Years ago, back when the company was poised to begin the postal contract, management approached our Union with what a majority believed was a substandard offer. We were righteously indignant, made a lot of noise, surveyed, regrouped and then sent our negotiators back with a counter that basically looked like a new section 6 opener. There was much bravado back then, statements like "with or without you" were dredged up (old reference to a statement from the CEO) and generally there was a lot of back slapping going on. Basically, we told management that things had changed, we had our act together after the attainment of our first contract and our counter offer reflected what we were truly worth. In typical form, management looked us dead in the eye (figuratively) and decided to find out exactly what we believed we were worth. They ignored our counter and began immediately to move forward within the confines of the current agreement by immediately instituting Advanced Volunteer and Vacation Buy Back solicitations........which were quickly snapped up by our crews. That practice continues today. Our counter offer was defeated from within.

What I am trying to say here is that when we vote no, our duty to one another does not end there.....it just begins. Simply put, when our Union has a common goal, fee agency must end, personal need must be temporarily put aside for the sake of the greater good and we need to act as a Union.....united. Anything less and we send a very bad message to management and an even worse one to ourselves. I believe that BC negotiated what he believed could be attained based on our past behavior. I admit, I personally would have liked our Union to get out ahead of this with a little more education as to our willingness to make our actions congruent with our desires, but if you truly want to know why we always seem to take the path of appeasement.......look left and right. It's a painful process, but a necessary one. The good news is .....we can change, it's never too late. We were successful with the Captain's Authority issue and we can be successful here. By the way, just for the record, back when we countered the postal offer....we were worth every penny we asked for and more...... and today, since we helped make that management endeavor a success, why would we be worth less?

One last thing to my Union Leadership. I truly appreciate you time, effort and sacrifice, I just ask that you boldly lead us! The weak will follow the strong.

CaptEx, well said! So all you guys and gals voting no on this LOA(especially all SFS crews), When this LOA is voted down and the company goes ahead with the FDA's, the only leverage we have is that nobody bid the FDA's and force the company to either negotiate again or staff the FDA's with new hires. Unfortunately, some pilots will bid this, even if they had to pay the company to go. I hope I'm wrong, but we have to many one ways here.

Personally, I don't care if we renegotiate anything. I would like to see more money for COLA but current section 6 and SIBA are a better combination then what is in this LOA. That is why I am voting no.

Still waiting to see what we asked for openers.

There are quite a few things about this LOA that are similar to the Postal situation, but there is one huge difference......The postal freight was domestic freight....this is international flying we are talking about here. There isn't anything that is going to stop this freight from being moved by someone else. BC brought the UPS situation in the middle east up at the meeting the other night....I don't remember the country, but the UPS guys didn't think it was safe over there and now they contract the flying out. Lost routes aren't going to help us in the long run. I still think this LOA sucks, but there are alot of sides to this thing. I'd just like to see a big turnout at the upcoming meetings....every Tuesday into Wednesday night hub turn....( that means 1230 am (L) on Wednesday morning) in Mempho...and a huge turnout on the vote...

Purpledriver, not to be rude here but do you know what you(we) are voting on? This is not a LOA to determine whether or not we do this flying or someone else does. The flying will be done with or without this LOA. The only differences will be no enhanced CBA option and no STV. The current CBA already has a provision to approve longer than 2hr ground transport via the SIG, so you can bet the 3hr ride HKG-CAN would be approved even without this LOA. While it is correct to say that there are scope provisions to allow them to use other carriers, they are unchanged by this LOA. From what I understand UPS' contract is setup differently than ours in this area setting up the scenario that you spoke of(someone correct me if I'm wrong here). Not telling you which way to vote, but why frame this vote as something other than what it is?

Hey Daniel, I understand what you're saying, and yes I do know what I'm voting for...I've read the LOA many times and have spent the time to go to the union meetings to hear the MECs side of the story. All I'm saying that is when I first read this POS, I was a definite no vote. Now after taking the time to listen to the MEC's presentation I think that the issue is less clear. The MEC is framing this vote as a scope issue. As a pilot group...at least at the meetings...the reason this thing sucks is mainly the STV.. There has not been much of an issue with the money (at least at the meetings). I would just like to see turnouts at the hub turn meetings as strong as the other night with the pilot group involved instead of the crap turnout we had on the ANC LOA move package. I have been asking the guys I fly with what they think about it and I've yet to fly with a guy that knows anything about it. There are a small % of our pilot group that are involved...that sucks. I still don't like this thing and stand as a no vote.....I'm more concerned that the silent majority will just read the majority opinion and vote for it without taking the time to know anything about it...

The term enhanced in the LOA is humorous.

Captexpress is right on. Pilots will fudge-pack their fellow pilots without hesitation...everybody knows this.

If you vote no, you better not bid it.

Purpledriver,

I agree on the silent majority, this thing will pass comfortably if they don't get involved/informed and that isn't necessarily indicative of what the pilot group feels one way or the other. My main issues with the LOA are STV-it needs to be either removed or made into a more livable deal to recognize that we have families/lives outside of FDX. Anytime I have to be told that something will go senior, I worry. I don't like the money, but do realize that since our contract has provisions to get this done without the LOA that it will likely be hard to increase the cash in this round. The CBA option is reflective of a company belief that the SFS and some of the CDG SIBA folks will move to the FDA's. The enhanced CBA option is enhanced just enough in their opinion to entice the seniority demographic they are targeting. They figure a some excesses, optimization/reduction of lines, Age 65, talk of a surplus of bodies, and a long bid along with this LOA will be enough to coax that demographic into these domiciles. Because of that this LOA is what it it is. The other main disappointment is that our union should be blitzing us with info on not only this LOA but what these domiciles may be like. They've been over there, we haven't. They claim to have researched this stuff carefully, we haven't. Much of the demographic being targeted knows nothing of the SFS FDA experience good or bad, the union does. What I'm trying to figure out is if these are errors of omission or comision? From what I've seen so far, it's a bit of both depending on which MEC member you are talking to. I suspect that it was/is the same on Age 66.

I agree 100% Daniel.....The VIPS link for Q and A about this thing is B.S....I'm not going to trust the company to tell me what a great deal this thing is. The answers we are getting at the meetings are lacking. Our former SPC ( W.R ) when asked about schools in Paris said the public schools in Paris are great. They teach English as a 2nd language from the begining. When it was pointed out that most kids from the US don't speak French..the language that the majority of the school day was taught in.....he said that they would "catch up". The answers we are getting about rentals are questionable. The rents that I've see in or around Paris while looking online are far above the ones being quoted from the MEC. There are alot of question...not many answers.

I'm still voting NO. This will leave only the hores and rape victims behind. I dont belive our union is the strong leading the weak. Its our selfcentered good for me represetatives vs. the rest of us. The gang of eleven will not fly overseas, they dont care.