Thats why it gets fixed this time around. Two Cbas plus this TA. Retirement still not good enough

Obviously your first negotiation junior. There is no "offer" in their openers. Wake up and then grow up.

Hello fellow poster,

No one said rollover, you are injecting something that nobody Is petitioning for. This TA was a weak concessionary proposal that should not have made it past the MEC. One may say it was akin to a stickup for a bump in retirement. Oh yeah, that bump left out 300 retirees (number to grow) and had so many attacks on qol, job security and career progression. We have not even touched pay rates yet. I am glad we voted it down.

I repeat for the folks in the back and the middle passage readers. No one is looking for a “rollover”. We want a profitable company and compensatory acknowledgment of our work.

The next hard part is ahead of us, assembling a new team to move forward.

Until then, save some room on your surveys for not a single pilot left behind for retro retirement. Why? Because every future retiree is worth it, every single NOW retiree is worth it and every past retiree since amenable date is worth it.

We did not delay the pension improvement, our company did. We expected them to address this sooner, but they did not. I am not worried, our pilot group (old heads and younguns) will address it NOW and…

NOT a single pilot left behind (300 and growing). Let’s GO!

I smell a furlough after peak. Call me crazy but I think it’s just around the corner.

What’s making you feel that way? Is there some new information that you can share?

They can furlough, but it will come at a much higher than usual price. They'll never see 90% of those people again. It'll make recall quite a conundrum.

They've never furloughed, they've only watched furloughs on the pax side when all of the pax carriers were bleeding simultaneously. In this case I'd say to management that this doesn't work the way you think it works. All they will do is lose a bunch of sunk costs, never to be recovered, and then end up hiring again in a market where they're the ugliest suitor in the room.

That sounds pretty on brand, to be honest

This would give us the most massive leverage to exist in pilot hiring after three years. Especially when all the other contracts and UPS would be coming due.

haha. Yes. This is most likely their plan. Written in finger paint and glitter. Calibrated with glue eating ceremony.

The way the bottom 10% of the seniority list is spread throughout airframes it will be very expensive from a training perspective. Lots of seat movements required.

The seat movements are happening right now to make it a possibility. Instead of going full tilt training new hires, they're going full tilt training people onto the 767 and 777.

It is actually easier since there are new hires spread around the fleets, if you furlough just need to give a trim to the junior FOs across the fleets. If all the new hires were 757FO then you hey would clean out that seat and have to push everyone down to fill those seats.

You'd be correct if the fleets were properly manned. They're not.

The 777 and 767 are still undermanned. A furlough would not work because trimming FOs on those fleets would leave them even more undermanned.

This situation will be "rectified" by the company in the next 6-8 months though.

If they furlough, they are admitting the company is terrible mismanaged, as this was solely on them for over hiring. Those furloughed would be better off going to the other airlines that are hiring like crazy, so other than the pain of switching, it’s not a big deal. I don’t understand the fear mongering about furlough. I don’t think the company will because once they do, that stigma is on them forever.

Also, they haven’t even asked for voluntary leave of absences yet. Or tried early retirement incentives (no the TA didn’t count).

Please stop with the furlough predictions.

What do you mean? Are you being sarcastic about the blazing start that 23-01 is off to? Company said 15 757 FOs per month!! How about that many for the rest of the calendar year… :rolleyes:

Just because the junior are spread across all fleets doesn't mean the company can't furlough. If they really want to do that (hopefully not), all it takes is some deviation from past practices. Namely, monthly bids. They can cue up replacements for who they show the door with about 2-months lead time. Put them through ITU/IOE and have them ready when they pull the trigger on the first say, 50. Then just keep the same pattern going until they're done with the furlough. I saw 100 per month for almost 2 years at a past legacy. Not difficult and that airline had over 10K pilots.
With most fleets buying up lines and the bottom 100 pilots representing a max of under 20 pilots in any specific seat, we're not talking major disruption. With cross-base options in every aircraft except M57 (unless E57 is an option), there are also options to fill trips via deadhead if a particular base gets thin on pilots.
Bottom line is, if the company really wants to make the F-word happen, it doesn't take that much effort. Just a little pre-planning. So, I wouldn't hang my hat on the spread of junior pilots being a show-stopper. Whether management really puts any value on being able to say they've never furloughed is up for debate. They used to care about delivering freight on time, now it seems - not so much. Time will tell.

The company could do a lot of things, you have to ask are they going to do things that will hurt then competitively or damage the brand? Furloughing would do both. They would have to admit they misjudged the Covid boom. It would show instability. Why would someone pick us as their shipper over brown?

I have zero fear that they furlough. And if they do, the pilots furloughed will have great opportunities elsewhere. Everyone is acting like this is 2001 again and no one is hiring.

Would a furlough raise or lower the stock price? The BOD and executives care only about one thing and that’s raising the stock price for the shareholders. They couldn’t care less about words like “brand” and “reputation”. Those days are long gone. Ask whether a furlough would increase or lower the stock value and then reassess.

The way our CBA is written they would only be able to justify furloughing based on continuing declining volume, as SAM continues to decline. Not sure a furlough in that economic environment would make much sustained bump in the stock price.

Either way I don’t understand why there’s fear over it. The majors are hiring!!

Non-contract hotel receipts and expense report notifications are half of the WINS you can come up with in support of voting in the Concessions TA?

Pathetic.

Please don't join the Negotiating Committee.

The majors like to make the claim that their hiring practices won’t be affected by Age 67 but does anybody really believe them?

yes, it only buys them at most 2 years and they have to plan for a portion of those to be on medical leave.

The economy will dictate hiring.

My crystal ball says only half of those will go to 67. Thus, it only gives one year reprieve on retirements. Since there are shortages in the PAX airlines, and massive retirements continue, it only gives them a chance to catch up. If they continue to hire in big quantities, I am using logic and facts.

Louder for those in the back! Here here

The curious thing is that it seems like the junior guys are calmer about the furlough threat than anyone. They kind of have an attitude that if the company sucks enough to furlough while making money and buying back stock then they'd rather not be here anyway.

That seems like a reasonable approach for someone that doesn't have a lot invested here yet. They're like a girlfriend who'll leave the first time she's hit - she'll never end up a battered wife.

Yes. It seems the furlough fear mongering isn’t from people who would actually get furloughed. I wonder why that is.

There is a Wall Street journal article today which addresses junior pilots at FedEx are worried about their jobs. Unfortunately need to pay for a subscription to read it.

Anyone here not as cheap as me that has access to it want to paraphrase it?

https://www.wsj.com/business/airline...=hp_lead_pos10

A sharp drop in package volume and a move to combine FedEx’s Express and Ground delivery units created a glut of pilots, leaving what was long the company’s most revered class of workers in a state of angst.

“There are many concerns about FedEx flying and what the future holds,” Pat DiMento, the company’s vice president of flight operations, wrote in a July letter to Express crew members viewed by The Wall Street Journal. The Memphis-based delivery company has an excess of about 700 pilots, according to the letter. FedEx has a total of roughly 5,800 pilots after a pandemic-fueled hiring spree.

FedEx union pilots last month voted against a new labor contract, protesting what they describe as insufficient wage increases and operational changes that could lead to declines in work hours. The rejection comes as other transportation workers have had standoffs with their employers in recent months over wages and labor practices.

Under the existing contract, FedEx pilots are paid between $69 and $336 an hour based on factors such as the type of plane they fly and their seniority. Pilots typically have a minimum guaranteed 68 hours of work a month.

The pilots said they are flying fewer hours in recent months, and some are concerned about furloughs. In previous economic downturns, FedEx held on to these high-skilled workers. The company hasn’t furloughed pilots during its 50-year history.

FedEx declined to comment on whether it would consider furloughs. It said the agreement rejected by the pilots provided substantial increases to compensation and retirement benefits and addressed some quality-of-life issues that the union had identified. FedEx said the agreement had increased protections for pilots, including making it harder for the company to furlough pilots.

If FedEx decides to furlough pilots, it could save money, but also leave it vulnerable to a labor shortage over a longer period. Some railroads faced similar issues after using furloughs to cut costs but ended up not having enough trained conductors and locomotive engineers when demand recovered.

Some FedEx pilots said they believe changes in the agreement would give the company more flexibility to sign contracts with aircraft lessors, which could reduce the volume of parcels that go on the company’s own planes. The tentative agreement lowered the compensation FedEx has to give union members in certain cases when the company leases aircraft.

The Air Line Pilots Association, International, the union that represents FedEx pilots, said some pilots’ concerns about leasing are unfounded. Union leader Chris Norman said it is more costly for the company to lease planes than use its own, so FedEx only contracts with aircraft lessors when it has more business than it can handle. That doesn’t mean that the pilots’ underlying worries about job protections and career delays aren’t justified, he added.

A spokesman for FedEx said it is committed to reaching a new agreement with its pilots and optimistic about such an outcome.

In April, FedEx Chief Executive Raj Subramaniam said that the company was combining its Express and Ground units to drive more efficiency and lower costs. The restructuring includes having just one truck serve a neighborhood rather than separate Express and Ground trucks coming to the same address in a day, and closing stations to remove the overlap.

Another change is diverting freight from planes to trucks—which cost less—whenever it would still arrive on time for customers. During a video presentation to analysts and investors, the company said it is “changing the fly-fly-fly model for a lot of this traffic to a much more economical truck-fly-truck model.”

FedEx expects to save $4 billion in costs by the end of fiscal 2025.

FedEx’s roots are as an airline, and it didn’t enter the trucking business until 1997 when it acquired a trucking company. “It has always been an airline-dominant culture under Fred Smith,” said Jeffrey Kauffman, an analyst at Vertical Research Partners, referring to FedEx’s founder and former CEO who was also a pilot. Longtime executives said privately that Smith always had a soft spot for the pilots.

Though having the biggest fleet of cargo aircraft has always been a source of pride for FedEx, Kauffman said, it made less and less sense financially. Plane profit margins are in the single digits, he said, while truck margins are in the midteens. FedEx had 700 aircraft as of the end of May. Unionized pilots fly about 400 of them, said Norman, the union leader. UPS had 291 aircraft as of the end of last year, and around 3,400 pilots.

As FedEx Ground became more efficient and profitable over the years, analysts and investors pressed the company to rein in costs. In 2022, FedEx added three board directors in an agreement with activist investor D.E. Shaw, which has pressed for changes at major companies.

Some pilots voted against the contract in July because they said their counterparts at passenger airlines got better deals. Others said their “no” vote was also a protest to show management how they feel about their career prospects. Some have aired their grievances in public forums.

In the letter last month, DiMento, the flight-operations executive, admonished employees who he said were spreading misinformation, adding that the “sheer volume and ridiculous nature of rumors can simply be too much to bear.”

During the pandemic, FedEx boosted its pilot recruitment to address the outsize demands for deliveries. Parcel volume has since become more subdued as consumers reverted to prepandemic spending behavior.

In recent months, FedEx has continued to park planes, laid off some management and closed several FedEx offices and stations. It has announced closures of Express operations in Jackson, Miss.; Temple, Texas; Macon, Ga.; and Youngstown, Ohio. Staff said they have been asked to relocate or accept severance packages.

anyone heard rumors of pressure to close a deal from : 1. postal contract negotiations 2. BOD approval to buy aircraft after deal complete

Maybe both?

As far as 2. - wasn't the order for 50 767's shortly after we signed 2015CBA into effect?

And also at the time mgt. called our new contract cost neutral due to efficiencies gained. Followed by paying $4.6B in cash for TNT.

From the corp. that couldn't afford to improve our pension.

Our pilots have been suckers for doom and gloom and great at rushing into concessions, but not this time around. We didn't fall for it. That's a good thing.

Based on recent articles by Freight Waves, Loadstar, and Air Cargo News, I’d say this is a stretch. But the photo that was passed around a few weeks ago with all the FedEx corporate jets at Boeing makes you wonder. Buying more or canceling current orders?

I thought we were about to furlough

Who said that? We aren't even in 4a2b, let alone 4a2c yet. Many steps must happen before a furlough.

Your Negotiating Committee, in their Hail Mary pass to scare us just enough to get the 50%+1, clearly told us that voting down the TA would result in the F_ word. While voting in the TA, would have resulted in manning magically correcting itself. It was one of their most Unconscionable moments.

The same NC, who has not resigned, which they had publicly stated they would do if TA1 failed.

You might change your name from NoWork to OnceWasaDumass, to JustInFacts - but your posting on all threads, dripping with your fearful view of the future because we didn't capitulate like we should have for our masters, tells us who you are. Working on here for TA2 as a company shill.

Please provide the communication where OUR NC said that if we turn down the TA, Fedex would furlough. Not that it was a possibility, I want to see where he said it was definitely going to happen.

I'm not going to provide you with sH!t NoWork.

Get your Facts straight, or Pay attention.

Here you go you idiot.

Can’t wait to see how JIF responds to this. The slide doesn’t say “could be corrected by furlough.” Clearly says “IS corrected by furlough.”

Thank you friend :)

I can see how you might think that means we would furlough. I took that slide as two of many possibilities.

I'm guessing you also believe that our NC Chair calling (on recorded video) what ended up being 57% of the pilot group "unconscionable" if we voted this TA down because pilot were worried about our jobs being outsourced (as stated to investors by both of the RS's) was also just a "misunderstanding" of the intended message by the unwashed masses...

Maybe our representatives should spend some union dues on learning to be effective communicators (and maybe also learn to listen)?