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Old 04-30-2006, 06:41 PM
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FoxHunter
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Post Two Years Too Long? Another view!

Received this last week:

Part 1

Dear Fellow FedEx Pilots: I have written the following article in the spirit of reverence as it was known to the ancient Greek culture—an ethical virtue that brings people together. While I am sensitive to the immediate emotions that might be generated by this article, I am not moved by them. I am interested only in the long term benefits that accrue to our profession from an airing of the ideas. I have no choice. According to published reports, union membership has fallen to just 7.8% of the private workforce—nearly extinct—and its major institutions appear to be in disarray. In my opinion, our profession is headed irreversibly towards a similar collapse. I believe that its traditions must be replaced with common sense strategies, and it cannot wait any longer. This article is written against the backdrop of the current FedEx ALPA slogan: “Two Years is Long Enough.”

Is Two Years Really Long Enough?
Bob Lavender 8 April 2006©

The sentiments expressed in the slogan “Two Years is Long Enough,” are a throwback to the “regulated era" of the airline industry which ended in 1978. During this period, the time frame for negotiations and agreement were fairly uniform across the industry. But, those standards have been replaced by economic and sociological factors that dictate what “long enough” really is.

Because our profession has failed to analyze and control these factors, “long enough” is merely an opinion, and, in my view, it is not shared by a vast majority of important factions. Among them: FedEx managers, our fellow FedEx employees, pilots at Delta, United, and Northwest, legislators, the courts, Enron employees, the American public, and citizens worldwide. At best, these parties do not care how long we go on; at worst, they think that two years is not nearly long enough for us to boil in our juices. It would be self-deception to think that a lack of external support has no impact on duration.

Mathematically, “long enough” is a function of the conditions required to accomplish a task in a given measure of time. For instance, Billy Joe might think that two years is too long to have not won the Texas lottery, but if he continues to buy only one ticket per month, the odds are that it will take him about 14 million months to win the big one. To shorten the time, he needs to buy many more tickets. Likewise, pilots need to alter their economics and their form of solidarity in order to influence the timeline. Until we act on these matters we will continue to be acted upon by the prevailing elements.

Besides having little influence over the timeline for negotiations, our failure to break with past economic traditions also guarantees that we cannot control the quality of the negotiated product. It is not a question of merely closing a deal within two years; anyone can do that. It is a matter of optimizing our position in order to maximize the results. This, we cannot currently do. We are now dominated by local and global forces who know how to compete for the available revenue—and, they are formidable competitors. We need a new strategic formula to deal with these modern conditions.

Strategic Solutions to the FedEx Pilot Dilemma

1. First and foremost, we must enter into a reverent principle-based covenant with each other if we are to eliminate barriers to true solidarity. Since passage or the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978, pilots have almost never missed a chance to be their own worst enemy—starting with the A, B, and C pay scales of the 1980s, and continuing today with the Retirement/Age 60 dilemma. The divisions that we, ourselves, have caused encourage exploitation and ridicule by everyone, not just management. We have no one to blame but ourselves…and no one will fix it but us.

2. We must break our economic ties with the passenger carriers at once and exploit our own niche. We are in a different business than they and our interests are sometimes opposed. The idea that we can continue to align ourselves economically with the passenger pilots and not be caught in their economic vortex is preposterous.

3. We must creatively address three strategic issues immediately: Open Skies, Age Retirement/Age 60, and Health Care. I designate these issues as strategic because they symbolize our professional failure to harmonize our interests with each other, with the company for whom we work, and with “globalization.” A willingness to change on these issues will signal a willingness to modernize. Suggestion: Get as far away from the traditional ALPA position on Open Skies as possible. FedEx and its pilots have a considerable cooperative interest in extending the FedEx infrastructure as quickly as possible and “owning” new markets. If you want more leverage, increase your numbers through corporate growth.

4. We must invite outside opinion, criticism, and influence into our midst. I strongly propose that we consult with an Organizational Behavior (OB) expert to help us identify and reduce internal points of division. Enlightened corporations and other organizations routinely use such experts to align their internal forces and make them more competitive (see my article, “Learning to Compete Wisely….” at www.pilotunity.com). Our profession has outright rejected the tools that these experts supply. Suggestion: Appoint an outside board of directors to help bring in new ideas. We need to learn how to compete and it is obvious to me that we cannot do it alone.

5. Pilots must take a new approach to Public Relations; traditional pilot standards are an embarrassment. For instance, whereas, management “sells” its “offers” publicly via outside spokespersons such as “analysts” and other credible channels, pilots rely on the most incredible of sources—themselves. Union officials have failed utterly to devise a modern public relations strategy for use either internally or for the outside world, and it is devastating. Vilification of management is grossly counterproductive. It results in “burnout” at all levels and it alienates fellow employees, especially at a company like FedEx whose credibility and reputation is legendary. The pilots need a solid forward-looking economic strategy along with a positive PR strategy to explain it. Right now we have neither. Suggestion: There must be a public declaration by pilot leaders that traditional methodology has failed and that a new strategic approach is now in progress.
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