I received this via my personal email account. Though it looks like it should have also circulated via ALPA email accounts, I posted it here for wide spread viewing. It is fairly long, so it needed to be split into two posts (APC forum limit). Also, it was impossible to get the fonts/format to copy/paste exactly the way they were supposed to from hotmail to APC. I tried my best to correct this with edits, though it did not come out perfect.
-Skypine27
Part I:
Here's another letter Vic asked me to post to help continue the generation of discussions on topics that affect us:
Fellow Council 22 Members,
I’m Vic xxx and asking for your vote.
Work rules define a myriad of issues; they determine Pay, Days off and overall quality of life for all FedEx pilots. However good each work rule may seem, individually they must be designed to work together as a complete package. Our work rules look good at first glance but if you look deeper , “ The Devil is in the Details”. Remember that quote?
Overview of our current rules:
- MIN line guarantee is 68 and 85 hours (4 week and 5 week months respectively)
- MAX line limit…none
- Trip Rig (Paid by time away from base) goes to 1:3.75 in January
- Duty Rig Domestic is 1:2 day, 1:92 night, 1:1.5 critical
- Duty Rig International is 1:92
- MPDP-2 out/back pays 6:00hrs
- MPDP-E is a Duty period into/out of a HUB pays 3:00 (i.e. a hub-turn pays 6:00hrs)
- MPDP-F is a Revenue Duty with a Live Leg DH home (pays 9:00 but there a too many gotchas)
Scheduling duty limits:
- Domestic day “Scheduled” duty is 13:00 hours
- Domestic Night “Scheduled” duty limit is 11:30 hours.
- Domestic Critical “Scheduled” duty limit is 9:00 hours
Notice I said “scheduled“.
These duties can all be increased by 1 hour at the wave of the hand (and often are), and can be extended to FAR limits of 16 hours. We as pilots know the need to ensure the boxes arrive on time, but when the ice and snow storms hit or those typhoons in Asia blow, pilots need to get a bonus pay of at least 3 hours every time the Duty officer waves his hand a increases duty, or if GOC revises your trip an adds additional work. The current system has too many wickets that crews must endure before any increase in pay is seen.
At first glance our rules look pretty sound. However, a big mistake on this last contract is that we pushed for a trip rig of 1.375. This created a two-tier pay system. Pilots who are hub turning will be paid 6 hours for a days work, while those not turning a hub are paid 6+24 for the same days work. The company warned us they would seek productivity gains in exchange for the additional 24 minutes - basically more block hours per city – resulting in the disappearance of purity and deadhead commonality.
Below, in bold, is the negotiating committee’s response. (Incidentally, this letter was not shown to the pilots until
January, 2007.)
Why weren’t we told of it during the roadshows explaining the TA?