Fedex pilot issues

[switchoff]

2005-02-06 17:30:11
United Press International
FedEx pilots union prevents members voting

MEMPHIS, Jun 02, 2005 (United Press International via COMTEX) -- Leaders of the pilots union for Memphis-based FedEx Corp. let a deadline to vote on a contract offer expire, saying it doesn't address their main concerns.

The proposals included more than $500 million in raises and signing bonuses, but a union spokesman said members were worried about work rules, job security, retirement security and healthcare issues, the Memphis Commercial Appeal reported Thursday.

Union leaders did not give members an opportunity to vote on the proposal, which would have raised the average pilot's pay to $200,000 by 2010, FedEx said. The average FedEx pilot currently earns $175,817 and its most senior captain works 11 days per month.

The sides have been negotiating since March 2004. Negotiations are to resume in the week of June 13.
Copyright 2005 by United Press International.


Life must be rough working a whopping 11 days a month for $175,000 per year...

 

[montecarlo11]

switchoff,
alot of money is right. i would love to know how many pilots are employed by fedex express. if you count the aircraft flown by AIR-T, fedex owns well over 700 aircraft, with 20 airbus A380 on the way.
thats alot of pilots!

 

[ironylife]

thats a first....a fact that you dont know.

 

[ironylife]

and how namy NEW planes is ups on order for....80???? How about the new pilots we have comming down the pike....over 100. I dont see fedex hiring any.

 

[proups]

monte: one thing we have in common: greedy pilots!

 

[montecarlo11]

irony,
good point...and your right, a fact that i dont know for a change. But the difference between you and I is that I will research it to find out. you seem to run your mouth about things you no nothing about and then make articles up to support your thoughts. Irony, thats cool...if for nothing elese it has entertainment value. please keep it up!

 

[montecarlo11]

Irony,
I also dont know how many aircraft Fedex has on order other than the 20 A380's. Irony, I do know that if Fedex did not order another aircraft starting today, and UPS doubled there fleet, you would still be short by about 120 planes. (just something to think about)

 

[vet]

I've never done the job.......so therefore CANNOT critisize them. Instead of gripeing about someone fighting big business for more $$ why not back the little guy. Are you telling me execs are worth over a million a year? There used to be a survey out that showed the gap in compensation between the janitor & CEO of certain companies. MY, MY, How that gap has grown! And no one is critical of the CEO.
Also, concerning the pilots; their job is on the line every 6 months when many are required to get flight physicals.

 

[pkgdriver]

Its been a few years but heres some Fed Ex reading for monte.

http://www.tailstrike.com/070494.htm

http://www.avweb.com/news/profiles/182918-1.html


(Message edited by pkgdriver on June 04, 2005)

 

[switchoff]

Vet,

I hope your message isn't to actually support the pilots for MORE money when most of their other counterparts in the industry are taking pay cuts and their companies going bankrupt. And if their demands were to lead to a pilot strike or company lockout that would hurt our business, would you still be 'back the little guy'?

And your question as to whether execs deserve over a million dollars for their business education and experience...maybe. Try finding any big successful company outhere (top 200) that don't compensate their ceo's that well. Based on the actual number of hours worked ie. flight hours versus the execs time in the office, the pilots would make a lot more money than a lot of the execs out there.

 

[ironylife]

any comment on ups getting into ltl business???Did you check out the yellow/roadway link, so....what do you think? I think Im going to tone down my attitude towards you....looks like everybody else on here is stomping on you.

 

[ezrider]

Switchoff I'm with Wily on this one. Most of that last post of yours makes some rather flimsy comparisons. UPS pilots are not in the same industry as other pilots you tried to lump them in with. Our pilots play a vital and probably increasing role in sustaining "our" company's success. Anybody in the sales or production operations at UPS has to know that air and intl. pkgs are huge chunks of the revenue pie and without it UPS would very likely be a much smaller company paying smaller wages to most everybody working for it.

As for what corporate executives from the top 200 "successful" companies are pulling in, that largely revolves around one's definition of the word. Watching some stuffed shirt like Michael Eisner try to justify tens upon tens of millions of dollars in compensation while Disneyworld charges $60 for a family breakfast while not keeping the restrooms properly cleaned and sanitized would lead me to believe that he wasn't worth what he was collecting. And he was not even close to being the worst offender of the corporate boardroom excess that's become way to common in today's America.

If the board has enough money to vote themselves a 7% payhike for the likes of overpaying for a company like OVERNITE or pie-in-the-sky fantasy projections of cost-savings from mistake-ridden fiascos like EDD to Wall Street analysts, then the pilots deserve thier share of the pie as well seeing as they actually have delivered the goods for us all.

 

[ups79]

ezisagree, its the drivers that pickup and deliver the airs, without them the pilots would not be necessary. HELL, lets just say no one branch of UPS is more important than the rest. We are a big wheel with many spokes necessary to keep it round.

 

[wily_old_vet]

ez-this is my first response to this post and i think the pilots are being stupid and are adversely affecting the jobs of you me and every non pilot. Don't think you agree with that. As far as overnite I think its a positive. As far as PAS/EDD I don't think you can make a judgement until it is installed nationwide. There do seem to be problems but nothing that can't be worked out over time.

 

[8up]

way back in the day, before we had "Brown Tail" aircraft, we leased our air operation. planes and pilots were rented from Orion Air. the pilots then were happy just to have jobs, coming out of Pan Am, Eastern, Piedmont, Braniff just to mention some of their former employeers. once we painted the shield on those planes, pilot pay went up. it's not as if the success of this company was built upon their hard labor and sweat.
we were picking up and delivering air packages long before their paycheck said UPS on it. their tight knit union, no longer Teamsters, has gotten so greedy that they jepordize the livelihood of every other employee in this company. we have division mgrs with 30 yrs of svc. not making as much (base salary) as some of the youngsters with less than half as many years in. so, it's difficult for me to be sympathetic for these starving pilots, when they should be content flying the youngest fleet in the air, great benefits and great pay already.

 

[ezrider]

ups79

I'd agree with the latter part of your post. It does take every spoke of the wheel to keep it going. But the comparison made here that since passenger airlines have struggled and laid off pilots, or in the case of some like UNITED just screwed thier employees out of a pension, that somehow UPS pilots that fly packages should just accept whatever the company deems a fair offer is nonsense. I didn't see many drivers complaining when pilots stood out with other hourlies holding picket signs for those two weeks in '97, but now all of a sudden they are deemed as these greedy opportunists trying to grind the last dollar at the expense of alienating the ever-fickle customer base. That sounds like the company line that a shareholder wants to believe. As an employee, there's no way I take that at face value.

Wily, your right on this much-I mistook VET for you. I'd disagree with the rest. If FEDEX GROUND or DHL went belly-up in the next three years and UPS took the position at the 2008 talks that there were plenty of unemployed drivers that could "easily replace" you and the rest of us, you and every other poster here acting like judge and jury on the UPS pilots stance would be crying foul all the way. Your not at the talks and I doubt you know the federal mediator presiding over them, yet without knowing the specifics your ready to admonish the pilots union for doing nothing more than the same thing that IBT rank and file has also done in the late innings of tough negotiations. You and everybody else here wouldn't settle for anything less than you and IBT decided you were worth even if it meant using your last resort, so why shouldn't they?

As for not giving EDD enough time, I've given it exactly a year-and-a-half and it stinks. Wrong labels continually placed on the wrong packages and re-loops where some office maroon looked at a map setting up delivery stops going the wrong way down one-way streets translates into bad service and lost customers. Don't be pointing fingers at the pilots for alienating the customers. Management does it every single day and EDD is all the proof anybody needs.

 

[no]

EZ,
Just curious, how many express packages in the empty planes do you think the pilots had to fly if they weren't walking the picket lines with the majority of us?

How many fewer friend/t and p/t drivers would be needed to deliver the fewer express packages that the shippers would not be shipping with us if the pilots went on strike?

How much of that express volume would be permenantly loss to FDX or DHL if the pilots went on strike?

How many hours would the preloaders lose in the morning due to a later start time?

The fact is, the well-compensated minority will have an adverse effect on the majority, average paid employee, if the pilots go on strike.

You're right, we're not sitting at the negotiating table so we don't know what the sticking point is. But based on the fact that these few, well paid co-workers of ours, that get paid 2-8 x's more than the average person at UPS, might affect our career/income detrimentally, probably scares or upsets quite a few of us.

 

[ok2bclever]

I imagine there have been tons of people who have always said UPS drivers are way overpaid for getting to drive around in the sun all day every single contract.

Just shows that there are plenty of ignorant people willing to run their mouths about somebody else's job that they don't know a darn thing about.

 

[ezrider]

<font color="0000ff">Just curious, how many express packages in the empty planes do you think the pilots had to fly if they weren't walking the picket lines with the majority of us?</font>

Meaning what? That the pilots just thought it would be fun to hang out in the hot August afternoon holding a sign for all of high-up management to see and that there was no risk to them for taking a stand with us? You ought to be counting your blessings that they stood out there for you and me instead of crying about how "well paid" they are compared to "the majority", whatever you've deemed that to be.

The pilots standing out on the line was a big boost in the eyes of the general public watching. Much of the public saw them as true professionals lending a much-needed credibility that wasn't there in many spots around the country where many IBT "brothers" behaved like absolute idiots in front of the T.V. cameras even staging acts of violence. If any of the IPA have been reading some of yours and some nameless others' revisionist sense of history here I'd bet they are sorry they bothered to stand alongside "the majority" back then. They aren't even asking you to put your neck on the line and stand alonside them like they did for us if it comes down to that. They just want "the majority" to understand and not make uneducated passing judgements in haste. Your obviously too selfish and narrow minded to even give them that.

<font color="0000ff">How many hours would the preloaders lose in the morning due to a later start time?</font>

Can't answer that one since hardly any of them show up on-time or at all or even stay thru the entire shift to begin with. Hey, just curious. Are these pre-loaders that start(and then usually leave within weeks) at the same starting wage as 20 years ago, part of this "majority" of "average paid workers" you have grouped together? What if they decided to band together and stage a walkout? I suppose management is stupid enough to think they could just contract out those "great opportunity" jobs along with the pilots as well. And once that precedent is set, if your a driver with one of those "average paid" employees with one of those dreaded evil "pensions", they won't mind contracting YOUR JOB as well.

Good grief. Get a clue before you bring that slop in here.

 

[no]

Hey Charlie Brown,

Maybe I am being selfish, but it's my family and my bills that come first and that's my main concern if it ever comes down to a pilot strike. So maybe my biased opinion is based on that.

My term 'MAJORITY' referred to all package handlers/service providers that handle packages every working day. How many teamsters out there handle packages? I'm guessing maybe 250,000? (I could be off by 50,000 but that doesn't matter) How many unionized pilots? Maybe 1500 or so--I call that a minority! I haven't even taken into account the truck and airplane mechanics.

I don't think I'm the only person that would be a little more than upset if the -->WELL PAID!!!<-- pilots go on strike.

As for your preload turnover rate, that's probably the norm and not the exception. However, out of the center I work I know several of them that have been there for several years and need the extra income (+benefits )to supplement their other jobs.
Fortunately, management can't 'contract out' preload work because it's against the collective agreement. Nor can they contract out our driving jobs for even though I have minimal confidence in the Teamsters, I don't think they would sit still and watch their monthly union dues paying members be eliminated in exchange for 'non-union' contract workers.}}