JohnnyViper

She likes to chase her tail quite a bit and I always wondered why she did that. I Googled it one day ("why do dogs chase their tails?") when I didn't have much else to do and most of the entries I found stated that it was because the dog was bored. Tangential story: I started laughing out loud, I was literally LOLing, when I read that because I thought of the line in the book from "$hit My Dad Says", very funny book, by the way. If you haven't had a chance to look at it, I highly recommend it. The kid says something like "The dog is bored" and the Dad says "What do you mean bored? He's a dog! It's not like he's sitting there waiting for you to hand him a Rubik's Cube!!" I can't do it justice here and I think there's more profanity in the actual version from the book, but I digress.

So, the internet says my dog is bored because she's chasing her tail. So I asked her about it. She said "Nope, not bored. I have a furry tail. I like to chase it." Pretty much the same thing as "It's fun" I guess.

Busboy

I agree...It is fun to chase tail. Even furry ones.

MD11Fr8Dog

I have no problem with that!

Gunter

Since the MEC hasn't voted on it yet a "proposed" TA is all we have. ALPA has received and turned down "proposals" from the company since the first HKG/CDG LOA was signed.

So what would happen if the MEC gives a thumbs down?

Would the MEC have to form a new NC to continue negotiations?

How would this affect our bargaining position going forward?

MaydayMark

I wouldn't think so ... it's the NC's job to bring ANYTHING the company puts on the table to the MEC with their (The NC) recommendations. It's then the MEC's job to decide if it's good enough to put out to the membership for a vote.

FDXLAG

My sugestion, fire the polling company.

Daniel Larusso

I would tend to to think no as well. While the comm so far on the TA has been fairly non-committal on whether or not they're going to accept and endorse the TA, the latest Positive Rate makes it pretty clear that the NC was sent in to engage the company about a shorter deal. It wasn't an autonomous move. What we don't know at this point is whether this was done at the direction of the MC alone, the MC/MEC, a suggestion from the NC, or a suggestion from the company.

Theoretically, if the MC directed the NC to negotiate a shorter term TA without the MEC's knowledge or in defiance of their wishes and the TA were to be rejected, you could have a situation where the majority on the MEC move to recall the MC probably with a hand-picked outsider that would allow them to keep their majority on the MEC. At that point they would decide whether the NC was just following orders and possibly keep them or replace some or all of the members of the committee. The latter tends to take care of itself in that situation as if the NC members were loyal to the old MC, they tend to resign in protest.

While this scenario is basic union politics and has happened several times in the industry, it seems unlikely to happen in this case. For one, on a macro level, in general the MEC types around here don't have the stomach for the kind of politics such a move would take, even if it were appropriate for a given situation. While it's likely that there is the same amount of differing opinions amongst our MEC's as there is elsewhere, there is a certain amount of desire to maintain decorum regardless here. We saw the departures of several MEC/MC and committee types after the Age 65 and FDA disasters, but by and large we still probably don't know the entire backstory on that and the process took care of itself largely through elections not through recalls. There's a lot of maneuvering and horsetrading involved with this kind of stuff, and it's definitely not always for the betterment of the group depending on the individuals involved. So to me it's not automatically a bad thing that our MEC's tend to be civil, but there have been some times where I think combat tactics would have been appropriate.

On a micro level, I can't see anything happening because SS strikes me as more of a planner than an authoritarian type. It's hard for me to imagine him stepping over the MEC to make the NC negotiate a shorter TA. Even if he did so, it's even harder to imagine that he would have done so without a clear majority of the MEC behind him even if not by official vote on the matter. He seems way too smart for that. The greater likelihood there is that they all decided to give this idea a try and have a solid talk about it if it bore any fruit. There certainly doesn't seem to be any mad rush to officially review this thing or cram it down the MEC and our throats. So far they've made it clear that the opposite is true. It's also hard to imagine that this was something that NC simply stuck there necks out there on alone, putting them in danger. Especially after the way BC's actions were received. In fact conceptually this deal seems very similar to the way that they attempted to engage the company on a 'global solution' prior to 4.a.2.b and they way they structured the grievance settlement ahead of the 4.a.2.b arbitration decision. Those moves seemed to be pretty much in lockstep with what the MC/MEC desired, so you tend to think this one would be as well.

The bottom line is we'll just have to wait and see what the MEC does in a few days and all of the above is likely much ado about nuttin' and just space/time filler until the meeting.

Jetjok

Daniel,

That is a lucid, intelligent, well thought-out post. I'll have to have my aviation attorney study it and get back to you. Where did you get all these suppositions from anyway? Just wondering.

JJ

Daniel Larusso

JJ,

Basically, fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me. I've seen similar things happen at other places, sometimes for noble reasons, sometimes not. I've watched and listened to some of the people involved and I try my best to keep an eye on the other stuff going on in the industry as nature abhors a vacuum(noticed you on one of the other forums here btw). All you can do is try hard to learn as much as you can about all parts of the profession and be prepared. Like you said they're just suppositions, ones that I don't think will even be in play at this time. Mostly I was just trying to answer Gunter's question, but considering the bloodshed around here over the Age 65 and FDA deals, the consternation about how our leadership let those happen, and what we could and couldn't do about it, seems like it can't hurt to shed some generic light on how union politics can work at times.

990Convair

We find ourselves on the brink of POTENTIALLY voting for a TA here at FedEx. Would it be safe to say that since UPS is a couple years from negotiations, whatever we are offered should surpass UPS now? In light of that assumption, APC shows UPS at $252/hr @ 78 hours/mo. Keep that in mind when we decide on whether to accept or reject the TA.