The World On Time—If Not the Pilot Contract

On 12 June 2023, ALPA announced the FedEx Master Executive Council (MEC), the governing body of the union’s FedEx unit, had voted to approve a tentative contract agreement reached on 30 May with FedEx management. Next along the long and tortuous road to an equitable labor contract is a membership ratification ballot that will open 05 July and close 24 July 2023.

Founded in 1931 and representing over seventy-thousand pilots in the employs of forty U.S. and Canadian airlines, the Air Line Pilots Association, International (ALPA) is the world’s largest and most influential pilot union.

If ratified, the new agreement would provide FedEx pilots major pension improvements with alternative pension options, significant hourly pay-rate increases, an amendable period recovery payment, and other improvements to quality of life. The agreement includes a thirty-percent pay increase, a thirty-percent increase to the pilots’ legacy pension, and a fully-developed and equally valuable company-funded Market Based Cash Balance Pension—the latter serving as a durable replacement for FedEx’s legacy pension program. To date, the proposed contract occasions the industry’s largest per-capita investment in a pilot contract and substantially raises the global bar on pilot retirement.

FedEx MEC chair Captain Chris Norman stated: “After careful consideration and thorough debate, our union leaders recognized the value this agreement will bring to our pilots and their families. Now, we shift our focus to ensuring our pilots have the time and resources needed to make an informed decision.”

The FedEx MEC Negotiating Committee, for purpose of educating the company’s pilot cadre vis-à-vis the proposed contract in advance of the coming vote, will disseminate the full contract language, publish detailed information pertaining to the agreement online, and host a series of road shows slated to get underway on 20 June.

Captain Norman added: “We took a membership-driven approach to these negotiations, with polling and direct feedback throughout the process. We negotiated an industry-leading contract and achieved improvements contract-wide. We look forward to presenting the agreement to our pilots for consideration. The improvements to our retirement stand out. Not only did we accomplish major improvements to the existing pension benefit—improvements that we sought and management bitterly resisted in past negotiations—but we also crafted a new pension plan that sheds the negative funding aspects of our current plan. The new plan is completely sustainable and ensures that the costs of the plan charged to the company match the value that goes to the pilots. It’s a tremendous accomplishment.”

ALPA President Captain Jason Ambrosi, after receiving a detailed briefing germane to the tentative agreement, applauded FedEx pilots, stating: “The FedEx pilots successfully fought an intransigent management and secured this deal that, if ratified, will raise the bar on retirement for all pilots. This tentative agreement has the highest value achieved among major carriers in the last twenty-years and we’ll strive to build on this pattern in future pilot contracts.”

Contract negotiations between ALPA and FedEx management commenced in May 2021. So compelled by a paucity of progress, the parties, in November 2022, entered mediation with the U.S. National Mediation Board. The proposed contract, if ratified, will go into effect in August 2023 and become amendable in 2028.

FMI: www.alpa.org