On Feb 10, 2014 12:07 PM, "Tom Seever" <tomseever@mindspring.com>
wrote:
Mark,
In the latest issue of your greatly appreciated newsletter there were a couple
of letters that referenced DP3 and warrant a response for the benefit of
your readers.
Mark,
I read with great interest that TWA
pilots just won a victory over ALPA as it was shown that ALPA did not equally
represent the interest of all the pilots.
So.....do you think that decision impacts us at all? Do we need to
sue ALPA?
In the first letter, Mike Ward (a DP3 member in good standing) asked you why we
don’t sue ALPA , and expressed “surprise that DP3 has not taken up the
issue.” We have answered this question so many times in the last 7 years
that it sometimes seems like the movie “Groundhog Day”. But it does point up
the difficulty in communicating sometimes boring subjects to a very large and
diverse group. We know it is our failure that we have not figured out a way to
do it perfectly. Here is the answer plus a bonus answer:
The Supreme Court ruled a number of years ago that a union is not obligated to
represent its retirees. That is about as cut and dried as it gets. We share the
concern many have about ALPA’s actions in the past decade and will not hesitate
to take action against them if information comes to light of inappropriate
actions that meet the level necessary to take successful legal action.
A related question is “Why don’t we sue DAL”. Action against DAL not only
lacks a sound legal argument, it carries with it the risk of legal action
against each DP3 member and our attorneys. To take any action against DAL would
require reopening bankruptcy. To do so requires absolute proof of criminal
actions or negligence that rises to that level. If you don’t have that kind of
case the judge can take action against the plaintiffs and their lawyers. Our
attorneys advised us of that years ago. A year later the United retirees hired
a local lawyer who appealed in a way that got them pulled into the bankruptcy
court and threatened with serious sanctions. They had to virtually abandon
their appeals. You hire the best attorneys available for this sort of fight –
and you listen to their advice even if you don’t like it. The DP3 attorneys
discuss options and leave decisions to us on most issues – they did not on this
particular issue.
In the second letter, Emile takes DP3 to task for not representing the PC4s.
From: Emile Trash
Date: 02/06/14 12:46:13
Subject: [PCN High Life] New comment on Mark's Remarks - HL 198 (4).
I was one of the retirees that was a dues paying DP3 member
in good standing that was ejected from DP3 because I was classified by PBGC as
PC4. As a group, we PC4 retirees retained our own council at great expense and
challenged the decision by DP3 to take actions that would have terminated my
pension. I believe that type of hypocracy by DP3 leadership should be known by
other members. This is exactly the type of divisive actions by the usual DALPA
suspects that make me regret ever paying dues to that organization.
The short answer is that once we began to develop our appeal issues 4 or 5
years ago we also realized that we could not predict with certainty that
several combinations of successes would not reduce the benefits of the 30 or so
PC4 members we had at the time. Our attorneys advised us they could not
represent them and also represent the interests of the PC3 group. Will Buergey
reached out to the PC4s, explaining the situation and providing them with
our list of PC4s so they could form their own organization. All of their DP3
contributions were returned to them immediately.
A little more background: The PC4s are pilots who were born after
September 1, 1953. Their choice to retire was clearly ill advised and, as
Mark alluded to, was likely the result of a lack of good guidance and
information regarding the ramifications of retiring prior to age 53 ( if you
didn’t wait until age 53 to retire – and the company acted on their daily
threat to terminate the plan – you ran the risk of becoming a PC4, which is
supposed to be a lower priority for benefits).
It was DP3’s fervent hope that we could find a way to include them in our
efforts and we spent a great deal of time trying to do so. When it was clear
that we could not ethically continue to allow them to be members, we did all we
could to separate in an honorable way.
As for the vague specifics in this gentleman’s angry letter, no legal challenge
(or challenge of any kind for that matter) was ever made. We were aware they
had retained counsel, but that was a long time ago and clearly there were no
grounds for action.
He speaks of hypocrisy but it is difficult to discern from his letter the
contradictory behavior this implies.
Divisiveness is another issue – this entire bankruptcy process, exacerbated by
the way ALPA has handled it, creates divisiveness. There are fewer resources
than obligations in the wake of a bankruptcy. The termination of the plan is
just one aspect of it. ALPA did a wonderful job of grabbing more than their
share (it’s irrefutably obvious when you add their PBGC benefits to their
bankruptcy settlements) and that has simply made a divisive process even worse.
Tom Seever
DP3 Litigation Committee Chairman
PS-
If all of the 3500 negatively affected retirees had been willing to put in
$1500 apiece 5 years ago we could have afforded to go “fishing” for bad acts on
the part of ALPA or DAL as so many individuals keep suggesting. But research,
investigations, depositions, and the like are very, very expensive to
undertake, particularly without a smoking gun. DP3 recognized the need to have
the best representation as our first priority and that is the limit that the
retiree group was willing to commit to. As a result, we are financially able to
undertake the much more winnable legal arguments against the PBGC procedures
but not the far riskier and more expensive process of searching for illegal
actions that may not exist. (Do not confuse the immoral and unjust actions with
illegal actions. Illegal is the only thing that counts in court.)
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