Originally Posted by
Albief15
Here's what I haven't heard anyone discuss. If the world economy fell into an abyss, and thus the variable benefit plan was pressured--what do you think would happen to our current A plan if we did nothing? Would 3-5 down years simply be ignored by the bean counters, or would they then seek to reduce or terminate the plan due to financial duress? Everyone points to the fact the new plan has some risk. The reality is our current plan does as well. With our stock almost tripling since 2008, its all rainbows and unicorns right now. But if the Great Recession hadn't ebbed, and it FedEx had furloughed, what do you think would have happened if the company had told a judge "we can save some jobs if we can just freeze/reduce/eliminate this pesky A plan burden?..."
Unless your "abyss" scenario involves a bankruptcy filing by FedEx, I don't think they have the option to "reduce or terminate" the A-plan. It took a huge financial crisis for the major legacy carriers to be able to do that. "3-5 down years" doesn't give an otherwise healthy corporation the option to just terminate the pension of a unionized labor group working under a CBA. If that was the case, every airline that had an A-plan would have dumped it years before the lost decade since we all know none of them have been immune to "3-5 down years" over their history.
If we get to the point that FedEx is filing for bankruptcy and terminating the A-plan, what makes anyone think this variable plan is going to be any safer? If both are protected by the PBGC, isn't the end result going to be the same?..... the same fractional portion of our expected benefit is covered and paid while the rest is lost (as happened with every retiree at airlines with terminated pensions)