I've never understood why the pilots, who spend most of their time in a plane, were allowed to unionize but we can't. Different rules for the elite I guess.
Hate to break the news, but the rules are the same... You can unionize just as "easily" as they did, all you have to do is get a majority of those in your craft (Couriers) to sign a union card, hold a certification election and if the outcome is favorable, presto, you're unionized. But then you have to get FedEx to be willing to bargain with you and not lock the union out, then get a contract that at least half of the members agree to.
The pilots are unionized under the pilots union, not the IBT. Since FedEx is legally an airline and we are airline pilots, we can join that union also.....no?
Sorry, the ALPA doesn't represent non-pilots. Again, get a majority of Couriers to sign union cards, get a certification election with a favorable result and you're unionized... The issue is that all the Couriers have to sign cards with the same union - there is only one out there who can get the job done and most Couriers have a lower opinion of the IBT than they do of Fred S. The Couriers (as a group) have essentially shot themselves in the foot before the "race" has even started.
The law doesn't state it's ok for a pilots' union but not for IBT. If Pilots are employees then shouldn't they vote with other employees for a union? Instead they're allowed to separate themselves from the rest of us and have a vote. We who don't touch a plane can't get a vote together but they whose whole job is flying the plane are allowed to unionize. Yeah, that'll protect a vital system from wildcat strikes.
Answer to first question, NO! Unionization is done by each craft within a company, NOT by all non-management employees as a group. The second statement is absolutely correct, they are separate craft (commercial airline pilots) and did indeed certify union representation for their craft.
The third statement goes to the crux of the RLA within Express. It is extremely difficult for a group of employees that are geographically separated and don't have regular communication with each other either via normal work practices or via informal networks (BC is an informal network) to get a certification drive going. This is the sole reason why Fred has spent well over $100 million in the past couple of years in lobbying and giving special travel to Members of Congress to keep his RLA classification for Express. If Express were to unionize, it would cost Express at least $500 million a year in additional compensation, and possibly as high as $1 Billion a year if there was solidarity in contract demands and a strike were to be held (pending nationwide unionization). Express could indeed reorganize its business model to pay this additional compensation and continue business operations - the issue is that they don't want to change the way they're doing business since the employees of Express have provided FedEx the capital for its expansion for the past 13 or so years.
http://my.core.com/~kevinosiowy/
Here is a link to Kevin Osiowy's old web site. He led an informational campaign in the Chicago area in '97-'98 during the Teamsters abortive drive then. It is worth taking a look at and seeing first hand what goes around, comes around. The other thing that is interesting is looking at the disparity between Express and UPS pay back 14 years ago and then compare that to the diaparity that exists now. The Couriers were pissed back then, why not now??? The thing that has changed is that Fred has secured his RLA status and institutionalized a climate of fear regarding unionization. If the RLA didn't cover Express, you can easily tell that the Chicago area Couriers would've certified union representation on a station by station basis back then. You can also see through Kevin's commentary how Express management engaged in a tactic of divide and conquer. The same play book exists in Memphis today, the difference is that the economy is in the dumper right now where as back then, the economy was doing very well and there was real fear in Memphis that there would be a successful union effort.
Jay Gould commented that he could "hire half of the working class to kill the other half". Fred S isn't out to kill anyone, but he definately learned the lesson that was being taught quite well.