Originally Posted by
dckozak
A lot of questions, most are loaded as any answer could be construed as self-serving. Our retirement as it is, is not fair to all groups and offers big dividends to some. Think about a second career pilot joining at 40, pulling down one retirement, than and there, while earning all the credits to receive the full A plan payout when retiring at 65. The only thing that pilot loses is incremental B plan/401K money which they may very well have been setting aside pre Fedex.
I'm a little fuzzy on this example, D.
I agree there are several aspects of our CBA that benefit one group more than another. VEBA comes to mind along with the age 54 dollars as well as the retirement bonus that may or may not be continued long enough for junior folks to have the same option. But crafting some kind of "fix" to our retirement to account for what someone may or may not have done before they got hired at FedEx isn't something we need to be trying to change, IMO.
The "second career" pilots you refer to are most likely military retirees (just a guess). I'd be very, very surprised if we have many other types of pilots on our seniority list "pulling down a retirement" while they work here. It would be a pretty neat trick for a typical college graduate, non-prior enlisted guy to show up with a full military retirement at age 40. I'd say that the typical age is more like 45. So, that's 20 years at Fedex, IF (big if) they work until the bitter end, which for many is unlikely. Talk to some of the the second career guys hired in the mid-2000s. They're junior, busting their ass if they want to make their high-5 and may not ever upgrade (assuming they want some semblance of QOL in their 50s).
So, I really don't think that's the best example to use if you're trying to highlight a disparity in our retirement system. Yes, there is a small minority of pilots who max out their retirement early and work beyond that. They've also been WB Captains for most of their career, have great seniority and QOL, relatively speaking.
The bottom line is, that it sounds like you're complaining that the current A-fund doesn't give credit for service past 25 years. If you want to claim our retirement is unfair because of that, then simply say that. Some guy that worked 25 years and retires gets the same size check as you who chose to work 35 years and you don't like that. Leave it at that.
Whether someone shows up a self-made multi-millionaire and just flies for fun or devoted 20+ years of their life to the military and happens to get a monthly check as a result doesn't make our retirement any more or any less fair.