The company is spreading rumours that they want a quick deal because their dealmaker is still our NC chair. Remove him and see if they still want a quick deal. Guess its too late now. PM will be driving the ship again. Full steam ahead, again, without a single survey to figure out what the pilots really want, again.

But, but, they promised us real, in depth, black and white surveys where they would know what we want, didn't they?

The MEC going back on their words? I'm shocked, shocked I tell you.

PM is going to negotiate what he wants, not what we want. Count on it.

Giving him until May is more wasted time if he can't come up with a deal that will pass the crew force. If he does, I predict it will be a 51% deal and we will be the laughing stock of the industry, again.

If he can't make a deal that will pass, we will have wasted almost an entire year, all because he wouldn't do the honorable thing, like he promised he would.

What a clown show. I am so disgusted.

From the MEC Chairman:

‘The political tactics from some of your block reps stating that we don’t have a strategy, a plan, or polling data to know what you want is completely untrue. It is political babble. We have post-rejected TA data from multiple surveys, focus meeting data, phone calls, and emails.’

In the past few months I’ve personally had a phone survey, did a pilot wide online survey, and signed up for a small focus group.

Anyone saying surveys haven’t been done and the MEC doesn’t know what the pilot group wants is either ill informed, or pushing a false narrative.

The problem is that all three of those were to determine WHY THE TA FAILED. That’s it.

The online survey had low participation. The phone survey and online survey were polling the exact same items. The phone survey at least had no confirmation bias, but absolute numbers were less than 1,000 participants. And the focus groups are at risk of bias confirmation because attendees obviously had something to say about TA shortcomings.

The surveys were designed to present a broad based 30,000 foot view of what went wrong:

Compensation
Retirement
Scope
QOL

They were designed to be retrospective to identify what the issues of the failed TA were to the NMB. That’s from the mouth of the union.

To assert that they are now forward looking is incorrect. How could they be? There was no precise focus on the issues. There were no specifics about scope. I wasn’t asked what QOL items I would like to see. There were no questions about what percentage of retirement is suitable or if cash over cap was a must. None of that. No specifics at all. Pay and compensation had a few specifics, but that’s it.

I’ve emailed my rep and we’re on the same page. But I’m one block of many. A survey is the most direct way of getting the sentiment to the NC. And quite frankly, they don’t seem to care.

I missed the part where they said no more surveys? I was told a scope and retirement survey were imminent. Has that changed?

Were you also told that we’ve already met with the NMB and will likely do so two more times in January before we even accomplish these surveys? Because we have.

The point is not to arbitrarily fill out surveys. It’s for the surveys to direct our path on negotiations.

The surveys likely won’t be completed until the middle of February. That’s more than half the allotted time to this negotiating committee.

I think PM should go, he said he would. Zero confidence in him.

Random Thought
 

Just so everyone knows, the minimum monthly guarantee at UPS is 75:00 for a 28 day period. With 13 of these 28 day periods, their annual guarantee is 975 hours. Their top 2024 pay rate is $388.38.

This gives an annual guarantee of $378,670. If you divide that by 884, that would give us a top rate of $428.36. Our TA top rate was $394 in 2024. That would’ve guaranteed us $348,296. The devil is in the details. (And for good measure, Delta has a $447 hourly rate with MMG of 65:00 for an annual guarantee of $364,752.)

I understand UPS is not industry leading in hourly rates of pay. But I just wanted to highlight how far behind our nearest peer we were last time.

Theres more to a TA than just straight dollar comparisions but everyone seems locked in on pay rates vs actual compensation. FedEX should just match DL or UA plus a dollar and they'll make their gains in work rules just like they always do.

What specific, actual compensation gains are you referring to in TA1 (the TA you were initially vehemently against and then, soon after, completely in favor of)?