No one left behind!
 

There is a lot of work for the next TA but I want to focus on one key item.

I believe retirement for all since amenable date should be a must have. I understand that number will grow from the 300, but it will serve a couple purposes

-rally all under the same umbrella. I saw more than 500+ senior block voters vote no per the Union result email. (So you meet one of those gals or guys thank them for that). Can you imagine the energy we can harness if we ensure that this feature is a must have for next TA. We are not the ones who delayed raising the retirement payout limit, the company did. They did it for over 2 decades. It is time to pay up.

-it will set the precedent that you can no longer drag your feet on negotiations. So what happens on the next TA that does not include it? We vote it down and again and again. The FedEx our founder built is gone (it is natural for successful businesses to take our new path). It is all about efficiency and stock prices. This is not a family airline, this a business and that business has costs. The time for COVID emails and tv interviews of what was accomplished are over. It is time to pay. If our company states it is the best cargo airline on the planet per JD email then our compensation package should reflect that. We did not stall negotiations for 2 years, expecting the economy to take a downturn or the majors to roll out meager TAs/AIPs. (Economy is soft landing and each day it looks like it will be a touch and go). Actually, we started early, 6 months, expecting our labor would have born fruit for a great TA. It did not.

What is leverage? I heard gloom then lo and behold we got significant business from a competitor for Aug onward. Is this not leverage? Leverage going forward will be fluid.

Do you believe our competitors will not attempt to pounce on our labor woes for the next couple months to years it takes for the next TA? I believe they will. Peak is coming, UPS negotiations are coming

Lastly, there is so much talk about division but I have had more meaningful conversations with yes voters since failure. Guess what? They want the same thing we all want (they wanted it pre failure as well), an industry leading TA, we just have different ideas of how to get there.

I know there are folks up and down the seniority chain who wants what we all want - an industry leading TA commensurate with our labor and the profitability we bring to the company (past and potential).

So as you make your TA must have list and for the surveys, please save space for not a single pilot left behind since amenable date for improved retirement package!

14-20 years left at this place, Let’s GO!

I agree 100%

Here is a ticker for consideration.

We left 300 behind with the biggest increase to the A plan, that number will grow. As it grows I hope you arrive at what number is acceptable. If we can accept such inappropriate terms for those that have served 15, 20, 25, 30, 35+ years, what terms should we accept for us (50+% on the MSL hired in the last 5-6 years) who have yet to reach those milestones? My number is zero left behind since amenable date. I understand hard choices have to be made but we surprised sunset the A plan, rolled out an inadequate replacement for new hires and anyone with less than 25+ years to go along with several truckloads of concessions. Yet, 300 was an acceptable number!

We should not have to survey don’t divide us and leave so many behind.

ALPA Pilot dashboard

2023 has 66 retirements…is 366 (300+66) acceptable?

2024 has 164 retirements…is 530 acceptable?

2025 has 161 retirements….is 691 acceptable?

To the new ALPA team being assembled, do not bring us a TA 2.0 that divides us with another union divisive pension scheme and leaves so many out in the cold!

I hear the refrain, old guy/gal had 3 contracts to fix it, let us acknowledge that 1) they fought to keep the A plan for ALL, 2) FDX ALPA was not raised to be confrontational with our company. It was a get along to go far culture with FDX#1. Times have changed, our company is changing, we must evolve. But, cultures don’t change overnight (recall process is a necessary part of that regardless of outcome).

Until then save some room on your survey for not a single pilot left behind. May your acceptable number be zero for TA2.0. Let’s GO!

The survey is out! We have another opportunity to right many wrongs in the failed TA.

Please consider not a single pilot left behind since amenable date for retirement bump. It was another Union busting feature of the failed TA and we should not repeat our mistake.

We did not delay an increase in retirement and we should not be in the business of incentivizing delay tactics that will disenfranchise even more of our brothers and sisters.

~370 by end 2023. This grows to 700 by the end of 2025. My number is zero, I petition for you to make it yours!

Not a single pilot left behind. Let’s GO!

👆🏽👆🏽👆🏽👆🏽👆🏽👆🏽

The best way to ensure success is for everyone to focus on the NOW and the Future, roll up their sleeves and help rebuild and focus on TA 2.0.

Anyone not working with us to improve our CBA needs to consider helping out. We all win together. Let's fight for best value.

There is funny rumor going around that we will attempt to do only 3 things to squeeze out a TA1.5 before 31 Dec 2023. The 3 things are increase pay rates, increase retro and soften scope language. I feel confident that if our strategy resembles this funny rumor there will be enough NOs waiting again.

You know what is not funny, the 300 sisters and brothers that in unity our ALPA leadership did not take care of with a retirement improvement. The choices we make reflect what we value. TA1.0 said if you are close to retirement during section 6 there is a high chance that you will receive a value of zero. There is no business speak that sets this right. As this number grows I hope you will realize this as an inadequacy of TA1.0.

You can’t preach unity to us youngsters when we will discard so many and treat it as a suitable outcome.

We talked about being 700 overmanned and furloughs to be had. Here is a better number to discuss: 300 turns 500 next year!

Until then don’t forget to fill out your surveys and leave some room for no pilot left behind. This is a negotiation not a holdup.

To the 300 retirees (and those about to join their ranks), you can put your hands down. Let’s GO!

Let's hope they aren't stupid enough to push TA1.5 through that quickly. The amount of dudes who would vote no on that is growing almost daily as more guys get off probation

I have been hearing that one too. What if the survey's leading questionnaire was used to justify our tenured NC doing exactly that?

Even wilder one is power player(s) in our union "falling" into mgt. position(s) with musical chairs, if this plan succeeds, even after the TA1 failure.

Hopefully these rumors don't become facts, as has has happened far too often lately.

The easiest way to ensure the outcome is to be involved. Stay engaged with the rebuilding of our union, that we can control. Stay focused on Best Value, participate in the survey and take the time to give solid answers. Yes this will take time, effort and energy, but this is the best chance we have had to build our union for the benefit of all members in a long time. If you don't get involved this time, you will only have one person to blame.

That’s great and all, but what about the 5800 that still have to work under the rest of the contract sections, most of which weren’t even addressed in TA1 openers, that are by far industry worst? Industry worst seat lock language, system bid frequency, lack of true min day, no hotels for recurrent/ ITU, unlimited operational emergency usage by the company to extend to FARs, etc, etc.

What is troubling for me is that the conversation is, and always will be about retirement. It’ll never be about making this a good place to work while we’re actually doing it, and that’s troubling.

Until the A-plan is tied to 401(k) compensation limits, that will continue to be the case. One of the big issues with the traditional A-Plan.

Why would we want the A plan tied to 401(k) compensation limits? If we want Delta+ pay rates, the A plan compensation limit for 2023 would be $330k while the top compensation would be over $417k.

Exactly, we cannot allow this CBA to become worse in any of these sections where we are already among industry worst. We need to protect our junior flying too, and improve it.

First order of business for new NC is climbing out of the hole that PM dug us into by playing "fast and loose" (his words) with all the initially TA'd sections and saying Yes to the company for SMU, saying Yes to them for R16, and saying Yes for BLG required for AVA/VLT/DRF and Selling VAC.

If you think a new NC should be leading us to TA2, make sure to explicitly state it in the survey, which has no question directly asking the obvious: should the NC be replaced for TA2? Not even in one of those mulitiple annoying "rank in order of importance the next 20 answers, and make them add up to 100". Survey brought to you by: the same guys who brought you TA1 and seem intent on bringing you TA2 before there is time to reorganize with new leadership.

Wait. ”Soften” scope? As in; make it easier for the company to outsource?

Make the language in such a way that it will soften the NOs to YESs for a TA1.5

fellow poster thanks for chiming in. TA1.0 was inadequate. We have folks talking about scope, pay rates, concessions, retro , etc (you get the picture). I am just highlighting yet another key failure of that document.

I have 3-4 contracts left here and want this place improved as well. The thread is called “No One Left Behind”. We are going in the same direction.

Let’s GO!

This one just kills me. Who negotiates a contract that can be unilaterally suspended by one party whenever they like, as often as they like, for as long as they like? How stupid is that?

So we are the worst in the industry? I know you've been here awhile since you came over from your regional - were we always the worst? Why did you pick a place to come to with the worst work rules?

PM played "fast and loose" - in his words - please expand about this statement.

He said "yes" to R16? We proposed the changes in long call reserve - Company would have loved to keep R24 with base hotel stby like it is - they don't want to change it, R16 was the compromise.

There were changes to DFT? Did you even read the TA?

So kind of weird that the campaign statements for block reps don't appear to include a guarantee they will only back a TA that offers full retirement benefits to amendable date. Probably a good thing as that is very unlikely to ever get passed - like saying I won't support any TA that doesn't have $900/hour pay - just another way of saying you will always vote NO. And there are quite a lot of people that do always vote NO and advertise it here regularly.

Tuck

I see your line of thinking and would like to know more. How many retirees since amenable date is acceptable for no retirement improvement? My number is zero. Since amenable date, we will reach about +500 retirees at end of 2024 then hit near 700 at end of 2025. Would 700 be acceptable if our negotiations dragged out until then? How about 500? Something in between?

I guess I am in the camp that I hope enough see it as important enough issue that “unlikely” becomes standard and core feature of how we value our members.

Everyone has to take care of their self interest, in light of that do you think folks near retirement will be more willing to accept substandard areas in other parts of the TA knowing that they need to get theirs now (retirement improvement vs being another retirees who did not make the cut off date)?

I think it should be a core part of our CBA that if you are on property at amenable date and retire thereafter one should always get the retirement bump negotiated. Retirement is one of the Crown Jewels of this place and to deny that to retirees just does not sit right. TA 1.0 was all about retirement. I have inquired about this on the road and folks seem to be 50-50. As a junior guy here, it is interesting to see the sentiment that one was just not lucky enough to make the cut off date (i.e. 300 retirees with no improvement in TA1.0).

Thanks for chiming in and your future reply.

I'd say zero. You negotiate for the people on the property - not future hires, not retirees. Sucks for those that miss it by just a little bit but there has to be a cutoff date at some point. Wouldn't make any more sense to say a guy that retired day before amendable date can't get any benefit. The amendable date is just that - there is no expiration, it's just an agreed upon date when the contract can be amended.

Yes, PM told us he TA'd all the concessions (he doesn't call them that by that name of course) early on, because he had given the company his "stern warning" that he would hold their feet to the fire when it came to payrates and retirement.

Yes, PM said yes to R16. He TA'd it. A concession he tried to sell as a win, just like you are doing.

Yes, I was at an ALPA regional a couple lifetimes ago, then an ALPA major, then another major, then here. I don't fault you for this being your only airline job, that's awesome. Still, your industry analysis is as weak now as it was during the 2015 TA you were so happy to vote in.

So, to help you understand by spelling it out: when I say "industry worst" I mean among our peers, not among the regionals.

Tuck, to set the baseline, you were asked what gains TA1 had that were worthy of voting it in. Of the 3 you were able to come up with, the fix of the company-created scheduled hotel receipt stupidity was a major win for you. Really, difficult to take you seriously after that.

Man, to continue to try to get you to understand - no, we were not always the worst. We are becoming the worst, while still being among the top in the industry. Can you handle both concepts at one time?

Our CBA is becoming worst in class because we keep voting in major concessions while having our collective heads Tuckd in the sand, not looking around the industry. 2015 gave us the loss of passover pay when combined with our current Bidding system, which makes our System Bids worst in the industry class our company belongs to. Our CBA ranking, if you will, among the top airlines in the US, has declined. Just look at guys leaving here by the dozens now. Wake up dude. And 2015 was for a cost neutral contract to the company.

WE keep voting in POS contracts like we did in 2015! Well, YOU did. And you almost did it again a couple of months ago, and you are still on here arguing FOR TA1. Wow.

We barely missed becoming that much worse in QOL, no thanks to you.

Apologies for coming across so bitter. Truth is, I got the best gig I could imagine here, and feel really grateful about it. But thanks to some seniority I know. And from my experience here, it seems that today it takes more seniority to "hold" an equivalent QOL than it did before 2015CBA.

Many of our junior guys are voting with their feet. By this time next year it could be over 150-200? guys who will have left for the legacies. All smart individuals who just see where this is going after TA1, and the mentality that got us there. It is concerning to me as well. I don't want to go anywhere else and came here for a career, as 99% of our pilots came here for.

I don't really hold it against you Tuck, and I took it personal there, my apologies... I don't hold int against our bros and sisters here who have been educated by ALPA, it's the union that has let me down. Thing is, two lifetimes ago for me, ALPA - in concert with the company, negotiated Pref Bidding over line bidding. It was sold to us as a huge win for both pilots and FA's. Well, as it turned out, it was catastrophic to QOL, not exaggerating. Which is why I left there. I felt TA1 had the potential to be catastrophic to our seniority list. Just my take.

We have been settling for much less than the mega wealth we have helped earn for this corporation. Let's not do it again.

Peace.

I don't see TA1 as some great solution. What I said was we may not be able to get any better. So far nothing that has happened has changed my mind on that.

We have the new block 7 rep who says we had the best leverage in our history - all the time while he and other newly elected MEC members were flying tons of extra during negotiations. Personal choices of course but THAT is the leverage we had and didn't use. Not a strike vote that can never end up as a strike.

Truth is the more guys that leave may actually give us some leverage. Doubt we will be hiring anytime soon but also don't think management wants a permanent stain on the brand name - more guys that leave and tell their buds that Fedex is no longer a first choice maybe that leads to some better outcomes. I'm positive the strike vote won't - positive guys posting about demanding more won't result in any improvements. Doubt this current crew force will actually fly their lines - especially when the new leadership loudly did the opposite last time.

I think it's funny when you think we have the worst CBA in the industry - excuse me, among our peers. Guessing you weren't very engaged until recently as you seem to understand very little about what we asked for and what we ended up with. But hey I think you've been angry since the day you were born. Can't imagine what your past carriers - the ones you say you left to come here - thought about you.

Excellent post!

Hopefully people learn that they can't be engaged and involved only towards the end of negotiations. We need people to do their part from day 1.

This is a great thread and a GREAT idea. You guys have my support and feel free to REACH out to your BROWN brothers. We are all in this crazy freight business together. Management is making millions while we are literally GETTING our butts kicked daily.

If the JD you mention is the one I am thinking of, I would not believe one word that comes from his mouth

It is hard to tell how TA2.0 will turn out. I do not want a TA1.1 (increase pay rates, tidy scope and keep TA1.0).

We have work to do on retirement package, pay rates, retro, scope language and those efficiencies that are really qol givebacks.

You said NO for splitting the pension with the pancake plan.

We said NO for a substandard deal during the most profitable time in our history.

We said NO for the first time ever under ALPA

It is time we gear up for NO for leaving a single member behind for retirement since amenable date.

I believe if our Union Leadership make the hard choice (with our input) to pursue no one left behind it would be truly industry leading and a first. It would also get more senior MSL members on board with a strategy for a TA2.0 vs 1.1. Lastly, it will start to address the penalty free zone we reward the company with for lengthy section 6.

This a long game not just for the near retiree, but to set a precedent for the junior MSL force (50%+ hired in the last ~6 years). You have your list, I have mine.

But, until the new surveys arrive save some room on it for true no one left behind since amenable date for retirement bump and true retro that appropriately rewards what we consistently bring to the table.

Add: the 300 retirees grow to over 500 by end of 2024. Let us not be willing to give the company a pass on ~10% of our current MSL.

Email your reps!

I hear what you are saying, but the union will be sued in a New York minute if they give up anything for the benefit of someone who is retired. They would lose too.

A union has a fiduciary duty to negotiate for all current members. A union cannot negotiate for a retired former member, at the expense of current members. No negotiating capital can be expended on non-members. It seems the only way would be to provide a retro payment for those who have retired during the amendable period.

Thanks for chiming in.

Put me in the group “push to test on that theory”.

Until suit and/or judgement on that suit, no one left behind will be on my list. We have no problem negotiating for new hires as “non-members”.

I don’t know what best instrument to capture the idea but there are enough smart folks/resources here that we could find a way if the membership request support for it.

This is factually incorrect.

FX ALPA has historically negotiated retro pay for members who have retired or resigned, though for some reason we decided to reward the company even more this round by not asking for retro for those who have resigned.

UA ALPA, DL ALPA, SWAPA, and many other airline unions do the same for their retirees and even those fired/resigned/etc and their retro payments are pensionable too.

I'll bet 1000$ the TA we eventually sign does NOT have retro retirement (back to amenable date). Anyone want to take my bet?

Why are we even pretending this is going to happen. I wish it would be I am 100% sure it wont.

Really just depends on whether we can get the company cucks out of the NC or not.

If we don't pursue retro retirement, we will be rewarding the company yet again for dragging negotiations out, and that is not in the best interest of the membership.

the key part is retro pay. a union cannot negotiate a new retirement for people already retired. A cash payment, as in retro pay, is allowed.

People unwilling to split the retirement are going to cost junior pilots a lot of money.

I don't think there would be strong opposition to separate plans if done the right way and given choices. Obviousely NC plan needs to go to self controlled and cash over cap. The A plan going forward would have to have built in cap increases like the Big B plan option by linking it to something like the B plan cap.

Something I rarely see mentioned is something I think could work with respect to the A plan - Increase the age to something like 62 for full pension benefits. I think a super majority of our pilots already work to at least this age. I know there are some who go earlier, but everyone I seem to fly with goes to at least 62. By increasing the retirement age for the full retirement, the cost to improve the A plan would go way, way down. You can play around with annuity calculators and see that increasing the age would open up major money for lots of contract improvements. The NC never showed the math on the billions in retirement improvements and I'm certain it would have been fuzzy math if they did. I know there would be a few earlier reitrees who would be giving something up, but again, I think the number is very small compared to the reward. Just something I think is worthy of being explored.

You are wasting everyone’s time if you think the company would agree to a COLA to the pension, which is what you are essentially suggesting.

Two years less of an annuity would save some money, but nothing earth shattering.

Financial math to TA1 retirement is fairly simple actually. Check out an annuity calculator. Or use excel for the MBCBP. Spoiler, no one was lying about the value added.

TA1’s retirement wasn’t perfect. But it was solid. But not good enough to make up for the shortcomings elsewhere.

TA1 sold out for the pension increase and yet again people keep asking for even more pension. Please don’t waste more time on the pension and let’s try to get paid today for our services.

And it’s not “the NC plan”. It’s guidance given by the MEC. Read the openers for this contract negotiation.