VIA FACSIMILE & US MAIL
Glenn Tilton, Chairman, President and Chief Excutive Officer
United Airlines
1200 Algonquin Rd.
Elk Grove Township, IL
Dear Glenn:
This is in response to Paul Lovejoy's letter to David Borer, the Association of Flight Attendant's (AFA) General Counsel, dated June 12, 2005.
On behalf of 28,000 active and retired United Flight Attendants, I must first say I found it appalling that Mr. Lovejoy would accuse AFA of "willfully ignoring" our Collective Bargaining Agreement when it is the company that is ignoring the Contract. AFA has spent the past 30 months of the bankruptcy process trying to uphold our Contract and opposing your attempts to unilaterally change our Collective Bargaining Agreement.
This is nothing less than an attack on the Flight Attendants and your actions are intended to directly interfere with our legal rights under the Railway Labor Act and the First Amendment.
Let me correct some of the misinformation in Mr. Lovejoy's letter. AFA has not, and will not, engage in any illegal activity. To date there has been no work stoppage, no attempt to turn away passengers and no attempt to persuade other employees to honor an AFA picket line by refusing to come to work. To the contrary, our literature and our public comments have routinely included statements that 'AFA is not on strike at this time,' and we have routinely and repeatedly urged passengers to continue to fly United until further notice. AFA members who engaged in leafleting activities at O'Hare on Friday, June 10 abided by the terms of our permit. United apparently called the police and sought to have Flight Attendants or their supporters arrested during the event. Since no arrests were made I can only conclude that the police determined that no laws were violated.
The Company, not AFA, will have violated the Railway Labor Act (RLA) 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. The Supreme Court has recognized that "the union cannot be expected to hold back its own economic weapons" under such circumstances. It is only then that we would exercise our legal right to strike.
You may have taken major pieces of our Contract, and you may still be trying to take our pensions, but you will not take away our right to protest your actions. It is illegal for the company to threaten to terminate employees who participate in CHAOS™ activities. Those threats - in NewsReal and in an e-note to flight attendants - must cease immediately.
This is nothing less than an attack on the Flight Attendants and your actions are intended to directly interfere with our legal rights under the Railway Labor Act and the First Amendment. Not only can such interference be enjoined by the courts, but members of management who engage in such interference may also be subject to criminal sanctions under the RLA. On that point, we are also investigating reports that members of management committed at least two separate incidents of assault and battery against Flight Attendants during the events at O'Hare on Friday. We have already spoken to the police about one of those incidents and will follow up with the police, and with the company, as soon as we complete our investigation. I would expect you to instruct your managerial staff that no such actions will be tolerated by the company.
I urge you not to misjudge the commitment or the determination of the Flight Attendants - we will strike if you insist on terminating our pensions without our consent. Time is growing short for the company to face that reality and resolve this dispute amicably.
Sincerely,
Greg Davidowitch, President
United Master Executive Council