Originally Posted by
scambo1
I think this discussion above highlights one of the most significant (potential) whipsaw tools available to management - retirement funding. I caution everyone to be aware that there is a difference between the two groups in this regard and try to see what happened, but resolve in your own mind to be a bigger person despite the differences. This is an area I see as a potential barrier to unity going forward and WE must consciously guard ourselves from being drawn into the destructive fray it can cause.
I agree. It's a built-in whipsaw tool, and it may be strictly a passive exercise to management, when we negotiate, to throw in the occasional "but we're already spending X million a year on the NW retirement...". If we're stupid enough, we'll let that stop us.
Nothing works quite as well as worrying about what your fellow pilot gets, in terms of making sure none of us get anything good. Which is why the only solution is to suck it up, accept the fact the NW guys have a frozen DB plan, just like there are still "Western-only" and (I think) "Pan-Am only" provisions in our contract.
Otherwise, then you have to do a lot of slicing-and-dicing, to try to make it "fair". Check Essential made a good point about what deadzoners will want:
It needn't be destructive, but believe me, there are quite a few Delta dead zone guys who are acutely aware of this retirement discrepancy. The NWA pilots are extracting nearly a billion dollars (maybe more) over the life of this JCBA that is not available to any Delta pilots.
Similarly situated pilots at the two airlines are going to have vastly different retirements due to NWA retaining the defined benefit.
It might become a goal in 2012 to reduce that disparity via increased DC funding for those who took the biggest loss and who are in a certain age bracket. In other words - bring back the matrix.
The matrix isn't an innocent tool. It's a way to take common money, and steer it one way or another. This can be done along age lines, or expectations, or LOS, or any number of ways. Each of those ways is far more destructive than another.
When you ask for the matrix, you're not just trying to address a disparity you perceive between N/S, but between you and me, and every subgroup. You're creating a landscape for division.
What happened to you sucks. No doubt about it. But it
happened already. And the union tried to compensate with the Note money. The attempt at clean-up has been made. Now, we have two choices: suck it up, and accept our fate, or make more attempts, each uglier than the other, and each, as Scambo said, with a clear potential to cost us, and cost us dearly.
My focus is on our future, not the past. Everyone has a significant issue in their past. Mine has to do with losing 100% of my income for three years, and everyone else negotiating away botht the NFC, and the recall schedule. But I've taken my lumps, and accepted them as a part of my past. Luckily, the "redeeming" aspect of losing your retirement is that it was done because of a run on the bank. The pilots that took their lump sum are no longer in your way.The exodus allowed you to move up, and me to be recalled. Never have we had such young ER captains. When you factor in that adavancement, and the Note, and the DC contributions, with potentially better payrates, better workrules for ALL, then we ALL have a shot at a better future.