focus on the negative. The former East pilot managers, led by Ed Bular, are clearly under a great deal of pressure to keep you under Management's thumb. Bular's promises to his Tempe masters are now showing all signs of failure. The lanyards issue is but one more example of why they really have no business running this company; it is obvious to everyone but themselves. They want to fight over a symbol of a safety campaign? Really? To truly prove who is right and who is wrong about the lanyards, we will have to litigate yet another matter. And to do so we have incorporated the matter into our status quo filing in the eastern District of New York.
The lanyards are a symbol of our solidarity, a fact that they don't like to admit. They cannot take the solidarity, all they can do is admit to you that it bothers them when we think and act together.
We encourage you to continue to wear your union lanyard. If you are directed by management personnel to remove the lanyard, ask him/her exactly what special circumstances justify the Company's demand and whether they object to the message that you are committed to the safe operation of our airplanes. Ask if you are subject to discipline if you fail to remove your union lanyard.
If you are advised that you will be subject to discipline, remove your lanyard rather than subject yourself to the inevitable insubordination charge. Record the date, time, identity of the management representative, and the justification provided (if any) for the demand. Then transmit this information at the earliest opportunity to your Domicile Representatives for inclusion into the litigation.
As the Company persists in its anti-union conduct, we are taking the appropriate legal action to protect your rights by including this most recent abrogation in our Complaint that was filed in the Eastern District of NY alleging violations of the status quo provisions of the Railway Labor Act, and the intimidation of our members for asserting the most basic of rights.
Sincerely,
Captain Michael Cleary
President