Labor is being slowly killed

[FNG_that's me]

What makes you think that UPS will end up getting a good contract? ALL the other majors are in the toilet, so why should UPS be getting a raise when all the others are taking concessions?

Even though I realize that this is FB, and that you have obviously been tarded on more than one occasion, I'll answer anyway:

99% strike vote + teamsters on yourside + highly profitable company +higly profitable competition(FedEx)=bargaining power once released by the NMB...

plus what everyone else has added and will continue to add.

 

[Green]

First off the IPA is not ALPA and UPS is not Delta. We will get a profession leading contract. That profession is the pilot profession. UPS is not an airline but the flying we do is a huge portion of the UPS revenue stream.

FWIW our union president is a retired USMC general. He is not a career union politician trying to line his own pockets like some other union leaders like ALPA.

UPS pilots have been grossly underpaid through the years. I really don't think we are being greedy. We are demanding to be rewarded for what we contribute to the company. We at least demand to be treated the same way FedEx pays their pilots. There is a huge disparity between FedEx and UPSs pilot contracts. A UPS 5 year FO makes less than an active duty O-4 pilot n the USAF!!

Many of our senior pilots came over from Eastern and they are sensitive to the demise of the industry. The days of the pax carriers being the best jobs are done. Nothing is a guarantee but UPS/FedEx growth is tied to the growth in CHina and India. The world economy is changing and UPS is an integral part of it. In 1-15 years the trade imbalance with China will reverse and UPS planes will be full of goods heading to CHina. That double the revenue since our planes are empty going into China now.

Hope you guys aren't just shooting for FedEx rates. With the kind of money UPS makes you should be negotiating for UAL 2000 payrates. 340+/hour

 

[ironspud]

A UPS 5 year FO makes less than an active duty O-4 pilot n the USAF!!
quote]
Holey Moley!! You can now make O-4 in the USAF in 5 years?

 

[Clyde]

Seinfeld,, Exactly what industry is that? The cargo airline business, airlines in general or what? Secondly, what relativity is there between what the profit is and you getting your raise. Flying is such a small part of UPS, what is that relativity?

When referring to the industry, we are not even considered in the cargo airline business. Looking at the company as a whole, Brown is in the shipping business, and is a conglomerate at that.

While it is true that we carry goods and not people, we carry a product that we also market, that being a service to deliver parcels, letters, and freight, utilizing our own fleet of ground vehicles. A cargo airline would market as it's services a fleet of aircraft to meet any customers needs to transport whatever it is that they need shipped. i.e., Kitty Hawk, Polar, etc. In the case of UPS and even FedEx for that matter, freight is hauled but it is not the primary mission of either company. It is the letters and the packages that are shipped by everyone from grandma in smallville, USA, to the large mill in China shipping sweaters all over the world.

To address your question of relativity, there is a very large, direct correlation between profit and pay raises. The airline is the smallest unit of the company as a whole, but it generates the greatest amount of revenue. That should say something with regards to efficiency and it's role as a profit center.

Are we greedy? Show me someone who isn't. As I have said before, you are not worth what you think you are worth, but rather you are worth what you can negotiate. I can't think of too many people who would turn down a pay raise if they were offered it. If the company can afford to increase our pay without undue financial hardship, I would like a big bump in pay.

While other airlines are asking for large concessions because they are in the red, it should also work the other way when a company's financials are solid in the black. We are part of the team that is generating this massive amount of revenue, and we just want a bigger slice of the pie.

 

[Clyde]

This is the same line of thinking that got all the legacies in trouble. Just because you are making money hand over fist now does not guarantee you will at all in the future. How about taking a fair deal instead of taking too many feathers from the golden goose?

Nobody can predict the future, and noting is guaranteed. However, the line of thinking that got the legacies in trouble wasn't completely tied to pay raises.

The passenger airline industry as a whole has never been profitable. In other words, from it's conception, the PAX industry has suffered more financial loss than profit.

What sunk the legacies was a high amount of debt, expanding too quickly, not saving for a rainy day, and in some cases, a poor business model. Add to that increased competition, and the stage was set for financial losses and bankruptcies.

You asked "how about taking a fair deal instead of taking too many feathers from the golden goose?" Without getting into too much detail about our union business, I will say that what we are asking for is a fair deal, and at the same time is not even close to taking off even one feather. That is the magnitude of the amount of profit and revenue that is experienced here. Even a 100% bump in our salaries would be like a spit in the ocean around here.

Here is something to think about: with all of the concessions being asked for by the legacies, many fo's were still making more than I was AFTER their concessions for comparable years of service and equipment. A 40% pay raise for me still puts me far below what a lot of my counterparts at the legacies were making before they took concessions.

 

[pilotyip]

Clyde, would the unions have allowed the airlines to build up a rainy day fund? Can you imagine, ABC airlines that has never had an unprofitable year, it has 2.7B cash in the bank and no debt. Do you think the union would say, "We are perfectly happy with a 1.9% COLA adjustment to our present pay rates"? Happy New Year to all

 

[onthebeach]

>>If you voted for de-regulation of the industry, you deserve to be scabbed.<<

I was there and I can tell you that "we" didn't get a chance to vote on it. It was done even though many of "us" said it was a bad idea. Now, 27 years into the process and with the end...complete ruination of this Country's airline system...clearly in sight, all I can say is, how right "we" were.

 

[pilotyip]

except for the neary 10 fold increase in pilots jobs that came with de-reg

 

[L'il J.Seinfeld]

A UPS 5 year FO makes less than an active duty O-4 pilot n the USAF!!
quote]
Holey Moley!! You can now make O-4 in the USAF in 5 years?

Not hardly. And you can't get hired at UPS without any flight experience either. My point is that a 5 year FO is roughly equivalent in experience to a O-4 in the USAF.

 

[Helos2Galaxy]

Because the company is making money

 

[boomlrd]

Not hardly. And you can't get hired at UPS without any flight experience either. My point is that a 5 year FO is roughly equivalent in experience to a O-4 in the USAF.

Ok, I took you serious until you said that. There is a slight difference in the backgrounds of a typical 0-4 and a 5 year F/O, even at the ALMIGHTY UPS!

 

[Publishers]

How can you be grossly underpaid when if you stopped flying tomorrow at 8pm, the sub contractors that used to fly the product would do it again for less. Secondly, even the comparison to FEDEX is marginally appropriate. They, until Flying Tigers, had a totally different business model. Thirdly, as I was trying to point out you do not make some massive contribution to the company. UPS makes a tremendous amount of money, although the real test is profit related to sales or assets, from that brown truck not those big aircraft.

 

[Purpledog]

How can you be grossly underpaid when if you stopped flying tomorrow at 8pm, the sub contractors that used to fly the product would do it again for less. Secondly, even the comparison to FEDEX is marginally appropriate. They, until Flying Tigers, had a totally different business model. Thirdly, as I was trying to point out you do not make some massive contribution to the company. UPS makes a tremendous amount of money, although the real test is profit related to sales or assets, from that brown truck not those big aircraft.

It's a sad state of affairs when pilots are trying to justify why we should be paid less. We are our own worst enemies, who needs management.

 

[Clyde]

Clyde, would the unions have allowed the airlines to build up a rainy day fund? Can you imagine, ABC airlines that has never had an unprofitable year, it has 2.7B cash in the bank and no debt. Do you think the union would say, "We are perfectly happy with a 1.9% COLA adjustment to our present pay rates"? Happy New Year to all

It is not up to the unions to run the airline, that is management's job. It seems that airline management is the poster-child for incompetency AND how not to run an airline.

You asked about a rainy-day fund with regards to union input. I'll answer it by stating it like this: instead of borrowing to expand in a cyclical business, airline management should have been more conservative in how they handled their cash flow.

It would have been better to be a little smaller with more money in the bank than to leverage to keep up with the Jones'.

Before you bring up pilot salaries, realize that it takes TWO parties to agree to a contract. ALPA didn't force any legacies to pay them what they wanted, airline management agreed and signed on the dotted line.

 

[Clyde]

Ok, I took you serious until you said that. There is a slight difference in the backgrounds of a typical 0-4 and a 5 year F/O, even at the ALMIGHTY UPS!

And what if many 5 year F/O's were 0-4's at one time in their past?

 

[pilotyip]

No Clyde I have to again disagree, the threat of a union shutdown via a strike puts fear in the hearts of management. The loss of cash flow to highly leveraged airlines could be fatal. The recovery time from even a short strike is months. Look at NWA in 1998; shut down like10 days it was over a year before they returned to the same level of seats filled. Secondly the highly leveraged came about as a result of de-reg. In stead of buying airplane as equity through stock sale or profits, financing became the name of the game in order to grow and preserve market share against rapidly growing competitors. Before de-reg. Mutual Aid gave the shut down airline a source of revenue that allowed them to have the strike go on longer. It balanced the power of the union to shutdown the airline.

 

[hoover]

I think it is a mistake to tie pay with profits. A pilot is worth "X", and that doesn't change just because the company is making or losing money.

So for those of you who say "I deserve a raise because the company made money", I ask: Will the company deserve concessions if they are losing money?"

 

[Purpledog]

So for those of you who say "I deserve a raise because the company made money", I ask: Will the company deserve concessions if they are losing money?"

I don't know where you've been but that's exactly what they are doing. What's good for the goose is certainly good for the gander. The major airline pilot today is making far less than one did 20 years ago due to inflation and cola adjusted for todays buying power.

 

[hoover]

I think you missed my point. My point is, the company comes to the pilots for concessions because in the past, they have demonstrated a willingness to give them, based on the financial strength of the company. Naturally when times are good, the pilots do the same as well. What I'm saying is that if you want to hold the line on pay, then you should adopt the attitude of "My skills are worth this much money. I will not work for less than that."

It's management's job to figure out how to make money, not labor's.

 

[pilotyip]

and Hoover when management can not make money and you are making $175K per year and they ask you to work for $125K per year, are you going to draw the line? About how many jobs are you going to find that pay $125K/yr to start and have 10-15 days off per month? Is it not better to preserve a greater portion of your pay than force the company out of business. Only asking the question.