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To All Active ALPA Members   -25-   January 26, 1948

was accomplished by ALPA. In it are provisions for the establishment of the National Air Transportation Adjustment Board which can be activated at any time the National Mediation Board desires. The Board will have four members, 2 representing the carriers and 2 representing the organized air workers. Who is going to be on the Board? If we are not careful, we will have a District No. 5 man, the CIO, and maybe we will be shoved off the Board entirely. In addition, we cannot lose sight of the fact that the Moscow-dominated organizations of this country are very real. They are a threat to democracy. No one can put his head in the sand in the world in which we live. The communists seek to gain control of all transportation and communication employee representing organizations. The reason isn't difficult to understand. They are biding their time waiting for the day of the big revolution. With communication and transportation in their hands and the strike weapon, it doesn't take much imagination to evaluate the outcome.  Much more could be said.

Up to the present time, the Executive Board of the Air Line Pilots Association has chartered the Air Line Stewards and Stewardesses Association, International; the Air Carrier Communication Operators Association, International; the Air Carrier Pilots Association (Non-Scheduled), International; the Air Carrier Mechanics Association, International; the Air Carrier Flight Engineers Association, International; the Air Line Agents Association, International; and the Air Carrier Navigators Association, International. Certain of these are still little more than paper organizations, while others have made considerable progress. The ones that have made the most progress are the non-scheduled air line pilots and the stewardesses.

Here is another angle: It's important. Are we to leave the non-scheduled air line pilots at the mercy of their employers? Are we to stand idly by while they tear down their salaries, and put them on the basis of European air line pilots, a few hundred dollars a month, flight hours up to 140 and 160, or are we to help organize them and assist them to establish proper rates of compensation and decent standards of employment so that the low pay and standards that they would be forced to accept cannot be used to destroy our structure of compensation and conditions of employment.

The plan of Headquarters is that every dollar put into the E&O effort must come back to ALPA through a definite plan of amortization. In other words, every dollar put out to any organization must eventually flow back into the central fund of ALPA from these organizations. As soon as ALPA's Executive Board feels that these organizations are sufficiently well organized to successfully carry on self-government, they will be given their autonomy. In addition, the Executive Board has directed that all the members of organizations affiliated with the Air Line Pilots Association, previously enumerated, must pay a per capita tax of 4c per month per member into ALPA, the parent organization. In time, this per capita tax will run into a sizeable amount and will be available for whatever purpose the air line pilots choose to designate. 

Some members may not agree with the E&O assessment. They must remember that ALPA is a democratic organization and what the Executive Board and the Convention (all elected by the membership) do, binds all the members of ALPA and all its officers from top to bottom. It's the same as the government of our country. We may not like the income tax we are paying or the Marshall Plan or other laws that Congress may pass, which doesn't mean that we can stop paying our taxes,