Long time lurker, first time poster.

Management has completely mismanaged our manning situation. Flights are canceled daily due to lack of crews, and peak won't start for another 8 weeks or so. I assume,(well aware of the old adage of what that means) any TA starts with a "pot of money" from which improvements in the next contract are withdrawn.

So do I understand correctly that we "paid" to correct the company's under manning situation, in this new contract?

Did we "pay" to allow the company to get through every peak easier, by offering potential retirees $40K if they just fly one more?

Did we "pay" to allow folks to fly makeup sick, so some day they can get that time paid at 50%?

Once upon a time, unions tried to get as many people as they could on the company payroll, but this "fly sick now and we'll pay you half later" policy will only help the company to keep us understaffed. That's less new hires behind us, and less need for capt. spots. More insufficient reserves for every trip trade.

I imagine the conversation went a little like this:

FDX: Look guys we are in a bind. We really boned up staffing big
time, but we have a solution...but your going to have to give up something else to get it!

ALPA: Agreed, but we would like one extra piece of melon in our
crew meals.

FDX: You already have the maximum melon. But we will now split
that piece, thus increasing your melon 100%.

ALPA: 100% increase. Excellent!

Have you had the new catering out of Memphis? There is less melon and the quality has gone down considerably.

That can't be true ... at the Roadshow they said they IMPROVED catering and that all flights now get at least a mini-snack!*?

Isnt that the truth. Whats up with the new 50% of what it used to be servings?

Pat of the new "wellness check" as weight control in your new Purple CDHP. Lose weight now so you don't have to start chipping into that high deductible in 2017.

Guys, Focus!

The point is that the company NEEDED a fix for staffing. Instead of them paying for a fix, they got us to pay for it. I'm sure they put a cost on all those potential $40K payouts. When we asked for something else, they told us, "sorry no money left, remember we spent it on fixing the staffing problem."

They company triumphantly announced last week that they had selected a new vendor for the MEM catering! It is now the same vendor used in LAX. This vendor is the one that puts the same thing in the catering night after night out there. They used a lot of egg salad wraps because that's cheaper than meat in sandwiches. They also proudly only serve a half of a wrap or a sandwich as that's all a breakfast snack calls for.

Welcome to lowest cost and the minimum. If anyone thinks that the blue language in the TA won't be abused with loopholes and "interpretations" none of us have thought of, we must be insane.

That's why things like pay rates and A fund are so important. They can't interpret their way around it or increase the suck factor. I expect to have increases in both to counter the hidden cost neutral changes they have contemplated in hidden efficiencies.