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To All Members    — 8 —    October 15, 1942

the chairmen, councils, and all the members to be able to do a good representing job, with the war and all its resulting confusion in the picture. 

Now we are mixed up in a wage fight in which the carriers have given their powers of attorney to the Air Transport Association to negotiate over-ocean salaries and other working conditions for the industry. This move is in itself ridiculous because the pilots have been standing by ever since August 18, 1942, to talk with the carriers and they have been working on over-ocean supplemental agreements with the various carriers ever since early summer of this year. To say that the carriers are willing to negotiate supplemental agreements covering over-ocean operations either individually or collectively is utterly ridiculous because they have not made one single whole-hearted attempt to actually negotiate. All that the carrier negotiators have been is messenger boys for Mr. Gorrell and the ATA — carrying messages from the ATA about what the Army will and will not do in the way of establishing salaries and working conditions for the air line pilots. Of course, they are primarily concerned with using the Army as a club to establish overseas and intercontinental wage scales for the air line pilots and we all know if the air carriers would get by with this Army club manner of doing things in the over-ocean field, they would next move into the domestic field and destroy the pilots' standards and all the other rights for which the pilots fought hard and long. In other words, in the opinion of Headquarters, Gorrell and the Air Transport Association are attempting to use the war to batter down the pilots' standards, rules, and working conditions. However they have not had much success and will have less as the pilots become more and more acquainted with the real background of what Gorrell and the carriers are attempting to accomplish. For instance, when you meet your officials in the field, they will tell you smoothly and at great length how fair they are and how they want to do the right thing, all of which may be sincere, but don't forget they are represented by Mr. Gorrell and the ATA to the extent that they can't even speak their own minds. Your company is donating a sizeable amount of its earned capital into this organization quarterly and if such donations are not sufficient to put up the kind of fight against the pilots that the leaders in the field feel should be put up, the carriers merely put in more money — and they all belong.

This merely calling a spade a spade and it doesn't mean that you should take a belligerent attitude towards your employers but we feel you should know the truth. The first requisite of an air line pilot is that he do his best job at all times and let his representatives do all his major fighting. All that we have ever asked for the line pilots is a square deal and that is all we ever intend to ask for. No one can be criticized for that. 

The overseas and intercontinental wage scales to be paid the pilots who will engage in this branch of the piloting profession so that the operators may make their contracts with the Government to haul men and material for the armed forces are being mediated by a representative for the National Mediation Board at the present time.
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