Originally Posted by
Nightflyer
Just remember that not all of us have a military retirement.
Don't accept a lessor FedEx retirement plan because some of us (not me, by the way) already have a military retirement and Tri-Care.
Agree. What we do with our FedEx retirement has absolutely nothing to do with military retirement.
That said, consider this. A military retirement (I am talking about the pension not the Thrift Savings Plan) is looked at as a good thing to have. Why? Because (1) it starts paying as soon as the service member retires regardless of age, (2) is adjusted every year for inflation (COLA), and (3) is backed by the US Government...in other words it is secure.
Now, let's compare that to our current A Plan:
(1) Assuming guys are going to work until at least age 60, it also starts paying out as soon as the pilot retires.
(2) It is not adjusted every year for inflation which, no doubt, is a problem that I hope we can fix. However, a $130k retirement is still much better than a military retirement. An O-5 or O-6 with 25 years of service gets about half of that.
(3) Our A Plan is backed by FedEx. Could the company go bankrupt...sure, but I feel pretty secure knowing that FedEx is responsible for funding my pension.
My purpose here was not to compare a FedEx A Plan benefit with a military pension. My purpose was to simply remind us that a $130k guaranteed pension benefit still has tremendous value. Could the plan be better...sure. Could it be improved...I hope so.
But we better think twice before we voluntarily freeze one of the best (if not the best) benefits we have.