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To All ALPA Members   -2-    June 21,1948

On June 4, just prior to the time that the final arguments were scheduled to begin, President Truman sent over a second Executive Order, No. 9965, calling attention to the fact that there were other strikes on National, involving the clerical workers, station employees and mechanics, and directing that the same Presidential Emergency Board investigate their disputes and make recommendations for settlement. This came as a complete surprise and sort of rocked National's representatives back on their heels. It indicated without question that National's labor relations policy was anything but good and that the pilots were not the only ones who were have trouble with G.T. Baker.

The International Association of Machinists represents the other National employees on strike. They had observers present during our hearings. When the second President Executive Order was presented to the Board, the IAM attorneys and National's attorneys immediately pleaded for a continuance so they could prepare their cases. In the midst of all this arose the problem of whether or not we should proceed with the final arguments in our case. After due consideration we took the position before the Board that our final arguments might best be postponed until the hearing relating to National's striking clerical workers, station employees and mechanics had been concluded; the reason being that something might be said during the new hearing which may require an answer by National's pilots. Had we decided to make our final arguments before the new hearing, no opportunity to make any further statements relating to any part of either our case or National's ground employees would be afforded. As the matter now stands, we feel we made an excellent case in our direct presentation and our final arguments will doubtlessly be concluded some time during the week of June 27.

The Board set June 21, 1948, to begin hearing the strike disputes of the ground employee grounds on National. As things now stand, we will have two well-qualified observers present at the hearing involving the ground employees and will make our final arguments at the close of this hearing.

The Presidential Executive Order No. 9965 directs that the Emergency Board make its recommendations for the settlement of both disputes 30 days after the date of said order, which was June 3, 1948. This means that the Emergency Board must hand down its findings and report to the President respecting both the National Airlines pilots' strike and the strike of the company's ground employees; namely, the clerical workers, station employees and mechanics, on or before July 3, 1948. It is possible that a brief extension may be granted.

A few brief comments, I believe, are in order about our hearing before the Presidential Emergency Board. We used two attorneys - Daniel D. Carmell of Chicago and Henry Kaiser of Washington. The preparation work for the hearing prior to and during the hearing was not as extensive as in the TWA arbitration, which took place from January 3 to January 16, 1947. Nevertheless, it was pretty tense going and involved the usual night and day work for Headquarters representatives; namely; J.C. Christie, Employment Agreement Department; E.C. Modes, Publicity and Public Relations Department; Larry Cates, Washington representative; W.P. Kilgore, Acting Executive Vice President, and myself, from May 24 to June 4, through the Memorial Day holidays. Incidentally, this is the third Memorial holiday that ALPA has been involved in a dispute. Apparently, it's getting to be a habit. Previous occasions were the TWA Emergency Board hearings in May 1946, and the PAA Master Executive Council meeting on the Northeast seniority case, May 1947, and this year the National Presidential Emergency Board hearings.