Because we didn’t want to negotiate with the “B” team. Ironically the “B” team could have helped us get into mediation quicker which IMHO is the only way we get a new contract.

The B team doesn’t negotiate nor are they authorized to. They play sudoku and delay, delay, delay. Remember, there’s parties requesting mediation and the NMB accepting those parties into mediation, 2 separate events. NMB wouldn’t accept us into mediation if barely any progress was made. So we could take a small pay bump and pension increase or take nothing and be at the same place later this year. I think we made the right choice….🤷‍♂️

They refused to negotiate last time till 6 months prior to the expiration date. LEVERAGE.

What most fail to grasp is that going forward we are going to be a full negotiating cycle, maybe two, behind the Legacies and going to be playing catch up for a long time. Due to these extensions, the best we can hope for is parity for a very short period of time before being leapfrogged again. 10 years between contracts is simply ridiculous.

Exactly. I think we will finally catch Delta in 2028. Just a few months before they get an even newer/better contract.
But I’m sure we will hear all about widebody to narrowbody ratios to make us feel like real winners.

I fully expect the “A” team to do the same thing. Those that believe Tony C and Carol are gonna roll in day one ready to make a deal are in for disappointment.

why do you think the “A” team will be there at the beginning?

History doesn’t show this to be the case

Exactly. We were going to get the B tream initially whether we started 4 years ago, 2 years ago, or now. It takes 5 years to get a contract out of these people. If we would’ve started 4 years ago, we’d be almost there today.

Honest question for the old heads: When in the history of the IPA have we ever negotiated (or not negotiated) based on what another labor group was doing?

Their contracts become amendable around then, no evidence suggests they are going to get another expedited negotiations home run like last time.

No sense in whining about a reality you can’t change.

31 Aug 16: UPS/IPA pilots ratify Contract 2016 - amendable date of 1Sept21.

30 Sep 16: Delta pilots achieve AIP that becomes TA2 with top widebody hourly rates above UPS/IPA Contract 2016 - amendable date 31Dec19.

Not trying to whine but rather emphasize we shouldn’t be trying to beat this current Delta contract. We need to try to be competitive with Delta’s next contract that will come around fairly soon after ours—hence the feeling we are a contract cycle behind.

ok and maybe I’m whining a little.

Has there been any discussion of how retroactive pay will work for your eventual contract? You’re starting negotiations this month while still on the extension, but it’s not actually amendable until September 2025, right? If it starts now, do new hires get retro from date of hire or sometime later like activation into their fleet?

Retro..retroactive pay..is for pay raises u missed while negotiations were going on...will be a long time before we are missing a pay raise.

Contract negotiations start next week.

Extension 2022 provides a 3.25% raise on 1Sept24, and a 3.25% amendable date raise on 1Sept25...won't be a missed raise until 1Sept26.

Long story short we traded for small pay raises now rather than a larger retro package later. There were reasons, but don’t expect to see a significant lump sum retro unless negotiations go longer than two years.

Makes sense, thanks for the clarification!

What makes you think it won’t be a signing bonus like the last 2 contracts?

From my understanding the signing bonus was for "back pay".

Negative. It was in lieu of retro pay. Precedent set in 2006. Stayed the same with Contract 2016

Creek. Crick. its all the same

Not called retro cause then peeps would argue what "full" retro is

And I think ex wives could claim some of it. lol

Got to keep those ex wives mits off of it!

With the divorce rate here that is definitely a priority.

Look at it this way. Since it has been labeled a signing bonus by UPS instead of retro, why shouldn't we expect to get a "signing bonus" regardless of the TA extension raises.

Expectation Zero

I like the way you think.:D

The ex wife part is true.

However it’s not the same. Because of the interim agreements with raises there would be no retro pay to be had. Retro is designed as back pay from when the contract becomes amendable to when it is ratified. In this case (hopefully) that will be a very short time. This is one case where a bonus will be more lucrative than retro.

I get that ...but I will be totally shocked if the "bonus" is greater than what the "retro" would have been.

Well retro will be zero as the contract should be ratified before the amendable date (caveat: this will require everyone to start doing the job of one pilot).

I would hope we secure a larger signing bonus this time around but 2016 was the same as 2006 so that’s my minimum expectation

☝️ Get me some of what this guy's smoking! 😂

I like your optimism dude, but I just don't see how that happens. I'll happily eat crow here if it does tho.

That would shock me as well.

I'm not sure we'll have a ratified TA in the next 14+ months...but I also don't think its gonna be 4-5 years like some others have pontificated.

Now that is funny right there, fighting over how to call retro pay or back pay 🙄.

Expectation zero.. but, UPS did give us money they did not have to do, twice, could have just parked us. And agreed to early start of negotiations. Benevolence? Obviously not, but maybe a small tactical approach? We shall see.

Umm no! We got pay raises for extending the contract. It was never sold as money now instead of a contract bonus later.

And yet, we effectively accepted a small bird in the hand now rather than negotiate for higher retro payrates for the covered years. How it was sold doesn’t have anything to do with it. It’s water under the bridge now, but if we hadn’t accepted the company’s extension offer we could (potentially) have won larger raises in negotiations that would have likely started in January.

Doubtful...what I read was that any kind of serious negotiations were not gonna start either way.

They wouldn't have.

Without Extension 2020, our contract would have become amendable in September 2021 with the contract stipulating negotiations beginning Sept 2020. Thing is, in Sept 2020 we were all neck deep in global pandemic BS and "keeping the global economy moving", so it is probably safe to say negotiations would not have started until mid-2021.

We can look to our Purple brethren's experience: their negotiations began May 2021, mediated negotiations started October 2022, TA reached May 2023 which was rejected by the membership. And critically important to remember - FDX didn't have the NLRB-governed Teamsters negotiations to deal with like we did. Now, had we been in mediated negotiations would the NMB have paused mediated sessions due to Teamsters? There's little sense in speculating, but I personally think the possibility of that would have been pretty high.

Either way, I don't believe we'd have ratified a TA nor do I think we'd have one imminent. We'd still be at $337.65/yr top rate during a period of high inflation, with a MASSIVE hourly rate hole to dig out of like FDX has, with a multi-year negotiations assessment on top of that...to say nothing about lost DC contributions, extending/increasing the Flat Dollar Amount, and making summer vacation percentages effective for seven months vs. five.

All academic FOMO talk at this point really, as both extensions passed with 90%+ and we start negotiations next week.

Your Purble brethren were negotiating during COVID as well. We had a contract that was amendable in November of 2021. We started our negotiations 6 months prior to the amendable date per the terms of our contract. In contrast, you accepted a contract extension 3+ years prior to the teamsters contract, and again 1+ years before the teamsters contract. Both times, it was because UPS wouldn't negotiate until the teamsters had a contract. The rates you agreed to didn't exceed Delta's 2019 rate until Sept 2022. You have rates through Sept 2025. Unfortunately, we have had to fight against those rates and try to get closer to the Delta rates. In 2020, you agreed that Delta pilots deserved a higher rate than you, and Fedex has used that as industry standard. If you are suggesting that the NMB would agree that your contract should have to wait for 3+ years because the company was concerned about the teamsters, well, you better get this done in 12 months before you are in the same boat.

Well off to a decent start with earlier than expected negotiations.....prob got cpl years before teamsters start up again.

Yes, as I wrote in my post, FDX ALPA started negotiations in May 2021:
https://www.alpa.org/news-and-events/news-room/2024-05-30-fedex-pilots-informational-picket-memphis

May 2021 is later than September 2020, and pretty close to "mid-2021". We would not have started negotiating in September 2020 regardless due to the pandemic.

Yes, our 2020 extension did not exceed Delta until Sept 2022, but our rates achieved in the 2022 extension were industry leading at that time...they were eclipsed by pattern bargaining starting in early 2023. That's a good thing for everybody, right? FDX ALPA wasn't able to pattern off of Delta rates ratified months earlier, and as I showed in a post during your TA vote that showed if your TA'd payrates were weighted 82%WB/18%NB they were almost identical to UPS extension payrates.

Nope.

I'm saying 1. without the 2020 Extension, negotiations would have had a delayed start due to the pandemic, and 2. it is possible the NMB would have in some capacity paused mediated negotiation sessions while the Company was dealing with NLRB-governed Teamsters negotiations, a factor that no other airline including FDX has to deal with. The first is a fact borne out of "Act of God", the second is a personal gut feeling but hey, I've been wrong before.

Recapping:

• IPA/UPS negotiations would not have started in September 2020 per our contract due to pandemic, they would have been delayed until mid-2021 (let's call it May 2021 to align with FDX negotiations)
• The 2020 extension was to allow pattern bargaining in the passenger world to help move the bar, which we could pattern off of - rates we could then use as part of our negotiations after Teamsters Master was settled
• The 2020 extension was announced on 10Feb20, as Asian factories were starting to shut down due to COVID and segments were being canceled left and right. During the ratification period, NOBODY knew what COVID would look like. The extension was generally regarded as a no-brainer here on APC by non-UPS pilots, when hundreds of passenger jets were parked with thousands of pilot jobs at risk
• The 2020 extension was ratified by 98.86%
• 2022 Extension came about because Company said they would not have the people controlling purse strings available for our negotiations until Q2'24 at the earliest due to Teamsters negotiations in 2023.
• When the 2022 Extension came about, the only payrates to pattern off of were....UPS/IPA 2020 Extension payrates as FDX and the Big Four pax carriers were still negotiating.
• 2022 Extension was ratified by 90.72%
• We start formal Section 6 negotiations next week on 11 June

If you want to blame UPS/IPA contract extensions for FDX ALPA's failure to pattern off payrates Delta AIP'd in December 2022, well, knock yourself out if that gives you a boogeyman.