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All members | - 14 - | August 25, 1944

In addition to everything else through which we have been passing, we have had a pretty sharp run of grievance cases - pilots being let go for this and for that. We have been successful in returning most of them to their positions. The last case was one which became quite famous involving the discharge of First Pilot D. S. Shipley, who was with American Airlines for twelve years. It got to be quite a battle and quite a famous case. It was won on September 2, 1944, when the American Airlines Pilots' System Board of Adjustment rendered a decision returning Shipley to employment with no loss of seniority and without prejudice.

ALPA's list of achievements continues to mount. In the last few months, we were successful in stopping the malicious and dangerous move to overload air line aircraft, a fight in which ALPA was opposed by the entire industry and all the manufacturers of air line aircraft and many of the CAA.

Only a few weeks ago, we side-tracked another malicious and dangerous move to do away with the more-than-one-pilot and more-than-one-motor air safety requirements in the Civil Air Regulations governing air line operation. We were instrumental in side-tracking and pigeon-holing numerous other moves against the air line pilots throughout the country which involved thwarting two strike situations and setline the differences. And so it goes on and on, day after day, and seldom even a day passes without the Association's accomplishing some great good for the air line pilots individually or as a group.

Read the last issues of the AIR LINE PILOT. They tell all these stories in detail. Our magazine has been a little behind but it is rapidly catching up. Read the front page Headquarters story, particularly the one in the June issue. Read the editorials -- they are all wallops in the best interest of the members and, in many instances, also the industry. The majority of our activities is directed to making employment agreements, and supplements and amendments thereto. For the last six months, we have been spending approximately three out of every four weeks away from Headquarters on this work. There are now twelve in the  mill, almost all complete. Four have been submitted to the National Mediation Board, namely, American Export, American, Continental, and TWA. In the middle of all this we have the largest pilots' working agreement of all times nearing completion with Pan American Airways. We have already had three long conferences lasting almost two weeks each, and another is scheduled to begin on the twenty-ninth. Reflect for a moment on the time it takes to do all this.

In addition to this, we have been loaded down with a terrific job of handling everything else, watching Washington, which is seething with activity, and doing the many things that must be done to protect the pilots from day to day. It all takes a lot of work and this fall we will have a convention. It makes me tired to think about it. Your organization is not lagging in any respect. The job of completing the expansion program, which we have described in this letter, is, in itself, of Herculean proportion. Scores upon scores of applicants must e interviewed, and advertising programs conducted to gather together the applicants from which the best can be gleaned.