SonicFlyer

Don't tie it to the bogus CPI

Excargodog

As I said, I’m all for tax free money. And I’ve never been one of those who said “per diem isn’t pay” because that’s BS, MONEY IS FUNGIBLE. And as I said, the higher your tax bracket goes the better tax free money is. I’d even go so far as to say we ought to be negotiating for max tax free allowable per diem in PREFERENCE to taxable pay. And I really do hope this is the camel’s nose under the tent, soon to be followed by the rest of the camel. I was merely pointing out the math. A great concept, but the delta (no pun intended) with even a high year of inflation wouldn’t cover my annual Starbucks bill.



People on Social Security get an offset for inflation. Military retirees get an offset, US civil service workers get an offset,and these are ANNUAL.
Signing a multi year contract with the sort of “transitory” inflation we are having now is a long term loss of buying power, especially when you know going in that management will drag out the new contract as long as possible which under the RLA can be long indeed.

And I really don’t want to rain on anyone’s parade because it may indeed be the camel’s nose under the tent, but it’s still AT THIS TIME a very modest monetary improvement and nobody shoukd let management pretend it is more than that or use it as an excuse to deny more costly contract improvements.

One could even argue that all COLA adjustments really do is let you break even - since Starbucks just raised my Latte prices…

Excargodog

What bogus index do you WANT it tied to? It is at least tax free money, so the CPI might come close. A typical dollar increase in straight pay is going to go 6.2% to social security, 10% to California Franchise Tax, and then 35% to the IRS, after which you actually get about two quarters for you. You got an index that compensates for that? And bracket creep as your investments outside of retirement accounts grow?

asacimesp

Most comparisons to CPI are done with the “core CPI” which excludes highly variable things like food, fuel, and energy costs. Those are the very things that are really hurting the American consumer.

gloopy

I agree with your post. I'm not saying we don't need a pay table CPI (C.P.Lie) or better evergreen clause. That would be awesome. But that's never happened before and I bet the lifting required to go first is heavy. And that's even assuming the NMB would declare it "in the zone" in the first place (a 3 year deal with an infinity year pay table bump). I'd love it, but UAL just got an AIP and if that's not in there either it makes it even harder for us to not only lead but to dominate the entire industry for the first time ever with this.

SonicFlyer

They have reformulated the CPI multiple times to hide the true inflation. Below are charts of current inflation levels using the older formulas.


SOURCE:
Alternate Inflation Charts

PilotWombat

https://www.gsa.gov/travel/plan-book/per-diem-rates

https://aoprals.state.gov/web920/per_diem.asp

StartngOvr

What happens to our per diem of COLA or CPI or inflation or whatever the metric it’s tied to drops? Company obviously will want to reduce per diem rates, correct?

Excargodog

You mean DEflation?

I’ll risk it.

Planetrain

You mean for each dollar I have it buys MORE? I’ll take that risk. Then WE can drag contract negotiations out for a few years for once. Sure per diem may go down, but our wage rates (which have a much bigger impact) stay the same.