First,
The offer we received was for 16.5%, cash over cap up to 360’sh thousand.

Second, people look at our ‘frozen’ pension and grossly underestimate its actual value to them

If you use the typical ROT of a 4% withdrawal rate, our frozen pension is the rough equivalent of $3.2M.
If ALL of your savings were tax free, and you earned 7% over 25 years, you’d need to save $47,284 for 25 straight years.

People also underestimate the impact of taxes on your return. A 20% B plan this year means your tax deferred limits could be filled completely by the B plan if you’re income is over 285. Every dollar over that has a minimum of 25% going to taxes, 36% if you’re single.
Behaviorally, are you actually saving all of that cash over cap? Or your former 401k contributions? Or are you buying a boat, a new plane, a Tesla, 911?
If you are saving it, transaction costs and taxes also take a bite. Unless you’re a true buy and hold only kind of investor.

The simple fact that we defer all taxes on our Pension, is a huge benefit.
Eventually, with no changes, the calculation will change.
But that’s still quite aways down the road, and that assumes no changes to our A plan or B plan.
One must have for me, in this next CBA, is cash over cap on our B plan.
Ideally, I’d like it to be @ 12% too.
Even thinking outside the box, if our next CBA takes 2+ years (which seems to be our historic norm), perhaps a 7% hourly increase and a change to a 12% cash over cap at DOS