Originally Posted by kwri10s

I'm sure this Blitzstein guy is a very smart guy. Way smarter than I am.

But....when we asked an expert (Blitzstein) for his analysis of our plan and his determination was that we would be better served by using the Variable plan that he has developed; I'm not sure that's a truly independent decision. When he teaches and publishes a "new solution" to DB plans, we should have assumed he was going to decide that our plan would best be served by adopting "his" type of plan. Maybe more than one "advisor" would give the MEC some additional avenues to pursue. Where are Fidelity and Vanguard in this process? They have huge teams of advisors that can project and actualize. I'm sure they would love to jump into this process with the hopes that they get full pie or keep the pieces of the pie that they have.

I have a big problem when one of the core reasons the MEC is declaring we must at least look at other options is because "we cannot get an improvement to our current plan." WTF. We didn't even try.

We were told repeatedly in the roadshows that we were finally shown the FDX "books" and we now understood why FDX could not afford any improvement, so we did not push harder. Then after we ratified, we are told that the MEC has NOW gotten some real good analysis of our pension plans and we need to look at other options. In the current videos they even expand on how much better they understand our pension plan now compared to before we ratified. So what the negotiation committee keeps saying is that they didn't understand the pension position while we were negotiating. But now that they "really" understand the pension, we must do something different in order to improve. They believe so deeply that we cannot improve our current plan, the MEC is making it a core position that there is no way to improve what we have. That's a big faulty logic position.

Just because what we have is not what the company would prefer, does not mean we have to give it up or change it to something else. WE can always negotiate for improvements to the Cap or cash over, etc. Giving up without really trying is what we did with the latest contract.

I don't mind the look around method. Maybe we'll find a better mousetrap. But the MEC cannot go into any deliberation with the expressed mindset that we can never improve what we have. What did the negotiation team expect the company to tell them? "We can afford more, but we really don't want to." No, of course the company said there is no way to improve the A plan. It's up to us to make them improve it.