BoxDawg

It is a vote of YES. The Jack daniels had me getting a little carried away yesterday. I vote yes, otherwise I think it willbe a long time without any contract, which equals lost pay in my mind.

Jaxman187

Gunter,

In reality what you have here is a simple wager proposition. If you are a domestic MD-11 FO you are trading an absolute unknown commodity(This TA)-- which is potentially quite negative("tell him what he got behind door no.3 Chuck!")--in for a 3%-6% apparent raise.

If you think that everything that the company wants to do with this agreement, that they can do anyway. Then why are they making this agreement anyway..."Labor Peace?" In my opinion Fedex and their lawyers love to fight with us collectively. It gives their mornings meaning. I hate to go back to it but if if the company wanted, "Labor peace", then they would have walked their position on Accepted Fares back to the way it was. They could change it via FCIF, just the way it was stolen from us the first time. They could admit no mistake and blame it on computer programming and accounting glitches.

The MEC talks about the company negotiating in good faith, but the way Accepted Fares have been handled constitute intent and context on the part of the company and the MEC. The company surreptitiously stole a contractual feature mid-contract outside of negotiations via a 2-3 page FCIF and so embarrassed us collectively(FEDEX ALPA) that we try not to talk about it. They say "sunlight is the best disinfectant" and our leadership needs to come clean with what happened here:

-Sneaky wording change on page 2 of "Free Internet" FCIF
-6 months passes and wording change becomes part of contract and can no longer be grieved
-Company begins to aggressively enforce the stolen change
-Union is so embarrassed about it's defeat that it talks about the "Accepted Fares" problem as little as possible and in broad generalities

Over and over I read on these boards about cleaning up vague language. Here is a start. Why don't we change this section and all the other sections of the contract to the way it really is now and show what was stolen from us. Our contract is unreadable because of all the little side letters and a minor capitulations. In all the changes in this TA, how many subtle but deleterious "Accepted Fares", "Block over 8", and "training on days off" changes do you think are hidden? It should be an indicator of company intent in terms of negotiations that the company is getting their needs in terms of money and control addressed in this TA and ours are limited to isolated areas where the company chooses to cede ground. Is it really realistic to think that the company is not going to try to make us pay for NPRM changes down the line?

I hate to make references to TV commercials but I am a victim of the advertising juggernaut. You ever see the Subway commercial where the pretty girl goes up to the geeky guy at the office and says,"do you want be my boyfriend" and then takes his sandwich. This is what this "labor peace" talk amounts to. It is simply "business relationship" 2.0

That all being said, I appreciate and respect the current groups efforts and urge them to go back to the table and try again. This deal does not have enough upside for me but represents a lot of potential downside.

iarapilot

To bad you didnt have a couple of more and gotten really carried away and voted no!

BoxDawg

Naw, I voted sober as a stone. There are alot of people that are angry about alot of things. I was screwed just like everyone else, but I am looking forward. Angry is not the way I roll. Everyone should vote their conscience. We are not going to all agree, on anything. The MEC has worked on this for a long time and when they say it the best we can get right now, I believe them. They are right there on the front lines. We dont know the intracacies of the negotiating. I have cast my ballot, whether you agree with me or not, VOTE. Its your 1.95%. So let the arrows fly boys.

Popeye

The MEC has been working on this since August. This amounts to their first rough draft. That's hardly a long time.

So the dawg has been screwed and now it is everyone else's turn. Once again, at least your being honest. Sadly, you are far from alone in your thinking.

BoxDawg

Your really weak on your understanding of the facts. NC has been working on their presentation for a long time. And, we all got screwed. Maybe you didnt, but you do sound pretty bitter.
You think your way, i will think mine.

Gunter

They need it to open a European base outside of Paris. IMHO they also don't want a repeat of the embarrassing bids for HKG FO when they add the MD. I think it will be worse with upward movement vs. possible furlough.

What I'm hearing is it's a battle between MD-11 vs. FDA FO. I guess we should keep the FDA guys down so you can hold a better line.

As for Accepted fares - If you feel strongly about it I say vote NO. FDX ALPA has done what they can to fix it. We have shown the company a solution and they said no thanks, we don't have a problem. I guess the money saved by stealing accepted fare money from us is like crack. They REALLY like this crack. But it's only collected from commuters. So at least they have an uneven application going for them.

Maybe we should say no thanks, give them back their SIBA solution (TA) and tell them to get off the crack.


BTW, I voted YES.

FDXLAG

Again Gunter you miss the big picture, it is not a battle between FDA FO and MD-11. It is saying 3% is not enough to replace the lost income from SIBA and international flying. And as the saying goes "it" rolls down hill. You may not realize this but the bottom of the bidpack will always take the worst hit, particularly at FDX were relative seniority pays really well.

And no FDX ALPA did not do everything they could for accepted fares. They trusted the company to negotiate accepted fares rather than grieve it. Never ever trust the union when they are trusting the compaany.

Gunter

who was the MEC chair then? This definitely has something to do with the issue.

FDXLAG

Soyou are saying it is OK to trust the company now that we have a new mec chair?

Bottomline we are still trusting the company to negotiate in good faith. It doesnt matter who the MEC chair, is we can not trust the company.