TonyC

That might make a lot of people happy for one CBA Negotiation cycle. During the next Negotiation Cycle, The Company can offer to sweeten Plan A by X%, or Plan B by (Y)%, but not both. Then we have Plan A pilots fighting against B pilots.

You need to add "B" scale to your Signature Line "Never forget" list.






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pinseeker

Where are these billions of dollars of liability reductions and millions of dollars in administrative savings?

People throw that out but never back it up. If there are billions of dollars in liability, that is the risk that we are assuming with a VB plan.

And no to any plan which pits one pilot against another in future negotiations. That sounds like a "I want mine now and screw the rest of you" attitude.

pinseeker

How can you say this and still have your tag line? LMFAO at the sarcasm.

CloudSailor

Your “what if” is a nice consideration, but Negotiating Chair told me clearly this involves freezing the A Plan for everyone.

Great for the 25+ guys, some of whom of course are behind the push for the VB Plan.

Get ready for the sales pitch.

kronan

A VB plan is Still a pension plan. IRS uses the terms Cash Balance.

Our B plan is a Defined Contribution plan. eg. 8% into an account with Your name on it.

A Cash Balance plan is a notional percentage of your income into the big community pot of pension money to accrue to a predictable level of benefits upon retirement

Flaps50

Right now the company is trying to figure out how to screw us like never before if we go down this path! Unbelievable to me that we would voluntarily freeze our A plan as FedEx pilots when our plan is completely solvent and tied to all the other management & other employees DB pension at this company. There's safety in numbers folks, so we're going to get out of the pool that the other 3 to 400,000 employees are in and be alone in a little pond going from a three tier retirement plan to basically a one tier plan that in rough times the company can zero in on... YGTBSM! I am losing faith in my union leadership fast!

We have yet to hear any other side to this (DC/DB) VB retirement plan other than we should do it... Really? Where are the objective viewpoints we were promised from the beginning? We already have a DC/DB pension system that is healthy... We've started a train down a road that in completely unknown to most of us as a crew force being told to trust us...??? I did that during the 2015 contact that is unfolding into a disaster IMO!

Tell your reps to go peddle their wares to some grocery bagger union and leave this train at the station; revisit increasing the A plan and or making the B plan worthy of our inflationary concerns in 2020.

Red Letter

I don't ever see plan A being sweetened, since the company wants rid of it. I don't know enough about plan B to know if it could be sweetened, but what IF the language was written so that all plan B participants received all future "sweetners". New hires get the same 3 options.

I would have to put MUCH more thought in to bulletproofing this, but that is what is great about these forums. Gather everyone's ideas for fixing flaws and make it as fair and foolproof as possible. That is what our elected reps and committees should be doing, but the more ideas the better.

TonyC

You confused Plan A with A Plan and missed the point. Call it Choice A, B, C, or Option A, B, C, or Group A, B, C ... it doesn't matter. It will be a perfect setup for pitting one group against another. The economy will change, the cost will change, the market will change, the law will change, ... there will be an excuse, and The Company will "have to" offer better improvements to one group than another, and it will without a doubt cause internal strife from WITHIN a pilot group that should be united to face a force from WITHOUT.

It's the opposite of UNITY.

The scene is already set to divide us on health care insurance options. Why give them more ways to divide us?






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Shaman

Ya know what the problem is with making things "foolproof" is? They keep making better fools.

I'm fairly new and I just have to say a MAJOR factor in deciding to join this airline was the appeal of a defined benefit plan. Negotiating it away for any amount less than the full cash equivalent NPV of the A fund cashflows over the your period of projected mortality is beyond foolish.

IMHO this all boils down to shifting risk and it has been part of the corporate America's race to the bottom. In the last 25 years nearly every meager increase in worker wages has been offset by significant increases in efficiency and our most recent contract is a prime example.

I doesn't matter how anyone feels about this issue because there is a formula with a definitive answer and nothing I read, seen, or heard indicates that anyone involved is talking about number of that size.

Just my $.02 YMMV

PurpleToolBox

Why would anyone want to come to FedEx now?

1. FedEx pilots are now at the bottom of the hourly pay scale. Worse, our contract is so long, other airlines will have at least two contract negotiation periods before we even start openers for our next contract.
2. New jumpseat rules put people deadheading when they have a company paid ticket above jumpseaters commuting to and from work.
3. The union is about to kill the A-plan outside of formal negotiations which is probably our only chance or bargaining chip for the next contract.
4. Our B-fund is half of what the majors are paying.
5. If you're young, the value of the A-fund will be half of what it is or it will most likely not be available to you.
6. The union is falling apart and is not representing the members. This last contract is a perfect example of what we didn't want.

Why would anyone put up with difficult schedules for second rate pay?