My Take...(not worth much)
This is a long term 'marketing' tactic. We as a group were hard lined with NO changes to our retirement other than a bump, and we could not get much of that. The company wants to get out of a DC plan like the other 97% of fortune 500 companies in the last 20 years.
I feel that the purpose of this exercise is a joint venture to 'educate' us in preparation for something other than what we have in the next contract. You can not road show and sell us on this it has to be a multi year, well executed, education campaign to show us the win/win with something 'other'. Only then can we go into negotiations with selling this to the crew force as a victory and just what we wanted.
My financial advisor has helped with a few of these cases over the years and this is part of the process. Getting out of a Pension is an expensive and one time controlled cost...the company wants to limit the cost.
I doubt we will see a single section re-opened this is for the next round, need to start educating all the new hires on all the money they will walk away with by giving up the Pension. All you need is 51% to kill it and that is where the votes will be when it comes time to approve the next 'game changing - industry leading' contract.
Or...as we saw with the approaching age 65 rule, how many of these guys can we keep hanging around in hopes of something more. Most are retiring close to the max but with the staffing crisis that the industry is in, everyone that sticks around helps.
This is all speculation...call me skeptical.
Last edited by BigWatchPilot; 07-31-2016 at 10:55 AM.