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Mr. Charles H. Ruby  - 2 -

[So far as the Committee is aware, it was never the Association's wish that the carrier's most experienced line pilots should, upon reaching compulsory retirement age for line flying, fall within the intendment of such contract language and thus be disqualified for lawfully permitted flight occupations as well. At no time during our exploration of this subject has there been 
any assertion to the Committee that such contract provisions are directed to line pilots who have been retired because of age.]
[Yet such contract language provides carriers with a convenient reason to reject the application of an age-retired line captain for a vacant flight instructor position for which he may be fully qualified. It is in this area that I have concern for the possible exposure of the Association to back pay judgements in favor of age-retired pilots who have been refused vacant pilot positions for which they qualify, solely because of a carrier's reliance on agreement provisions of the type of which I have referred. This could be the result if certain language in Section 4 of P.L. 90-202 were to be held applicable to such agreement provisions.]

By suggesting to you now that Association agreements be clarified as and where necessary to eliminate their coverage of situations which were never intended to be covered in the first place, I have a dual purpose in mind. First, however large or small the Association's exposure may be under this new and broadly worded law to possible back pay awards, that exposure is, in my opinion, too great a price to pay where, as here, there is no apparent benefit or advantage resulting to the Association. Finally, if these agreement provisions were supplemented by language making clear that they do not apply to age-retired line pilots, carriers would no longer be able to escape the no-discrimination provisions of P.L. 90-202 simply by pointing the finger at the Association and our agreement, and any back pay liability resulting from the unlawful rejection of an employment application by a carrier on the ground of age would be the responsibility of the carrier alone. And a likely consequence might them be that many appropriate flight positions other than line pilot would quickly become available to victims of the age 60 rule.
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