FDX: New Year Loopholes (an open letter by Vic)
12-23-2007, 05:49 PM
#1
Proponent of Hysteria
Thread Starter
Joined APC: Jun 2007
Position: "Part of the problem." : JL
Posts: 1,053
FDX: New Year Loopholes (an open letter by Vic)
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:
Scheduling duty limits:
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?
-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?
Last edited by skypine27; 12-23-2007 at 06:30 PM.
12-23-2007, 05:52 PM
#2
Proponent of Hysteria
Thread Starter
Joined APC: Jun 2007
Position: "Part of the problem." : JL
Posts: 1,053
Part II:
<begin response>
August 16, 2006
Captain BC
Chairman, FedEx ALPA MEC Negotiating Committee
1770 Kirby Parkway, Suite 300
Memphis, TN 38138
DM
Vice President, Labor Relations, FedEx Express
3620 Hacks Cross Road, Building B
Memphis, TN 38125
Dear SIG/PSIT Member:
During the course of negotiations, we discussed the desire of the company to vary pairings and trip sequences with less emphasis on city purity and deadhead commonality in both pairing and line construction.
Both parties acknowledged that the Company already has the ability, under the current SIG side letter, to institute change in this area.
While the existence and maintenance of pairing and flight line construction with features of city purity and deadhead commonality continues to be a desirable solution for some domestic pairings, the parties recognize that in the changing business environment, city purity and deadhead commonality should not be used to stop change or frustrate building lines within acceptable financial and operational parameters. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact either of us.
Captain BC
Chairman, FedEx ALPA MEC Negotiating Committee
DM
Vice President, Labor Relations, FedEx Express
<end of response>
The situation is so bad now that the SIG initially disputed 114 MEM MD11 lines for December! Let me repeat that -114 lines! The Company agreed to fix some of them, and some further compromises may be achieved as time goes on. But nevertheless, whatever the eventual outcome (and I'm sure the Company will do some fancy footwork to keep this information from surfacing), this should be a clear wakeup call to all as to what is transpiring and unchecked, what can happen in the future. While it might be argued that the Company always had the right to build the parings and lines the way they wanted, with the implementation of the 1.375 trip rig, we gave them a financial incentive to turn the optimizer loose. As a predictable result, our lines (and our quality of life) are deteriorating.
We also neglected to tie in our MPDP to Sick or Vacation day guarantees when creating this two-tier pay system. Now, if you conflict vacation or sick days with a TAFB trip, your banks will be in a deficit of .4 hours more per day than they use to.
To further explain:
If you have 7 days vacation (42 hours) and conflict with a 7 day international trip, 168 hrs TAFB and 44.8 credit your vacation bank is in deficit by almost 3 hours.
Do this 4-5 times a year and you have lost almost 15 hours of vacation credit. Previously, it was a day for a day before the change in trip rig.
Wonder why they aren’t buying vacations back?
We need a Guaranteed Min pay per day for all trips in the system. This would prevent what is called Trip rig wash out.
Case in point:
When you fly a High Block day of say 8:00 hrs but then layover of 36 hours, your Big block day gets washed out. In other words you only get 6 hours of pay for 8 block hours.
Think again.
Previously:
o We received 3 hours of pay for training completed on a day off
o We were entitled to Trip Guarantee if training conflicted with a trip.
Now:
o If you try to conflict recurrent training with the first or last two days of a hub turn sequence, you end up dropping 3 days worth of pay for 2 days training pay.
No Trip Guarantee: If your 2 day recurrent training conflicts with a 30 hour trip, the trip gets dropped and you have no guarantee for it - you only get paid 9 hours for your two days of recurrent training. You must make up the additional 21 hours.
o Because of the 12-hour training buffer, you must drop three 6-hour trips (18 hours of credit) for 2 recurrent training days (9 hours of credit). This pretty much forces us to bid training on an off day.
o Four days off (if not more) lost per year to training.
Think of it this way:
If 4700 pilots elect to do a total 4 days of required recurrent training annually, that is 18,800 days of additional work 4700 x 4 = 18,800. Conservatively speaking, if we say the average pilot works 16 days per month, 12 months per year then, each pilot works 192 days per year.
18,800 divided by 192 = 98 pilots worth of work.
That is 98 pilots we no longer need!
Wonder why we are not hiring?
It was 7. Our first contract increased this to 8:30. Our most recent contract increased it further to 13:00 hours effective 01 Jan 08. Yes, we agreed to increase our High-Low Bid-line spread to increase to 13 hours. Simply put, this equates to a $3000 per month difference in straight-line construction pay. In my opinion we should have insisted the spread be lowered to 6 hours. Because we have no Max line construction Cap and the fact that we increased the High / Low line split to 13 hours this gives the company unbelievable flexibility in their manning formula. We got nothing in exchange for giving the company this flexibility. We gave the company the ability to build lines that pay as low as 68 hours and pay as much as 81 hours in a 4 week month. (The 13-hour high/low spread effective 01 Jan 08). If we built lines to pay closer to 81 hours, we would certainly make more money, but we would all be working toward the Min day off of 13. I prefer to have more time off per month, not less, as I get older. By the way, our monthly average days off on the MEM MD-11 went from 14.98 in 2000 to just under 14 in the November 2007 Bid pack. We have lost 1 day off for the same credit hours.
As you noticed this month, there are lines that were built to pay less than 68 (some out/back lines paid 66) but the company said they would pay the pilots the min of 68. Sound good? By allowing this we effectively lower average Line value or Average line BLG. Since RLG defined as 98% of Average, if the company can lower Avg Line value by 1.5 hours the money they save is HUGE. Again, we got nothing for this little gem we gave them. So when we are fat in manning RLG will be low, When we are lean, the company will demand the PSIT build higher paying lines, meaning less reserve lines and we will all work 1-2 days more per month.
Have you noticed the Lack of Open time?
BOTTOM LINE
Ø Four days off (if not more) lost per year to training
Ø Three days of vacation lost to the 1:375 trip rig
Ø Countless Sick time lost to the trip rig
Ø City purity and Deadhead commonality gone
These are the problems and a suggested conceptual starting point to make changes. Hopefully, we will move on with an educated crew force.
Support your SIG - don’t fly disputed parings & vote for change.
I’m Vic xxx, asking for your vote.
Fraternally,
Victor xxx
<begin response>
August 16, 2006
Captain BC
Chairman, FedEx ALPA MEC Negotiating Committee
1770 Kirby Parkway, Suite 300
Memphis, TN 38138
DM
Vice President, Labor Relations, FedEx Express
3620 Hacks Cross Road, Building B
Memphis, TN 38125
Dear SIG/PSIT Member:
During the course of negotiations, we discussed the desire of the company to vary pairings and trip sequences with less emphasis on city purity and deadhead commonality in both pairing and line construction.
Both parties acknowledged that the Company already has the ability, under the current SIG side letter, to institute change in this area.
While the existence and maintenance of pairing and flight line construction with features of city purity and deadhead commonality continues to be a desirable solution for some domestic pairings, the parties recognize that in the changing business environment, city purity and deadhead commonality should not be used to stop change or frustrate building lines within acceptable financial and operational parameters. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact either of us.
Captain BC
Chairman, FedEx ALPA MEC Negotiating Committee
DM
Vice President, Labor Relations, FedEx Express
<end of response>
The situation is so bad now that the SIG initially disputed 114 MEM MD11 lines for December! Let me repeat that -114 lines! The Company agreed to fix some of them, and some further compromises may be achieved as time goes on. But nevertheless, whatever the eventual outcome (and I'm sure the Company will do some fancy footwork to keep this information from surfacing), this should be a clear wakeup call to all as to what is transpiring and unchecked, what can happen in the future. While it might be argued that the Company always had the right to build the parings and lines the way they wanted, with the implementation of the 1.375 trip rig, we gave them a financial incentive to turn the optimizer loose. As a predictable result, our lines (and our quality of life) are deteriorating.
We also neglected to tie in our MPDP to Sick or Vacation day guarantees when creating this two-tier pay system. Now, if you conflict vacation or sick days with a TAFB trip, your banks will be in a deficit of .4 hours more per day than they use to.
To further explain:
If you have 7 days vacation (42 hours) and conflict with a 7 day international trip, 168 hrs TAFB and 44.8 credit your vacation bank is in deficit by almost 3 hours.
Do this 4-5 times a year and you have lost almost 15 hours of vacation credit. Previously, it was a day for a day before the change in trip rig.
Wonder why they aren’t buying vacations back?
- We have NO Min pay per day
We need a Guaranteed Min pay per day for all trips in the system. This would prevent what is called Trip rig wash out.
Case in point:
When you fly a High Block day of say 8:00 hrs but then layover of 36 hours, your Big block day gets washed out. In other words you only get 6 hours of pay for 8 block hours.
- Training Pay:
Think again.
Previously:
o We received 3 hours of pay for training completed on a day off
o We were entitled to Trip Guarantee if training conflicted with a trip.
Now:
o If you try to conflict recurrent training with the first or last two days of a hub turn sequence, you end up dropping 3 days worth of pay for 2 days training pay.
No Trip Guarantee: If your 2 day recurrent training conflicts with a 30 hour trip, the trip gets dropped and you have no guarantee for it - you only get paid 9 hours for your two days of recurrent training. You must make up the additional 21 hours.
o Because of the 12-hour training buffer, you must drop three 6-hour trips (18 hours of credit) for 2 recurrent training days (9 hours of credit). This pretty much forces us to bid training on an off day.
o Four days off (if not more) lost per year to training.
Think of it this way:
If 4700 pilots elect to do a total 4 days of required recurrent training annually, that is 18,800 days of additional work 4700 x 4 = 18,800. Conservatively speaking, if we say the average pilot works 16 days per month, 12 months per year then, each pilot works 192 days per year.
18,800 divided by 192 = 98 pilots worth of work.
That is 98 pilots we no longer need!
Wonder why we are not hiring?
- High / Low Split
It was 7. Our first contract increased this to 8:30. Our most recent contract increased it further to 13:00 hours effective 01 Jan 08. Yes, we agreed to increase our High-Low Bid-line spread to increase to 13 hours. Simply put, this equates to a $3000 per month difference in straight-line construction pay. In my opinion we should have insisted the spread be lowered to 6 hours. Because we have no Max line construction Cap and the fact that we increased the High / Low line split to 13 hours this gives the company unbelievable flexibility in their manning formula. We got nothing in exchange for giving the company this flexibility. We gave the company the ability to build lines that pay as low as 68 hours and pay as much as 81 hours in a 4 week month. (The 13-hour high/low spread effective 01 Jan 08). If we built lines to pay closer to 81 hours, we would certainly make more money, but we would all be working toward the Min day off of 13. I prefer to have more time off per month, not less, as I get older. By the way, our monthly average days off on the MEM MD-11 went from 14.98 in 2000 to just under 14 in the November 2007 Bid pack. We have lost 1 day off for the same credit hours.
As you noticed this month, there are lines that were built to pay less than 68 (some out/back lines paid 66) but the company said they would pay the pilots the min of 68. Sound good? By allowing this we effectively lower average Line value or Average line BLG. Since RLG defined as 98% of Average, if the company can lower Avg Line value by 1.5 hours the money they save is HUGE. Again, we got nothing for this little gem we gave them. So when we are fat in manning RLG will be low, When we are lean, the company will demand the PSIT build higher paying lines, meaning less reserve lines and we will all work 1-2 days more per month.
Have you noticed the Lack of Open time?
BOTTOM LINE
Ø Four days off (if not more) lost per year to training
Ø Three days of vacation lost to the 1:375 trip rig
Ø Countless Sick time lost to the trip rig
Ø City purity and Deadhead commonality gone
These are the problems and a suggested conceptual starting point to make changes. Hopefully, we will move on with an educated crew force.
Support your SIG - don’t fly disputed parings & vote for change.
I’m Vic xxx, asking for your vote.
Fraternally,
Victor xxx
Last edited by skypine27; 12-23-2007 at 06:16 PM.
12-24-2007, 10:17 AM
#3
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Dec 2007
Posts: 829
These are the reasons why all of these changes/rigs/etc. are always presented independently. They sound good when discussed individually. Every time someone mentions the new rig, I ask if they know whether that affects vacation/etc.; and I always get the same "Don't know, haven't heard, or haven't thought about it."
There is no reason, given as much money as we collectively pay in dues, that we couldn't have some well-paid attorneys and accountants running the numbers for us. Going into negotiations, they could have already run a complete set of worst-case numbers as far as what the current contract allowed. Then, every time a change was offered, they would run the numbers and we would have an apples to apples comparison of our potential gain/loss. You know the company was doing this - they were going for cost neutral if they could - though I am sure they had a max. cost they were willing to give up - and they assigned dollar values to every piece of that TA.
When the TA was offered for a vote, it could have been accompanied by the expert's analysis and the MEC's opinions on why the gains/loses were beneficial for us.
I am not saying that we should or should not have accepted certain terms of the contract, but it does make us look amateurish to still be discovering what effects some of the changes to the TA are having over a year past the signing. If our pilot group had known the worst case for each aspect of the TA, we would have at least gone in with our eyes open. No matter how much some of you individuals know, you can't deny that the majority of those who voted for the TA still don't know the details.
There is no reason, given as much money as we collectively pay in dues, that we couldn't have some well-paid attorneys and accountants running the numbers for us. Going into negotiations, they could have already run a complete set of worst-case numbers as far as what the current contract allowed. Then, every time a change was offered, they would run the numbers and we would have an apples to apples comparison of our potential gain/loss. You know the company was doing this - they were going for cost neutral if they could - though I am sure they had a max. cost they were willing to give up - and they assigned dollar values to every piece of that TA.
When the TA was offered for a vote, it could have been accompanied by the expert's analysis and the MEC's opinions on why the gains/loses were beneficial for us.
I am not saying that we should or should not have accepted certain terms of the contract, but it does make us look amateurish to still be discovering what effects some of the changes to the TA are having over a year past the signing. If our pilot group had known the worst case for each aspect of the TA, we would have at least gone in with our eyes open. No matter how much some of you individuals know, you can't deny that the majority of those who voted for the TA still don't know the details.
12-24-2007, 10:57 AM
#4
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Sep 2006
Position: A300 CAP FDX
Posts: 287
Originally Posted by LivingInMEM
No matter how much some of you individuals know, you can't deny that the majority of those who voted for the TA still don't know the details.
12-24-2007, 11:19 AM
#5
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Feb 2005
Posts: 489
Originally Posted by LivingInMEM
No matter how much some of you individuals know, you can't deny that the majority of those who voted for the TA still don't know the details.
How many manuals / regulations has an individual been given over his / her career and NOT had in depth training on its content?
Just curious as to how much training schedulers receive regarding the contract.
Where should this training come from? A SME from the Union that we pay dues to.
$0.02
12-24-2007, 12:07 PM
#6
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Nov 2006
Position: 767 FO
Posts: 8,047
Originally Posted by LivingInMEM
These are the reasons why all of these changes/rigs/etc. are always presented independently. They sound good when discussed individually. Every time someone mentions the new rig, I ask if they know whether that affects vacation/etc.; and I always get the same "Don't know, haven't heard, or haven't thought about it."
There is no reason, given as much money as we collectively pay in dues, that we couldn't have some well-paid attorneys and accountants running the numbers for us. Going into negotiations, they could have already run a complete set of worst-case numbers as far as what the current contract allowed. Then, every time a change was offered, they would run the numbers and we would have an apples to apples comparison of our potential gain/loss. You know the company was doing this - they were going for cost neutral if they could - though I am sure they had a max. cost they were willing to give up - and they assigned dollar values to every piece of that TA.
When the TA was offered for a vote, it could have been accompanied by the expert's analysis and the MEC's opinions on why the gains/loses were beneficial for us.
I am not saying that we should or should not have accepted certain terms of the contract, but it does make us look amateurish to still be discovering what effects some of the changes to the TA are having over a year past the signing. If our pilot group had known the worst case for each aspect of the TA, we would have at least gone in with our eyes open. No matter how much some of you individuals know, you can't deny that the majority of those who voted for the TA still don't know the details.
There is no reason, given as much money as we collectively pay in dues, that we couldn't have some well-paid attorneys and accountants running the numbers for us. Going into negotiations, they could have already run a complete set of worst-case numbers as far as what the current contract allowed. Then, every time a change was offered, they would run the numbers and we would have an apples to apples comparison of our potential gain/loss. You know the company was doing this - they were going for cost neutral if they could - though I am sure they had a max. cost they were willing to give up - and they assigned dollar values to every piece of that TA.
When the TA was offered for a vote, it could have been accompanied by the expert's analysis and the MEC's opinions on why the gains/loses were beneficial for us.
I am not saying that we should or should not have accepted certain terms of the contract, but it does make us look amateurish to still be discovering what effects some of the changes to the TA are having over a year past the signing. If our pilot group had known the worst case for each aspect of the TA, we would have at least gone in with our eyes open. No matter how much some of you individuals know, you can't deny that the majority of those who voted for the TA still don't know the details.
I'll bet those guys can even find the "hidden money".
12-24-2007, 01:32 PM
#7
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Nov 2005
Position: 777 FO
Posts: 931
Originally Posted by LivingInMEM
No matter how much some of you individuals know, you can't deny that the majority of those who voted for the TA still don't know the details.
12-24-2007, 07:45 PM
#8
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Dec 2007
Posts: 829
I understand that certain sections have to be written in a complicated manner - the whole legal language thing. With that in mind, why hasn't there been a "CBA for Dummies" primer - and I do think that they could write one that would not establish legal precedents - they could give a bunch of what-if's or do it in a FAQ format.
On the other hand, I have had issues that seem black and white to me when scheds (and even contract enforcement, once) tells me that it means something completely different.
And then there are sections like this: "A pilot shall have the ability to submit to move an R-day(s) within a bid period and that submission shall not be unreasonably denied." That one is utterly unenforceable - how could you ever challenge something based on that one?
On the other hand, I have had issues that seem black and white to me when scheds (and even contract enforcement, once) tells me that it means something completely different.
And then there are sections like this: "A pilot shall have the ability to submit to move an R-day(s) within a bid period and that submission shall not be unreasonably denied." That one is utterly unenforceable - how could you ever challenge something based on that one?
12-25-2007, 08:27 AM
#10
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Nov 2006
Position: 767 FO
Posts: 8,047
Originally Posted by LivingInMEM
I understand that certain sections have to be written in a complicated manner - the whole legal language thing. With that in mind, why hasn't there been a "CBA for Dummies" primer - and I do think that they could write one that would not establish legal precedents - they could give a bunch of what-if's or do it in a FAQ format.
On the other hand, I have had issues that seem black and white to me when scheds (and even contract enforcement, once) tells me that it means something completely different.
And then there are sections like this: "A pilot shall have the ability to submit to move an R-day(s) within a bid period and that submission shall not be unreasonably denied." That one is utterly unenforceable - how could you ever challenge something based on that one?
On the other hand, I have had issues that seem black and white to me when scheds (and even contract enforcement, once) tells me that it means something completely different.
And then there are sections like this: "A pilot shall have the ability to submit to move an R-day(s) within a bid period and that submission shall not be unreasonably denied." That one is utterly unenforceable - how could you ever challenge something based on that one?
Don't forget my favorite direct quote from the contract (8.C.2.a):
A pilot shall have a deviation bank established for each bid period. The value of the deviation bank shall equal the value of the scheduled deadhead tickets for trips flown during the bid period ...
Plain language that means nothing.
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