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recognition and protection: how they were won

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Thanks to men of vision, the air line pilots now had an organization. Through that organization they had a purpose. But economic stresses were still great. The next step was the securing of recognition and protection under federal statues, battles that raged long and bitter.
When the Air Transport Code under the National Recovery Act (NRA) was being formulated, the status of pilots and copilots was hotly contested. Finally, at the insistence of ALPA, pilots were exempted from the Act. Late in 1933 with pay cuts announced for pilots, the pressures which had been accumulating since the early days of the depression, led the pilots to the brink of a national strike. ALPA, endeavoring to stave off the strike, sought to have the controversy acted upon by the Wagner Labor Board. Minutes before the air lines of the nation were to be grounded, the Wagner Labor Board accepted jurisdiction of the dispute and the strike was averted.

Decision 83...
The Labor Board appointed a Fact Finding Committee composed of L.D. Seymour, President of American Airlines, representing the carriers; Dave Behncke, President of ALPA, representing the pilots; and a neutral member, Bernard L. Shientag, a Justice of the New York Supreme Court. After laboring four months, the Committee produced a fact-finding report on which the National Labor Board based its now famous Decision 83.

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ALPA representatives meet to discuss 1934 cancellation of air mail contracts
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Decision 83 had a profound significance in the development of the ALPA. It became the economic keystone of the air line pilots wage structure. Decision 83 established 85 hours as the monthly flying limit for air line pilots, as against 140 hours for first pilots and 160 hour for copilots proposed by the air transport industry in its initial draft in the NRA code. In compensation, Decision 83 was a compromise. Pilots had wanted a compensation formula based wholly on mileage; the carriers desired an hourly rate exclusively. Decision 83 fixed salaries for pilots and copilots on an increment formula of hourly, mileage, and base pay.
After Decision 83 was handed down by the Wagner Labor Board, circumstances and hard work by ALPA made it possible to establish, in federal civil air legislation, the minimum wages and maximum flying hours which it contained. In February 1934, all airmail contracts were cancelled by the government. The Army began its job of hauling the mail which resulted in a series of disastrous crashes. When the smoke cleared from the conflagration attending the cancellation, Decision 83 had been incorporated, by reference, into the Airmail Act of 1934. Subsequently, in 1935 and again in 1938 when the Civil Aeronautics Act of 1938 was enacted, Decision 83 was included by reference. Much of the credit for ALPA's success in Washington during those hectic days in the early 30's must be extended to the small group of now veteran pilots whose names appear on ALPA's first charter of affiliation with the American Federation of Labor, among whom were J. S. Pricer, AA; J. H. Burns,

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ALPA submits views at Interstate Commerce legislative hearings in 1937
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