Ever wonder how many copies of Dreams of my Father George Soros bought at $50 a pop?

 

This year, only one senator has gotten $15,000 from ALPA - Kirsten Gillibrand. Funny thing about her - she tied for the most liberal senator in the US.

U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand ties for most liberal senator, publication says

No thanks, not a dime of my money goes to PAC. Why give money to liberals that are pro union when they will only tax me more when they come into power? No thanks.

 

Read the above string along with this. Do you still thing the Union is on YOUR side.....jeeeze.....

MEC Vicechairman regains his self respect
I received this and was asked to post it. I do so willingly and with the utmost respect for Brad. I have known him for over 10 years and I have always found him to be honest and fair. Anyone who tries to tell me he is lying had better have ironclad proof.

I know this will start something, I just hope that something is change for the better.



To My Fellow FedEx Pilots,

I have been torn over the last few days as to whether I should bring this message to the whole pilot group, but I am unable to maintain my silence because of the events of the last few months and what they portend for our future. I resigned my position last Wednesday morning because I could not stand to be associated any more with the incompetent and destructive operations of our negotiators and officers.

I cannot talk about the specifics of issues that have been discussed exclusively in executive session. If you want a full description of those issues, the burden lies with the current administration to admit to the full content of their work. If they won’t, you will have to judge as to why.

To begin with, the Negotiating Committee and the other two officers worked without MEC approval and proffered a 4A2b proposal to the company that I feel was contrary to pilot wishes and contrary to the values that should be held by any pilot representative. They ignored numerous attempts on my part to ensure the MEC was included before it was proffered, to allow your elected reps their proper place in the negotiating process. But instead, they put a proposal across the table that included the most amateurish provisions that I have seen proffered in a negotiation at FedEx. It was very disturbing. I am not talking about a comma being out of place, I am talking about ideas that don’t even have a place in a concessionary contract. How this did not rise to the level of personnel changes in the minds of the MEC at the time, I have no idea.

The final straw that moved me toward my resignation was when someone attempted to co-opt my opinion by portraying me as approving of this fatally flawed proposal, in spite of my repeated efforts to get the proposal brought back within the bounds of reason. I angrily quashed that attempt in front of the MEC. It didn’t take long after that for me to arrive at the inevitable conclusion that the danger of being associated with this leadership team wasn’t worth what they paid me.

This leadership decided on a negotiating strategy, without the approval of the MEC, that didn’t appear to me to be indicated in any way by pilot opinion or input. For an administration that uses the terms ‘transparency’ and ‘will of the pilots’ as much as they do, they seem to be disassociating from both.

The personnel involved with that proposal are not the right people for the job, be it the committee or the supervision. You might be told “everything is alright now” because the proposal might be corrected or pulled or reworked – whatever fix they come up with. The truth remains that they sent very destructive ideas across the table behind the MEC’s back and they are probably now scrambling to fix it behind the veil of executive session protection that prevents a description of the details.

That secrecy might be minimally justified if the MEC were working as fiduciaries and replacing the personnel responsible for this. But in lacking the will to act, the MEC as a body makes itself an accomplice in allowing the incompetence to remain veiled.

The MEC, because of political co-opting and stratification, has failed as a body to properly consider whether this leadership team should be retained. There are some reps who recognize the dangerous reality indicated by the inept 4A2b proposals, but there are too many other reps who believe friendship and loyalty trump failure when evaluating union work. I do not discount the effect that the communications from some reps may have had on public opinion recently, including MEC opinions and maybe even your own opinion. They may be indelicate, but they know the reality of the secrets. They are the canaries in the coal mine, and someone wants to kill them for chirping when there’s danger.

So let’s get into that issue. Politically speaking, the MEC Chairman has created an exceptionally tight good-old-boy network within this union. Many of the committee chairmen that he has appointed are very close personal friends. Not all, but many. They have on numerous occasions openly threatened the MEC with a mass exodus if the MEC attempts to take any corrective action regarding the leadership. Their threats are meant to strong-arm your reps into inaction, protecting incompetence like that which is hidden now and maintaining their flight-removal positions. This is destructive on many levels.

A number of MEC committees have gone from being professional, nonpolitical committees doing the work of the pilots to being a highly engaged political fraternity for the good-old-boy network. I have personally seen proof that a committee that has been brought together with your dues dollars is in communication with the leader of one of the (supposedly) ‘grassroots’ recalls going on presently in the LECs. I, like anyone who can recognize a duck from its quack, have a hard time accepting such situations as coincidence.

Actions like these corrupt the election process by manipulating it. Your current MEC leaders have learned much from politicians, including how to build a Chicago-style machine. They usurp pilot-based control of who is chosen to serve on the MEC by putting their small army of committee people out to sway public opinion. Be cognizant of who you are listening to. You should know whether or not they have a position in the good-old-boy network and if they receive any flight removal.

In the past, the independence of the pilots who voted mattered, because the unfettered judgment of the crew force was supposed to come through in elections, based on the performance of the union. It was a force for betterment. Now committees are used to aggressively push for specific political issues, viewpoints and candidates to sway the pilots’ judgment with coordinated politicking.

In the past, having committees interfering with representation elections was considered subversive and discouraged strongly. But there is no such discouragement now, mostly because the inappropriate behavior favors the good-old-boy network. That’s why it’s presently open season on your MEC - so that the Chicago-style machine can cull the dissent from the herd.

This team is hopelessly company-friendly. If what I am writing doesn't make you sit up and take notice, you have a good chance of waking up one day to a tentative agreement that looks like FedEx Labor Relations wrote it. Especially since many representatives’ friendships and loyalties with the chairman are so strong that they will likely prevent the removal of this team. I hope the members of the MEC can reassess their loyalties. In my mind, their loyalty is supposed to lay with the pilots who elected them, not their friends or the company. Unfortunately, that’s not what I’m seeing.

It’s quite likely I will be attacked as soon as this letter hits the street, but so it goes. When they tell you what a horrible person I am or that I’m lying, I ask you to consider one thing: I chose to resign as the FDX MEC Vice-Chairman at a time when I am medically NOQ. I left a job that pays 103 hours a month, whether I’m medically qualified or not, to return to the line and pull 70 hours a month from my sick bank as I work to get back to the line. If you think I made this choice just to be able to poke someone in the eye, you're wrong. The dirty politics and incompetence have simply made the difference in pay the price for self-respect.

Captain Brad Mahoney
Line Pilot


Brad Mahoney
[email protected]

 

all I said is I could "hope" the union is on my side, but unfortunately, greed and egos permeate all levels of big business.

 

Not this BM stuff again.

Anyone a Churchill fan?

If Hitler invaded hell I would make at least a favorable reference to the devil in the House of Commons.

By default, I trust anyone that disagrees with DW. Stratton is OK with me.

 

Precisely why I don't contribute to the PAC. There are far more important issues to me in which the D's are on the wrong side of the aisle: family, taxes, foreign policy, immigration, first amendment rights, etc.

 

Here is an idea to reinvent the PAC.
I will never give to the PAC, as it is today.
It helps the likes of Pelosi,Reid,Boxer get reelected.
But I understand the need for buying influence.
Right now the PAC gives to easy targets.
Tends to be almost all leftwing.
What if a PAC donation was like United Way.
I can designate which party and or candidate it goes to.
The PAC can ask me for reassignment if they need to target a different candidate than the one I chose, or the money stays with the PAC until they need it for my candidate.
Yes, they would be harder targets, but influence is influence, and at least the dollars spent would be double spent.
Your candidate gets the money.
ALPA gets the influence.
It would be a win-win.
And you might see more than 6% giving to the PAC.

 

....in a perfect world.....
+1

 

Another "+1"!

 

I back the Colbert Super PAC. That will be all.