Originally Posted by
The Walrus
The 9-5 vote was not on the TA. That vote will be next Wednesday. The 9-5 vote was on whether to take the last offer and put into full contract language, or just walk away from the table.
At this point in the process, neither party can just walk away from the table. When the mediator says meet, we meet.
But when the mediator says (and I have no idea if he said this or not, so don't construe it as a version of what has happened), "We'll meet today and tomorrow, and if you haven't hammered out an agreement by then, we'll meet next spring," it can force tough decisions.
If you read the Chairman's Message of August 6, 2015, you might notice a hint about those decisions. (It's the top link on the fdx.alpa.org page.)
Second sentence, highlight mine:
"As negotiations continue—either to a tentative agreement for the MEC to review,
or paused by the National Mediation Board—it is important for FDX pilots to maintain discipline and focus."
In this case (and again, I have no inside knowledge, this is just an educated guess), the decision would not be to accept the last offer or walk away, it could be to accept the last offer or wait a long time for the next NMB mediated session.
The MEC Chairman also stated during the last Joint Council Meeting that he felt like as long as we were making progress (and he felt like we were at that time) the NMB mediator would continue to schedule dates to meet. Apparently, we've stopped making progress. We'll know the details soon, but since we were stuck on retirement at that time, my guess is we didn't make much progress on retirement.
Personally, I think there are a lot of things we could legally do during that wait, and enough angry pilots to make the wait uncomfortable for the other party in this process. And still, there's the distinct possibility that such an angry pilot might do something stupid to get himself fired, and that was the crux of the remainder of the above referenced Chairman's Message. That puts another spin on the decision, do we accept this TA, or do we wait for better and in the meantime risk losing pilots to stupid mistakes and then have to pay to get the hostages back?
Whatever the options or considerations, walking away is not one of them.
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