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AFFILATED WITH THE A.F,of L.

"SCHEDULE WITH SAFETY"

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AIR LINE PILOTS ASSOCIATION 
INTERNATIONAL 
3145 WEST SIXTY-THIRD STREET
CHICAGO

TELEPHONE HEMLOCK 5015

October 15, 1942

TO ALL MEMBERS
Read Your Association Mail
and 
Know What’s Going on

Dear Member:
   
Right at the outset, let me explain the reason for the apparently erroneous date of this letter. October 15 is actually the date on which we began writing you, but events have been moving and changing so rapidly since then that we have been adding to this membership letter every other day or so in order to give you the latest information on pending matters of date. Another contributing factor is the great length of time it takes to get out a letter of this size to our entire membership, Active and Military Inactive. The final delay has been caused by our awaiting a decision on the overseas intercontinental wage, rules, and working condition question.

Next, I wish to call your attention to the enclosed printed booklet-size copy of our new monthly flight time law, H.R.6790, also referred to as Public Law 535. You will note that this printed copy is made up in employment contract booklet size as it can be pasted into, and made a part of your Pilots' Employment Agreement.

There seem to be some mistaken ideas about what is in this law and its purpose and effects. Of course, before we go into the interpretations and so forth of this act, it might be well to point out that every time a new law or regulation is enacted affecting the air line pilots, attorneys for ATA usually come out with a train of wrong interpretations and then there follows a period of six months or so of confusion before the matter finally straightens out. All this, of course, is for a purpose and is done in such a way so that it can be proven. Our experience has been when we run into this sort of thing, that carrier officials always tell us, "Well, that's the interpretation of the ATA attorneys," and never yet have we found the to give a correct interpretation on anything affecting the pilots--and so it goes.

In order to understand this fully, it is suggested that you first read it over carefully and then read over the parts in the Civil Aeronautics Act of 1938 which are referred to in the attached copy of H.R.6799. Under this law, a company may, if its piloting personnel is depleted due to pilots' going on active duty or in other ways flying for national defense, fly its remaining pilots and copilots up to 100 hours per month. Such shortage of flying personnel can only be construed to be legitimate if the normal methods of promotion have not been interfered with. For example, a company cannot stop promoting its copilots by flying its pilots up to 100 hours or beyond 85 hours per month. In the same vein, a company cannot fail to fly its reserve pilots as first pilots and because of this, fly its first pilots up to 100 hours and beyond 85 hours monthly.