Point taken.

I think that is exactly what our grievance is about.

What could/would ever stop the company from invoking 4.A.2.b. any time they felt like it?

Is all they have do is SAY the magic words "to prevent or delay a furlough", and then they can do whatever they want to with respect to ignoring our contractual right to MBPG of 68/85? - maybe so......maybe not?

I guess that's what the arbitrator will decide.........the INTENT of 4.A.2.b. , and if the company is using it in the intended manner.

If the arbitrator rules in favor of the company, they could very well use it exactly as you say, and we could be looking at MBPGs of 48/60 FOREVER.

Because as they are using 4.A.2.b. now - they have not proven they are preventing or delaying anything - only have SAID that's what they are lowering MBPGs for.

Could the company have found the loophole to end all loopholes? maybe so?

AFW_MD11 - excellent explanation! Hey albie, is this the union's interpretation also? If so, could the union comm guys use some of this explanation and put it out to the membership through official channels? It is the clearest and most concise summation of the current situation that I've read.

meanwhile......back at the ranch.......

lots of ANC FOs protecting min days off and/or picking up extra trips due to carryover conflicts in Feb to pad their scheds up to wayyyyy above avg BLGs.

thanks for your support (not!) :(

Interesting.... that trip is on revision 2. The original trip paid 70:39. It may be frozen to keep it from being placed on a VTO line, since the bid pack low line credit was 60:00, and the revised trip is WAY outside the 13:00 max spread between low line and high line credits.

It will be very interesting to see how this plays out, and what ALPA does with it. Left alone, it gives manglement a vehicle to build very low lines, all within 13:00, and then later modify the trips that they need to move the freight on the far side of the world.

AFW,
I think I'm junior to you but senior to the ANC Nuggets. I think we have maybe 90/200 ANC FO's who are Nuggets (I know you guys hate that term, I just don't know how else to describe you).

I'm sure some senior a-holes might be who you're talking about, but If you were at the bottom of the list with all the gloom and doom posted on here, don't you think you might be padding your savings? I'm a union member and all. Don't fly extra, not taking draft, etc...

I know you're an especially conscientious union member and so am I, but if it's the jr ANC guys you're disparaging, maybe you could cut them some slack...I don't know, maybe not...

CPDLC

Just to tag onto that union analogy somewhere ...

I understand that your FedEx ALPA isn't like a hospital staff. You don't have drivers, loaders, mechanics, etc on your list !

But ALPA must have changed a lot since I left it. Or you guys have a great contract to be independent contractors like NFL players and other sports stars.

Other than some work rules, Do you all have your OWN personal agent to negotiate salary and benefits ? That must be cool ... :rolleyes:

How does that work ? Is their a good pilot agency in Memphis that most of you use ?

Just felt like interjecting some Sarcasm on the scene. Especially since one of Brown's umbrella girls is featured as an avatar in this thread !

Go read "Flying the Line" if you think these times are tough ! Seniority afforded those guys NOTHING.

Good luck with things over there. You know Brown is watching closely ...

;)

Just a quick look at the Feb ANC F/O bid awards...I think we have 63 Nuggets (...and I don't have any problems with the term :)) up here (with 3 Pay only, 2 Flex). Only 5 were able to hold a line...the rest were RSV and VTO's. Jan was about the same. No way I could hold a carryover...only way might be through VTO construction. We'll see in a couple of days of Feb.

Side note: It'll be interesting to see if the VTO lines are higher than the regular lines...certainly higher than reserve

I wrote this on another thread about my furlough experience..

"The real support I and others needed though was for those that remained to just fly their line and not any extra so we would be back sooner. The longer we remained out, the more of a factor we would be in the next contract talks. The company in question actually went to a little used overtime system that paid 200% and didn't count against your monthly bank. It worked so well they were able to drop another 300 pilots on to the street and ALPA said they couldn't do anything about it. Of course the worst offenders were Captains so the dues money they got from all that OT was a lot more than the paltry sum they got from a 32K a year member. Either way it sucked and I felt screwed by both the company and the pilot group."

Even thought the Captains were the worst offenders of OT flying, they were followed closely by S/O's still on flying status. They too said all they were doing was preparing for a possible furlough in their future. All they were really doing was making their own jobs obsolete and allowing the company to furlough even more. Some of them literally worked themselves right out of a job. The ones that never got furloughed just made sure their buds stayed out longer as they took their flying for OT pay. The more extra we fly, the less pilots FedEx needs. It's a pretty simple concept. Besides, pilots trying to justifying flying extra on the bottom of the list will give guys like say4dew4 all the more reason to justify their extra flying. Just some food for thought..

Maybe it's time we all learned about the Tragedy of the Commons.....

From Wikipedia:


"The Tragedy of the Commons" is an influential article written by Garrett Hardin and first published in the journal Science in 1968.[1] The article describes a dilemma in which multiple individuals acting independently in their own self-interest can ultimately destroy a shared resource even where it is clear that it is not in anyone's long term interest for this to happen.
Central to Hardin's article is a metaphor of herders sharing a common parcel of land (the commons), on which they are all entitled to let their cows graze. In Hardin's view, it is in each herder's interest to put as many cows as possible onto the land, even if the commons is damaged as a result. The herder receives all of the benefits from the additional cows, while the damage to the commons is shared by the entire group. If all herders make this individually rational decision, however, the commons is destroyed and all herders suffer. The model has also been studied more recently, such as in game theory.

It was originally the only trip on line 1015. It appears the revisions created a conflict with a c/o trip and now the original line holder is in SUB from 2/6 - 2/17.