Rain maker

I hate to ever call people out by name, but unfortunately it is the only way to bring hidden plans and secret treachery into the light. The latest Counsel 22 email that was sent out by only Pat O’dell (PO) needs to be unpacked. Here are some quotes from that email:

“I have been unable to gain support of Captains Turner and Cutler, and they are no longer willing to work with me and within our LEC. I have approached them numerous times to work on guidelines for the Negotiating Committee (NC); they have declined to even comment on the meeting or the products I have produced.” Why are the other reps unwilling to listen to PO? Well there is good reason for that! The Silent Majority group is puppeteering PO to do their dirty work. Here’s a quote from Anita Shrew, one of the SM founders: “If you work strategically, you can get something better than what they want. So if you want to keep Pat May to continue to negotiate, you may be able to convince the others that they can keep Pat May until they find a viable replacement - knowing that that would take more time than Pat May needs to close a deal.” This was exactly the line of BS that PO pushed to me to keep May around. Find me a replacement and then we can remove May. Never mind that there are many willing to step up, but not under the current Deep State regime. We will never get anything outside of Pat May’s agenda if he is anywhere in the picture. That much is certain.

So who is this Silent Majority? They have their own delusional think tank that has become a self licking popsicle and collection point for self centered cry babies. Lets talk about the name of Silent Majority. Let’s be clear. There is no "Majority" here. With 57% of the people voting the TA down, only 43% voted for it. Of those 43%, most did not like the TA. Most fell victim to the fear mongering of furloughs threats and "years to a new TA" threats etc. If you look at the recalls you will see that the votes generally go about 2/3rds to recall vs 1/3rd to not. This is a decent indicator of where the silent majority stands. A third at best. So they are nowhere near close to being a majority in any way or representing the pilot group as a whole. It is comical that they continue to rant and rave about how the freedom flyers have somehow organized a coup with only a few hundred people and a pilot group of just under 6,000. What the silent majority fails to realize is that the pilot group is extremely angry. We were given a crappy TA. The MECs all rubber stamped it with the exception of Tony Cutler who had the ability to think independently and analyze the situation perfectly (funny how the SM applauds these attributes in O'dell and O'Conner when they think the way the group wants, but TC is the devil for getting it right with his independent thought). But then the NC doubled down on the crappy TA and overtly lied about it and hid truths. When the pilot group saw through those shenanigans, and the NC started to panic, the NC started the fear tactics. This can NEVER be forgotten. How can anyone ever trust Pat May again after witnessing what just happened? How can the pilot group ever be unified while a small group insists on keeping him around? What we are witnessing are the last dying breaths of the FedEx ALPA deep state. For too long management has had their hands in ALPA leadership. This has led to a history of "parking lot deals", a 2015 CBA that has still left a bad taste in the mouth of many, and a TA in which the NC was so out to lunch with what the piloting group wanted that they were able to get 57% of the pilot group to vote down a pay raise! Do you know how hard it is to get pilots to vote down a pay raise? They missed the mark by miles because they were so intertwined with managment that they forgot who they worked for.

Pat May was willing to sell everything to get his new pension plan created even if it meant splitting the workforce (which is a terrible idea). I hope everyone knows, if this pension plan goes forward, the legacy plan will never see another raise again and everyone stuck on the leagacy plan will slowly lose their pension value through inflation until its gone.

What the SM doesn't realize is that this is an organic movement. This is not a small group that has taken over the union. This is not a small but brillaint group of freedom flyers super heroes (or villains depending on your view). This is a ton of small groups that are taking back the union from the Fedex Deep State and are returning democracy back to the pilots.

To be honest, with all of the management and instructors in the SM group and the extreme rhetoric encouraging targeting of jumpseaters against anyone who expresses opossition, it is a little unnerving at the direction this is going. This reminds me of the FBI targeting soccer mom's that tried to take back their schools. The deep state comparison is spot on. In the past, instructors have been fired for making events personal. As recently as today, KH from the SM group was encouraging all oposition to make sure their applications to PSA were in. I can only imagine that many of these buffoons were the same people that talked about personally escorting anyone off the property if they refused the covid shot. That's some real empathy there! These are true brothers and sisters that are begging to end the divisiveness. Lets have STABILITY they shout......but only after we have gotten our way! What they really want is the same as any deep state wants. They want to retain power.

The plan to retain power is by hijacking the LEC 26 vote. While the organic pilot movement voted out the three block reps in LEC 26 and then voted in a new set of three new block reps in a true display of democracy, you would think that the Silent Minority group, the Fedex Deep State, would be more than happy to let democracy run its course right? You would think for a group that wants stability they would try to place the permanent block reps into the interim positions since they were already voted in. That would be the path to stability right? Nope! Instead they want to make one last desperate try to upend the pilot group and retain power. Since the intructor group is mostly local, Billy Williams placed a pawn to run the elections who put the LEC 26 interim elections in the best possible date to get instructors in town after the SIG. The deep state will do their best to mobilize everyone they can to put in 3 deep state block reps until March and pull the rug out once more from the majority of the pilot group. Their hope is to get in three deep state players to quickly run a 50%+1 TA through so the instructors and management can get paid. You see, if you don't work on the line, you don't care about the quality of life issues that were given up, or the scope issues. Only the pay raise matters to you along with the retirement. So the faster we sign a TA1.1 the better! So now they will shout more lies like we all are willing to wait 10 years for a new TA. While that was said, it is ridiculous to believe that was anything more than a posturing statement. What can be said is that we need to get this TA right. We have slowly given up rights and buying power over the years and will continue to do so if we don't standup for ourselves. We need to take back our union for the pilots again and we need to stop relying on people that have proven they will say and do anything to get elected (O'dell). It is nothing short of true Stockholm Syndrome to continue to follow Pat May down a path that he can't improve on by his own admission. The statement that, "this is the best I can do" (something close to that) is the only time I've believed him.

If you are in LEC 26 and believe in the power of our union being with the Pilots and not management, then you need to show up to the LEC block rep vote in person in early December. This vote is everything.