Dadof6

Note to management types: In the interest of improving my parent company's profitability, I humbly offer the following suggestion. Please magnanimously (and unilaterally) improve the LOA before 08-01 closes. Run the numbers. See how fast the F/O slots in HKG and CDG go when something more than slave wages are offered. Help yourself (profitability) AND help the crew dogs. Get a bonus for yourselves. Negate the need for new-hires off the street and minimize excess bids & training cycles in this post-65 era. Sweep away the rubble from the FDA LOA train wreck of 2007 and set the stage for FUTURE LOAs for India, or countries to be named later. Make going overseas attractive to those carrying the company's water. Or not.

Whew--done hallucinating now--flame away!

CargoCan

Don't blame the company. The vast majority of the membership approved the LOA. The company can't improve the LOA even if they wanted to.... We did this to ourselves.

Micro

Some of us didn't!!! But I guess the onslaught of "positive" remarks from our MEC and the officers sold the other group who "thought" it was an acceptable LOA.

Gunter

deleted deleted

fdxShark

What do you consider a 'vast' majority??

2cylinderdriver

They would also have to completely re-bid the FDA's, since it would not be fair to not allow everyone to bid based on a different set of rules. Not that "FAIR" is anywhere in the Company's vocab these days with the current bid fiasco !

Like others have said, will not happen. Good thought though...

DixieFlyer

Not to mention that as it stands, the FDA's will be staffed by a large percentage of new-hires. If the company ever decides that furloughs are a viable option, a lot of FDA staffing disappears with the first round of cuts. Cost savings disappear. FDA viability suffers. Doesn't sound very sensible, does it?

The LOA is a piece of crap, but that little nugget provides a little added employment insurance.

CargoCan

51% is a simple majority. I consider 68% a vast majority.

My point is that we shouldn't point our collective finger at the company. We took ownership of the LOA when we approved it. More than 2 out of every 3 pilots that voted, voted yes. You can cast dispersions at the company for drafting such an agreement, but WE signed on the dotted line.

This may be a bit of a stretch, but I'll draw an analogy to the subprime mortagage crisis. Many Americans want to blame the banks and underwriting investment firms and their predatory practices. True, predatory lending practices contributed to the problem, but no one put a gun to anyones head and forced them to take a variable rate loan on an overpriced house that they could not afford.

Our energy is better spent finding a union leadership that is willing to work for all of us instead of a senior minority, or should I say senior citizen minority.

FDXLAG

Blaming the company is indeed stupid. Blaming the Union leadership that threatened to resign if we voted down the best were gonna get LOA is not.

skypine27

I really love that "This is the best deal we could get" line.

Then, w/o us even asking the Company, they (the Company):

• Reduce invol STV from 3 months to 1 month
• Increase shipping allowance from 500 lbs free, to 500lbs free + an additional 500lbs at a discounted rate
• Add 10000 dollars deposit money
• Increase shipping from 500lbs free and 500lbs additional @ discounted rate to simply 1000lbs free

I guess our MEC really knew what they were talking about when they said "This is the best deal we could get!" and "there was NO money left on the table."

Imagine what we could have gotten, if as a Union, we had said "F that" and walked away from the table. Or, failing that, if, as a crew force we'd voted 68% NO to the LOA. How would the FDA staffing look then? What would the company be offering now when the FO side of CDG and HKG went COMPLETELY unfilled on bid 07-03?

The sad thing is:

From emailing the people in my new hire class while the LOA was being voted on, I've determined:
3/4 of them are sitting in the right seat of the 727, based in MEM. They go to work, then go home. They've never considered thinking about work outside the cockpit. They've never logged onto APC. They don't even know what it is. They occasionally read the emails pumped out by FedEx ALPA, except for the ones which list which pairings are DPs. They blindly followed the Unions advice of "Vote for the LOA, it's the best we're gonna get. Plus, great scope!". One guy is ex Navy and from American Airlines, and actually used the line "I don't think we should call the companys bluff on this one guys. Scope is real important." They've never heard of any of the above points I listed, and STILL think the MEC is doing the best they can.

And the really, really sad thing is:

There's a lot more people just like them.