I guess that was pretty spun up, once again pinseeker is correct.

Ad hominem becomes you. Make sure you look for spelling mistakes. Dont address the substance: For example (contrary to your post) I think most of the new hires for Contract 201X 1st year pay will be less than 50% of (also pathetic) 2nd year pay. Unless we change the formula.

 

Thanks for validating my point.

 

Put me in the camp that thinks the $2000/mo. until activation is a bush-league insult. Ranks right up there with the 500#/1000# FDA shipping allowance. Gotta be kidding me. Glad to see "Explore New-Hire Improvements" in our contract openers, but hope it actually gets beyond the "explore" word.

And to all the Poolies--Expect lots of retirements this Oct-Dec. (In a just-announced change, the union benefits folks are conducting group retirement briefings versus one-on-one.) Hang in there folks....Hope to see all y'all soon!

 

I wouldn't count on too many retirements. A lot of pilots that have 2 to 3 years until retirement attend these briefings to get an idea of what to expect. Remember last year when the rumor was 300 guys were going to retire when it turned out to be a lot less? The rumor was based on all these guys attending the retirement briefings.

 

One of the biggest drawbacks to any retirement decision is medical coverage. At the current time pre-65 retiree health care at FedEx will cost you around $800/month for you and the spouse. The $25K that was put in all of the over 59 1/2 year olds accounts that was intended to get you to Medicare age will not cover the health care expense if your spouse is significantly younger than you.
There is also a lot of uncertainty about the new healthcare rules, Medicare costs, Tricare copays going up (for those who have Tricare), tax ramifications of health care expenses, etc. etc. I'll just hang on to age 65 and pay my $161 per month (nontaxable) to keep what I have and see what happens with the new contract and the health care system.

 

Guys we're talking "training pay" --- not "first year pay".

First year pay has gone up over the years as the pay tables have improved with each contract.

Training pay has not.

The $2000 you got per month on training pay is NOT the same $2000 per month those who came after you received.

Until deflation actually kicks in ---- it's less.

Less and less each year.

....less and less for 20+ years.

Let's fix it for good by eliminating a fixed rate training pay all together.

Just give new hires BLG x 1st year pay rate while in training.

Right now that would be 68 hrs x $59.39 per hour = $4,038.52 per 28-day bid-month

(Assuming 1st Narrow Body FO & SO rates)

Pretty simple --- straightfoward --- and fair.

...and now you can debate the merits of increasing first year hourly pay rates in the context of other contract increases --- but, at least the mechanism which has allowed initial pay to erode significantly will have been corrected.

 

Let's say we start averaging hiring 200 pilots/year. If we increase training pay to $3000/month, we're only talking $600K increase to the current contract (assuming 3 months of initial training).

The scooby snack budget is higher than that.

 

If they actually know how to use money wisely no credit card usage should be required. Dave Ramsey Homepage - daveramsey.com

I do agree it needs to be increased at some point.

Boo

 

I have to agree that this is the best idea I've heard so far regarding new hire pay. Let's change this for the future pilots of this company (I know they'll all have an extra 5 years to work now... but... ;-)

 

BLASPHEMY!! No one in their right mind would ever leave this utopia!! I'm not buyin' it!!