Can everybody play nice now? Try and be professional, and abide by the rules of posting here. There are plenty of other boards to exercise your right to insult, lob verbal grenades, etc.

Hugs and kisses always,

Tony

Ok, I'll bite...which strategic plan are you referring too. Does it involve fleet simplification (all-Boeing fleet) and having 2200 pilots on the property ?...with the use of large airplanes flying multiple, domestic runs every night and the consolidation of the ONT base into ANC next year ?

“To further support this momentum, we will continue to strengthen our network with larger planes, specifically the 747-400, and increase our air capacity .

Logistics week-July 2010

Just curious, as I color in my coloring book.

You forgot the increased utilization of FQS flying MEF year round. Along with the flood of contractors during peak. And some contractors through SCS for other times of excess demand.

All of which will be completely contractual ... and affect more than 300.

But those 2200 left will still be defering advisories and such scare tactics ... ;)

Pass the coloring book my friend, I am sure yours is X-rated !

:D

OK, I'll play nice. What difference would that make now? By that I mean what could we do now to reverse something that was agreed to over 20 years ago by a former administration? I understand your frustration over some EB's decision both past and present, that concern is shared by many union members at some time in their career. But heres the difference, that is our right, we are members of this union and you are not. You must understand that we get a little testy when an outsider attempts to influence the direction our elected leaders choose. [edit: delete potential flamebait]

Definitely not trying to kick a hornet's nest here, but some of the recent information being posted on this thread is worth paying attention to. I am an FQS, and was here from the beginning of the airline. Right or wrong, good or bad, it was the job I was offered - and is the job I accepted. It's been a good career, and I have no regrets. I am nearing the end of my career here, so the outcome of any integration plan will not affect me one way or another. Whether it ever happens or not is anyone's guess.

In the early days of the airline, Rob Dorsey and I spoke often about his ideas regarding many aspects of the airline (anyone who knows Rob knows that he wasn't shy about expressing his opinions). Rob felt strongly that there needed to be changes in the Flight Operations structure. He felt that the "Fleet Supervisors", as they were referred to at the time, should have representation. Rob climbed WAY out on a limb to try to make this happen. He knew that strength was in numbers, and he counted on the IPA to back him up when he decided to move forward with his plan. I still remember the day that the IPA dealt Rob the coup-de-Gras when they "officially" took the position that they had no desire to represent the UPS Mgmt Pilots. That was the beninning of the end for Rob, and the rest is history. Many "Fleet Supervisors" who supported the integration felt terribly betrayed, and couldn't understand this position.

Somebody mentioned in a past thread that if there was ever a "right time" for the integration, it was early in the history of the airline. They were exactly right. Now, the FQSs are deeply vested in their pension and retiree health care plans that would change drastically if any type of integration were to occur now. This is one reason (among others) why there doesn't appear to be much support in the form of "cards" being returned.

I'm sure there will be many angry responses to this post, which will have a different version of what happened back then - and that's OK. I'm not interested in debating this, and I'm not interested in discussing whether or not I even agreed with Rob. Again, I'm not trying to defend any position here - I just feel like this perspective is worth being voiced. I really believe the IPA missed a huge opportunity back then, and now it may be too late.

I hope those who think they know what they are talking about read and understand this, because it is the truth.

IPA members have nothing to blame but the backroom deals of the past for the present FQS situation.

My question as an IPA member albeit furloughed is how long will the IPA membership blindly follow BT and TK.

Can someone name anything good that has come from the current administration.

Before you jump on the Unity fund bandwagon I contend BT/TK have major ownership in the furlough MOU failing. Both gentlemen were against the MOU during the election campaign and were totally silent in the final weeks before the end of the sign up period. If the agreed upon amount had been reached it would have been much harder for UPS to have reneged on the MOU (my opinion).

I do agree with BT concerning the need to bring the FQS into the IPA but do not agree with the timing or the haphazard way it is being executed.

BT's off the cuff comments and statements have done much to damage his credibility with me,
1) furloughs wont happen.
2) IPA will file injunction to stop FQS MEF flying when first crewmember furloughed.
3) Furloughs will stop at 90
4) Furloughed crewmembers will be back by peak, (which year??)
5) Will have favorable POI's ruling on P3's by end of June

In the end I realize that UPS made the final decision to furlough me and the rest of the folks on the list but I believe things might have been different with someone else at the helm of the IPA.

Everyone loves to bash politicians and praise straight-talking, take it to the company style rhetoric. The truth is we need politicians in the IPA right now. Anyone can pound their chest and raise their middle finger to UPS mgt, but what does that get us? Self-respect? I'd rather everyone have a job. The backroom deals regarding FQS in the early 90s aside, BM seemed to be able to work with the company. BT and TK seem way over their head and are not doing anything constructive regarding protecting our jobs. MD-11s/747s flying 4 legs a night in the domestic system is going to take away a lot of jobs. What are we going to do about it, defer advisements and rent signs on Cessnas?

Don't kid yourself. As far as the company was concerned, the MOU was not going to prevent furloughs. The MOU was about footing the bill for 125 DC8 crew members who were sitting at home collecting full pay and benefits.

BM tried his usual "let's make a deal" and the company laughed all the way to the bank.

The furloughs were coming, the company just was slick enough to wring $100 million out of the pilots in spite of it.

Agreed on all that Lil J... Stick and move, stick and move....

The above is only opinion/speculation, we will never know what might of happened as BT/TK achieved their goal and the MOU failed.

I will take BM's tactics over BT's in your face rhetoric any day. At least BM's "let's make a deal" helped allow me to collect a paycheck for another year.

N4S,
Don't really imagine you are going to get any angry responses.
Think most of us understand the facts. Simply in awe that it went this way.

Realize, most of us were not at UPS when the original actions were decided, and many hired after the Dorsey event.

At this point, hoping FQS accretion will still go forward successfully with long fences to protect what you all have earned.
This benefits the IPA membership.
Afterall, if the FQS has something better, now represented by IPA, then beneficial as a marker precedent for the rest of the IPA. Therefore IPA has vested interest in maintaining your benefits, pension, etc. It also provides IPA opportunity to capture skills and insights of UPS that would benefit all parties.


Notadog,
We can all conjecture the motivations of UPS. It all boils down to money and control. Insert rest of explanation.....

The present is that UPS has forever sealed the fate of any further similiar opportunity in the future that could have been mutually beneficial to all parties. That is arrogant and shortsighted management at the highest levels.

Believe the furlough and rejection of the MOU sealed the fate that UPS is going to deal with a much more enaged and challenging membership. Had they continued the MOU process, they could have extracted hundreds of millions of dollars from the IPA via a less engaged and more docile IPA. ( Including contract waivers, no grievances filed, deal cutting by individual crews, etc)
They were getting the money now and likely would have gotten a less costly contract next go around. Opportunities lost.
From a management view: Can't understand a management philosophy that encourages strict contract awareness and engagement before contract talks???

Need4speed;

I agree with you timeline and facts, I've been here since the beginning as well. The way it was explained to us at the time, the IPA made an argument that we were not the bargaining unit for "Fleet Supervisors" at the time, therefore we were exempt from the lawsuit that Dorsey and 177RG filed against UPS and the IPA. While this decision may have mitigating issues pertaining to the organization of the FQS, it was not the original intent of our argument. The sole purpose of the IPA's position at the time was in defense of the above mentioned lawsuit.

We had a choice of
1. Give the company what they want at all costs to prevent a layoff
2. Continue to attempt to get the MOU to work
3. Confront the company at every opportunity

A three way may sound like fun but the way it broke out the majority may not have gotten to have a strong voice in the direction the union was going to take. We have changed the rules so that in the future this probably won't happen again.
Now the objective is to do what is legall and contractually allowed to get people back on the property as soon as possible if they want to return.

The company decided the direction they where going to take we had little to do with this decision , we just get to respond to it

Don't you think they would have accepted the MOU if they hadn't been faced with a new EB president that was going to start a few ugly battles? Seems fairly straight forward, you mess with the status quo and go after managers, etc.. we're going to make you miserable even if it costs us money in the end. Seems pretty simple.

Onstep;

I agree with everything you stated. FWIW, the IPA's history has proven that blind faith tends to be a short term affliction. I don't think you'll find too many members that will disagree with your observations on the decision and methods used to organize the FQS. I've advocated keeping our powder dry until we have a clean head shot for a long time now, the "ready shoot, aim" logic of late only serves to weaken the association. Look at what happened over at the APA with Lloyd Hill and his gang. Unless we learn from history we're condemned to repeat it.

On the flip side,

Tough talk get's elected time and time again. In defense of our current administration, once the first IPA member was furloughed, the IPA had no choice but to seek an answer to the FQS issue. They really had no choice. They are seeking to change 20 plus years of history with limited resources do do so. While there may have been smarter choices, remember that hindsight is always 20/20 and it's easy for those of us without the burden of representing the membership to pass judgement.

I agree with you 100%, decisions are much easier to second guess after the fact.;)

I respect BT for his convictions and hard work, just don't agree with his methodology. Not sure I could do any better though?

The Dorsey case was about wrongful termination of employment. The IPA was not a party.

The original EB of the IPA cut a deal with the company back in the early days wherein they agreed to not to represent the FQSs.

If you like BM's style, then you should have no problem with FQMs. He helped invent them.

If the IPA was not party to the wrongful termination suit, why were we listed as a defendant? I'm not speaking from experience, I was not privy to the EB's discussions at the time. I'm only repeating what was stated to us at the time.

RB,
Regardless of who was elected in the President spot, UPS had a strategy to attempt to alienate and split the membership and pick up the divisiness in the ranks. Standard management procedure.

Perhaps, and only speculating, if RD/SF had been elected, then UPS would have used same strategy since it makes any new President look impotent.
Further, it's quite plausible that UPS made the decision to furlough in the FY2010 budget process well before the MOU extension sign up period in Nov/Dec 2009 and after UPS agreed to the MOU extension in June 2009.
Sure, we got chumped with many in management who worked to make it feasible.
It will have lasting consequences to all management that will outlast the current senior management teams remaining employment time at UPS.
Reason I call it short of leadership at the highest management levels. IPA acted in good faith with many FQS and management folks to accomplish the success of the MOU mechanism.

The only way IPA could meet FY2010 budget targets was to accept their 240+million 'new' targets immediately, or, open up the contract as they presented with very specific and costly givebacks. Either way, it was UPS checkmate (short term). The strategy was effective on any newly elected IPA President (SF/RD/BT) and
It just suited UPS goals further that BT/TK were vocally not a big supporters of the MOU strategy in the beginning.
In either case, the FQS issue was a direct result of the announced furlough.
Any one elected would have been required to respond to the 'airline within an airline' with a FQS response.

Excellent. Your usual well thought out comments.

No angry response here. If you are who you say you are I appreciate hearing your perspective. All of this happened before I got here so I'll fess up that I dont know a lot of the history.

If the IPA made a bad move regarding FQS representation 20 yrs ago it doesnt matter much now for the IPA (I realize that it may to the FQS). Thats basically spilled milk. I dont view the FQS as scabs. I know some who were furloughed from other jobs or simply unemployed and took the best job they could find at the time (just like some of our furloughed guys now will do). However, the reality we face today is that UPS is using the FQS in an unethical manner and they are performing work that rightfully belongs to the IPA. In my opinion the current use of the FQS is analogous to a whip (or one of the whips) in the hand of UPS. Please dont take that as a personal insult. Its not your fault and I dont view FQS guys as evil people but you're still stinging our backs and I'd much rather you joined our team than continue on the present course. If you are nearing retirement it may not make much difference to you but I think in the long run its whats best for every UPS employee that is qualified to operate an airplane.

That is not the reality. The reality is that the IPA has a priority claim to perform the work, but if we choose not to do so, the contract then provides that the FQS may do so. It is our choice. It is contractual. We voted for the contract. UPS agreed to it. They are abiding by it.

Well what you say is what would be presented in court and likely upheld. I dont deny that thats all that matters (to UPS). I purposefully used the term "unethical" and not "illegal". UPS isnt breaking any laws and they are not explicitly violating the contract (w/FQS usage) but they are keeping them around in unnecessary numbers in order to maintain a "super reserve" that partially negates IPA bargaining power.

UPS came to the IPA early this year and claimed they needed nearly $250M in savings or they would furlough. In order to "prevent" this they suggested an unreasonable combination of paycuts and contractual concessions. An ethical company that was extremely profitable and cares about the employees would have offered something along the lines of:

"Hey, we got 300 guys too many. Its costing us $XXXM a year. If the IPA is willing to take a cross the board paycut or percentage cut that offsets the cost of these extra guys then we wont have to furlough. Pay will return to normal as demand for the excess pilots increase"

I dont know that the union would have accepted that but that at least would have been a fair offer. That is in essence what FDX did (although they had a contractual provision for it). Instead our very profitable company opted to take advantage of the situation and suggested permanent long term savings that would well exceed the cost of the excess crewmembers. Without FQS help they probably cant convincingly argue keeping 300 guys on the street until 2015 and their $250M figure becomes invalid. If the $250M amount isnt valid then neither are all the demands they wanted to "prevent" the furlough. The presence of the FQS gave UPS the ability to give us a crappy ultimatum and then back it up if we didnt accept. They knew we would impose an OT ban if they furloughed but they also knew they had their super reserves to pick up the slack. You argue that current MEF flying is okay because the IPA historically picked up that OT. We historically picked up that flying because we werent being royally screwed by the company. The OT ban is one of the few ways we legal ways we can offer resistance but the FQS force negates this. None of this is the stated purpose for the existence of FQS but yet that is primarily why they are here to the tune of 200+

Not illegal and probably not something we could win in court but its certainly unethical and speaks to the character of our upper management....

For the sake of discussion...and hopefully intelligent answers (one can always hope !!!)

IF we do integrate the FQS will the company furlough more to include the FQS if they are integrated DOH. Could this be a deterant for the FQS' to sign cards ?

Will the EB's strategy change if the company does furlough all 300 ? In a face-to-face discussion I had with BT right after Christmas he was confident they wouldn't furlough, but if they did he found it hard to believe they would pass 100 since volumes would increase...his exact words. I will defend him in that no one believed UPS would furlough at all, much less decimate a whole pilot domicile (ANC)....but they have and ruined the lived of at least 92 of our brothers and sisters with more to follow. With that said, BT formulated his strategy based on his beliefs (100 pilot furloughs at most). Giving him the benefit of the doubt, will his strategy change once he sees that his beliefs have been proven wrong ?

Next, does anyone else think the furlough and the FQS situation equates to a two-front war whereas our proverbial labor ammo is being divided in half and the lack of results is indicative of this.

Finally, and I'm not a fortune teller, but does anyone else think the company will furlough as many as possible. So many, that they will actually "over-furlough" and end up cancelling flights. Using timing and staffing, they will get to this point near contract talks in an attempt to show (fake) benevolence and further erode at our will to fight them at every turn (no waivers, no favors).

Just curious of other opinions, since mine have been compared to "making trouble" and whinning.

FF

I hope they don't, but I think UPS will do the 170 this year and take another look.

My only reasoning is that most (if not all) the ANC replacements are already in the training pipeline. I don't think they know what to do if they decide not to furlough all 170.

I think they are going to furlough as many as they can for as long as they can. Why wouldnt they? I think if for no other reason than to make the IPA not question their threats in the future. Most IPAers basically laughed in their face when they threatened furlough. The unknown question is what the final count will be. We had a 100+ guys do nothing for the last year so I dont know why anyone would think that with FQS guys picking up the slack that they couldnt easily put a 100 guys on the street. Whether it gets up to 300 and last until 2015 remains to be seen but I think they are going to give it their best shot :mad:. I think if they get through peak without any major problems they'll be gunning for 300...just my 2 cents...

The case was: Frank Robbins Dorsey v. United Parcel Service. (195 F. 3d 814 - 6th Cir. 1999)

The IPA was not a defendant in the case. It was an appeal of a lower court decision relating to Dorsey's termination from UPS.

They will furlough all 170 because the UPS budget was designed with these furloughs in the FY10 budget. UPS holds a budget line, especially with this CEO.
Am sure they are evaluating FY2011 market expectations, staffing, budgeting. That will provide the answer for the rest of the Spartans.

All IPA folks should have expectations for a long term period of intentionally designed stuffed lines to create havoc on your home life, make commutes nearly impossible, and cause max reports minimally spaced exactly to contract.
Would counter that going into contract talk preparation they have kicked the snot outta the yellow jackets nest. But, that is what ATL likes to do with hourlies and FQS alike.
IPA simply needs to keep a level head, keep on pace, act legally, act as a team, no lone rangers, and learn the contract, follow the rules.
Fred and the market is going to make UPS looking to play catch up.

FliFast,

Specifically, Furlough and FQS accretion on separate tracks. Furlough kicked it off, now run their own course, but they do remain intertwined. The IPA JA/OT ban affects both fronts. Advantage long term is IPA. UPS must rely on contingency measures daily to make up shortfalls and respond to any market surges outside the normal JA/OT methods.
Long term, UPS must be praying to the weather gods that we have no more volcano action in Alaska (don't imagine anyone riding to the rescue to save the operation like last time, BTW, a UPS gained benefit since they were working the MOU). Also praying that the weather holds in SDF this winter where they are putting all the eggs in one sorting basket.

Wouldn't worry about ammo being split, UPS manages to create more self inflicted wounds.

I think UPS added another 10 furgloughee's to the 170 for this year. I believe the actual number is 177 for 2010, plus 3 resignations add up to 180.

Did 3 of the bottom 180 resign?

Actually, one resigned and two were let go! They were not in ANC when called out on reserve.

Unless you try to look for a job while on furlough from UPS, you have no idea what it is like. It is literally a "Brown Stain".

JUP,

Glad to see someone else understands the plight of the bottom 300.

Here is an excerpt of a posting I made May 13, 2009:

"There actually are no jobs to go to, especially with UPS on your resume, who is going to hire you ?"

Understandably, 14 months ago the hiring market was fairly bleak and has turned around. However, for the same reason UPS hired very few furloughed airline pilots in the late 90's and early 2000's , many will shy away from hiring furloughed UPS pilots.

Brown Stain, indeed.

But remember, we have been promised that when we are recalled by peak, it will be a better place to work. Sorry, did I get any on your shoes ?

Serious question, but who made that promise? Are you referring to the IPA pres? His crystal ball seems to be tuning a different frequency than UPS'. Peak is just over 120 days away. This place is in dire straits right now. I never thought I'd feel this way, but I really regret encouraging friends to come here in the past. This profession is in bad shape.

I think someone said Continental does it.

Since I've been at the airlines, my bills have gone DOWN, not UP. My lifestyle has gotten better. Why? Because I pay my bills OFF before I treat myself to something else. I don't accumulate more debt with raises.

IMO, the answer to your question is this.....when you do not need OT/JA to cover your bills. That's just plain pathetic.

I know that one of the two that were let go is back, not sure about the other one....

Welcome to the airlines Lil 'J. Better get the wife back to work soon.