Some questions apparently have arisen regarding your representations by TWU in American Airlines/American Eagle bankruptcy proceedings. I wish to respond and make our Union’s position very clear: as your collective bargaining representative under the Railway Labor Act, TWU is the sole representative in Bankruptcy Court for representing the interests of TWU members and protecting, as best as possible, their collectively bargained rights and rates of pay benefits and working conditions.
TWU wants the TWU locals at American and American Eagle to have a role in this process, to assist TWU as assigned by the International in accord with the TWU Constitution; however, we will lend no comfort or assistance to any effort to undermine the need for TWU to speak with a single, united voice in court. To effectively deal with the extraordinary demands of the AA/AE bankruptcy situation, TWU has assembled an expert professional team, including experienced bankruptcy counsel who has represented unions in major airline bankruptcies. In order to best represent TWU members’ interests in the process, TWU will view each issue from a variety of different perspectives including those provided by our locals, and by the professionals who have different areas of experience and expertise. Once we take a position on a given issue, though, it is vital that TWU speak with one voice to the Bankruptcy Court. To proceed differently would be to significantly diminish effectiveness of our union voice.
TWU has and will expend considerable resources protecting the interests of our members. TWU will not, however, provide assistance to locals who wish to spend more money to hire their own additional bankruptcy counsel. TWU is already providing such counsel for all of its members. Though TWU will not stand in the way of a local hiring its own counsel for advice and commentary on the process– so long as it does so in compliance with its local by-laws, and so long as the financial expense does not raise questions of fiduciary responsibility–we believe it wasteful and confusing and urge locals not to be involved in such extravagant efforts.
The bankruptcy process that we are all about to undergo is too critical to each and every TWU member who works for American Airlines or American Eagle to allow it to become the play-thing of politics as usual. We must not allow internal union politics to undermine our ability to address the issues that we will be facing in Bankruptcy Court over the next months. Let us tackle the difficult months that now face us in unity and solidarity and, when the ordeal is over, perhaps this experience of working together will have opened the way to a newly vitalized and strengthened union. In solidarity,
James C. Little, International President
Harry Lombardo, Int’l Exec. Vice President
Joseph C. Gordon, Int’l Secretary-Treasurer
Gary E. Maslanka Int’l Administrative VP
Jeffrey L. Brooks, Sr. Int’l Administrative VP