Without saying anything improper, what exactly was your roll in the first-hand experience? What would the T-shirt have said?

You may very well be right. If so, kinda sad that direct questions would not be responded to with such a relative clear answer, vs. the stock "enhanced scope" one that was continually given.

"Black and white" is a bird in hand. "Precedence" is more like two in the bush. May end up with nothing. Actual language that provided some enhancement would have been nice.

Albie (do we have to start calling you Aaron now?) thanks for the spoon-feeding info. I have voted. So here's my unofficial email to my elected rep (aired-out in public):

LOA = POS, plain-as-day, out on a platter

Age65-backing and subsequent legislature = POS sandwich wrapped in stale diapers

Cancelling portions of bid 0703, then re-opening those same cancelled awards in bid 0803 so the over-60 crowd could bid back swiftly to the window seats = outright smack-in-the face with a handful of sh!t

And worst of all (open to flame) is CBA 30OCT06 = thinly-veiled reduction in overall QOL for all us line pilots, wrapped in bogus "cornerstone issues" like scope (wasn't strong enough that we didn't need POS LOA - see above), health care (who needs VEBA when we'll ALL have to work to age 65 (see above), retirement (will all be revamped next contract to incorporate penalties for retiring at 60, see above) and work rules (easily wiped out by the optimizer)

BTW we haven't yet even figured out how bad our work rules can be exploited with our CBA; we're learning month-to-month.

What can I do, Albie,to help slow this hemorrhage (sp?) of sh!t emanating from management and/or ALPA. I have voted, I have emailed my reps. What else?

Good question. The problem as I see it is the crew force doesn't trust the union to promote and fight for its interests, and the union is wary of picking a huge fight as historically (..and I'm talking 1990-2000 here....) many of the membership seemed to work on their own agendas and dont' back the union. Even today, the union asks that we not fly DPs, and they get scooped up. The union intreprets this as a lack of unity and as a result is afraid to test the collective metal of its membership. So who is cause of the weakness? Its a real "chicken and egg" type question...

So what do I see as the fix?

1. Get involved. I'm thrilled to be a block rep elect and hope to be part of reinvorgorating folks and letting them know WE work for THEM. However, 28% of eligible voted in the last election. How much of a mandate is that? I think the BEST thing to do is email your friends and talk to them at work encouraging them to not give up to but to vote, go to meetings (hopefully easier soon), and communicate. I KNOW a lot of folks have tried that and aren't satisfied with the results--I wasn't either and that's why I ran--but you cannot give up now. I'll do what I can to help bring more meetings and info to you--but it won't happen overnight. So--hang tough and don't quit trying to have your voice heard yet.

2. Stay informed. Spend 20 minutes a day on the ALPA site and not APC reading the block reps letters, reports, meeting minutes, etc. YES--you will see some stale info. YES--you'll roll your eyes at SOME of the info--but there is plenty of good info on there too and the better informed you are on the issues the better inputs YOU can make to improve things. Watch industry trends too--if you know what's going on in at UPS and the supplemental 121 carriers you will have a better idea of how much leverage you may or may not have down the road if you need it.

3. Get armed. I am NOT one of those guys who says don't fly extra. Conversely, I say go out right now and start flying a STBY or extra trip a month. (Now the hard part...) Don't spend it. Save it. Put the extra coin from ONE trip a month into a fund called "hope I never have to use this for a work action and get to buy a new boat instead" fund. If everyone did that and had their financial house in order (Wes Reeds old stuff on SPC should still be on the site somewhere...) you now won't lay in your bed at night in terror if there comes a point down the road where passing up an extra trip here or there--or worse. If you start NOW--by the time negotiations that begin a couple years down the road you'll have a couple month's salary saved--and you'll be in a lot better position to support the tough part of being a union member. And like in life--the better prepared you are to fight, the more likey you won't have to... I'm not here to lecture anyone on financial responsibility or how to run their house, but the fact is one of our primary tools in times of self help is the abilty to limit our services. You have to be ready to execute that plan if you want to have any credidbilty. I want work actions at our union like I wanted nuclear war when I was in the military--but I trained for both hoping neither would occur.

4. Demonstrate your committment. Pins and lanyards still count. I wore mine inside out when the LOA vote was going to indicate my "no" vote and disgust with STVs and the folks who allowed those into the document. But the vote passed (albeit with STVs slightly modified) and the time comes to support the team. Now is not the time to quit...its the time to fix. Trust me--if I don't think we can make a difference I'll let you know--I've got a farm and kids and daddy toys to run home and play with in my off time. But I think there is a strong concensus some things need to improve, and I am confident we can make some of it happen.

Hey Albie!! You must have got into some of that koolaid, gunter says I've been drinking.

Stop using logic and reasoning to try and fix this mess.

My agenda for the LOAs will be to add money for the dudes there--hopefully as a non-pensionable/non-dues payable COLA, eliminate the 100 mile restriction, and perhaps put a time limit on guys over there have to serve without a guaranteed bid back to MEM (sort of like the guys who auto-flowed to the S/O seat....) A little more money, and a flow back plan--and I think we'd never have another vacancy over there. Even though it appears we'll hire or fill these vacancies with either new hires or our own guys, the problem isn't going away--we are going to GROW these FDAs so the problems we face with them aren't going to shrink--they are going to grow.[/quote]


That all sounds nice Albie. Hillary Clinton could add all this nice sounding stuff to her Christmas commercial. If we consider the real substance of the LOA and why we don't like it, we'll see it lacks any significant improvement than flying from Memphis to Peoria.

We seem to like the SIBA operations, as they all go senior everytime. A little more per diem or housing money is but an apirin after a horrible hangover. Few of us have had any desire to live in China for any long amount of time. Certainly, for some of us and at particular times in our lives, this might seem intriguing. But we all might like to come back to the land of the big BX without some invitation from Oz. And when we do, we might like to come back to the house and living standard we left. Without some substantial reward, who among us will take the risk the company has imposed upon us, with our own consent?

If you get for us what you suggested, the new hire that goes to Hong Kong this summer, will get a free pass back to MEM. Since the LOA is still a POS, FDX needs to hire another new hire to replace him. This pattern will continue until FDX sends out another not so nice email this time spelling the "F" word in bold print, all the while reminding us we did this to ourselves.

As has been advised before, "be careful what you ask for."

There is a very common thread here, that we need some new thinkers at the helm. Tony is IN, because he ran un-opposed. He has a new opportunity to redeem himself. And I hope he does just that. He does seem like a very nice guy, he just stumbled as our block REP at a critical moment. You and Vic need to be ready to fly, I think you two will have window seats.

Today is the last day to vote. So all you LEC 22 guys should click the spoon tonight