To Stay or Go

And also why the FO pay slope needs to be fixed.

“Don’t worry about second or third year pay. You chose UPS for the Captain pay.” This is one of several unbelievably stupid things I have heard. Others have been, “this contract is about righting past wrongs and making UPS own up to their promises from 1988” and “we better not reject a TA because then the mediator and NMB may force a worse deal on us or leave us in indefinite recess.”

I’d like to address these three points. In the table below, I have displayed the time value of money as applied to the first 10 years FO pay at UPS and FedEx. Keep in mind that at FedEx the upgrade time is about 5 years and they have a wide and narrow body scale. I have done the comparison with their wide-body scale since we are primarily a wide-body airline. (The DC-8 may not technically be a wide-body, but it carries a helluva lot and we only have 17 or so 727s, which will be long gone by the next contract anyway.)


The first column is the year of service.
The second column is UPS yearly income.
The third column is FedEx yearly income.
The fouth coulmn is UPS income from respective year in the year 2026 at 3% annual interest.
The fifth column us FedEx income from resepective year in the year 2026 at 3% annual interest.
Year 1 . 26,000 50,700 47,000 92,000
Year 2 . 74,100 114,075 130,000 200,000
Year 3 . 79,950 114,075 136,000 194,000
Year 4 . 89,700 117,000 148,000 193,000
Year 5 . 94,575 118,950 152,000 191,000
Year 6 . 99,450 121,875 155,000 190,000
Year 7 . 104,325 123,825 157,000 188,000
Year 8 . 109,200 126,750 160,000 187,000
Year 9 . 115,050 128,700 164,000 184,000
Year 10 . 119,925 132,600 166,000 184,000
$1,415,000 $1,803,000

Second, this contract is about the future, not the past. I appreciate the sacrifices that the 88ers made for our union. They deserve all the respect and thanks in the world. But this contract will not pass if it bloats the A plan at the expense of FO compensation. It’s not fair, equitable, and feasible given the pension crunch going on in America today. UPS should not have to expend those kinds of retirement incomes. The managers get that kind of pension but that is beside the point.

I often hear IPAers blast FedEx by saying that their scope clause is weak and their jobs are at risk. Why is it then that upgrade at FedEx is twice as fast as it is here? When reviewing the above numbers keep in mind that the FedEx guys will be at the captain scale at year 5.

If our TA comes back and it is less than the current FedEx contract every single FO should vote no. There are many aspects to a contract but bottom line is that we get 975 hours pay per year minimum and FedEx guys average between 950 and 1000. Why the hell should we get less than our peers at FedEx? What is a great A plan worth if you earn millions of dollars less over your career? Especially since the chances of it still being there in 20 years is nill. And on a final note, the military has unmanned aerial vehicles launching hellfire missiles over Afghanistan right now. How long before technology produces an unmanned A380 cargo aircraft? I predict 20 years, which means we need to secure our futures with a FedEx type contract now!!!