Nightflyer

If the company agrees to anything outside of Section 6, you can bet it will be to their net advantage, and not ours.

The union says they are moving to the "education" stage. That sounds like brain washing to me.

How's that "lie flat seat" grievance coming along?

Where's the remaining 5%?

Fdxlag2

Beats me if it is true, but it is intuitive that an A Plan and health care are some factor more expensive to fund than other forms of direct or indirect compensation as both are heavily regulated, in part, to subsidize weaker plans.

HIFLYR

During negotiations I talked to several of the no super B Fund, cash over cap with tax help from company reps and their two main reasons for not being in favor of it were:

1. Creates a B Scale that would divide us now and in future negotiations. I see that even though most of the 15 yrs or less people on the property I fly with seem to prefer this option. It would create competing retirement enhancements in future contracts.

2. Here is the funny one. They did not want all our eggs in one basket dependent on the stock market. They touted the safety of having the A Fund which was not and now more secure since the reforms making it harder for a company to shed it.

Now that is apparently the direction they are considering for us. The only way the company will do this is if it saves them money. Always remember if it saves the company money it will cost us money or security.

kronan

Wow Tony,
Pension doesn't change unless we negotiate a change. Thanks for pointing that out.

It also doesn't change to this hypothetical VAPP unless a majority of pilots want a change.

No negotiations until I get my 5%...pardon my French but WTF?
Recently Management in our industry has been improving compensation outside of S6 negotiations (well, the pax side). Can't quite see FedEx mgt being smart enough to do so, but if they came to us and said we want to up the pay rates to share the wealth would we kick them back to the curb until various grievances are settled?

And management lurkers, might be beneficial to consider the impact on pilot recruitment. Airline X is increasing the total pay while FedEx has taken the position that activating a JR FO into the higher paying seat a SR FO has been awarded doesn't merit passover pay because the training footprint is different...language that is absent in our CBA. An even bigger insult because unti relatively recently, all of the JR FO training was conducted in the NB sims until they want off at the end of tng to conduct the brief WB topoff which is all the training the SR FO needed. And arguably, much easier for the SR FO to complete consolidation.

Big B plans, even cash over cap, do not return the same cash flow our current combination does at retirement. Even if our A plan cap never changes, a newhire today is still better off with our mix. The only way an individual is better off is if you die quickly after retirement, and it wouldn't be all that difficult (or expensive) to insure against that risk with a level term Insurance policy purchased a decade or so prior to retirement. The longer you live, the better off you are with our A plan/B plan mix

kronan

SIG,
almost forgot the SIG.

At a certain level, SIG and Mgt work together. And many of the issues are resolved amicably. Even when they cost FDX $$. (good example of that in the 75 pairings, company had some weeklong pairings that included a 3 leg AM sequence scheduled to arrive in ATL about 9 am. Sucked, sucked huge even when it ran as scheduled. SIG and Mgt broke them up and DH folks to/from to minimize the pain)
That working together mindset was a handicap recently.

There are many things I like about RF's management style, and it's been my experience that DO's are much more inclined to actually act as The Voice of Sanity and Safety versus the its legal mindset I encountered a few times years ago...but, then there's still the outstanding grievances with $$ associated.

Intentions are nice, but all Fortune 500 awards aside, IMO management has proven they Aren't trustworthy. That their promises are written in sand

Rum Runner

Additionally, the fact we already have a "hybrid" retirement program (i.e. both defined benefit & defined contribution components), I'm unsure its necessary, or wise, to convert our defined benefit to a variable defined benefit.

I think we could address the same issues by increasing our B fund contribution percentages & limits, without opening our defined benefit portion to downside risk

Keep the A fund, but get the B fund bumped to 12-13%[/QUOTE]

^^^^^^^^^^^ This!

Nightflyer

Rum Runner is correct, and be sure to get cash over cap this time.

TonyC

It's not my intent to insult anyone, but I'm only trying to refute the currently popular message that the A plan CANNOT be improved, the FAE cap CANNOT be raised, The Company CANNOT afford to improve the A Plan. If those statements are accepted as fact, we deprive ourselves of possible avenues of improvement, and we are forced to look elsewhere for improvements.

None of the messages or versions of the messages are true. They are FALSE narratives, and when we understand that improvements CAN be achieved with the A Plan, albeit through negotiations where BOTH parties participate in good faith, we can achieve improvements for everyone, young, old, senior, junior, with the balance of Defined Benefit and Defined Contribution plans that BOTH improve over time.

To date, the obstacle has been that The Company won't negotiate.

Well, then there's the more recent obstacle, this defeatest attitude that has infiltrated our ranks.


Agreed.



Minor point, but I believe you're talking about the PSIT, not the SIG.

For those unfamiliar ...

The SIG (Scheduling Improvement Group) is a 4-member group consisting of 2 Management members and 2 Association members. One of the Management members must be a seniority number holding member of management, and the Association members are the MEC Scheduling Committee Chairman and Vice-Chairman, or other line pilots designated by The Association. The other Company member doesn't have to be a pilot, and the SIG Chairman is one of the two Company Representatives.

The PSIT (Pilot Scheduling Improvement Team) is composed of line pilots selected by The Association and approved by The Company. They do the bulk of the monthly work, including scrubbing pairings and building lines with the pairings that are built by The Company.

They also write the bulk of the SIG notes, but they are not exactly free to write everything they might want to write. The SIG notes must be approved by the SIG, which, as noted above, is chaired by management. SIG notes must be approved by The Company.


Promises written in sand ...

Isn't it ironic that we bowed to their "line in the sand?"






.

golfandfly

I agree with Tony. Why is it impossible to improve our A plan? Because the company doesn't want to? Next time they should draw their line in the sand on a lot more things. It seems to work well for them.

I don't accept it. UPS somehow managed an A fund bump? I'm sure they didn't want to improve it either.

Leverage. We have it. We all know what it is. It's eliminating the A fund for new hires. That'll get their attention. Do we want to go this route? I can't tell you the answer, but I agreed,at the time, with the MEC not to split up retirement plans. Of course, this was also predicated on a bump in our A fund. It was a cornerstone item as I recall. Now, with a possibility that the A fund could be capped at $130k, did we do them a favor? What will $130k (less survivor benefits) be in 30-35 years? What's the chance of bankruptcy or higher than expected inflation in 30 years? Fedex is strong now, but so were a lot of other companies 30 years ago. To be fair, a market based B fund could also be hit hard by a falling market.

For the guy that said people that have been here for less than 15 years would probably want a higher B fund in lieu of their A fund is out to lunch. Maybe 5 years or less.

I'd consider allowing the company to discontinue the A fund for new hires, but they would have to offer them a competitive cash over cap B fund. They'd also have to improve retirement for EVERY pilot on the seniority list.

BoilerUP

I'm not at FedEx and wouldn't tell you how to play in your sandbox.

However, seems to me there is a risk - a YUGE risk - to terminating the defined benefit plan for newhires in an effort to create a better defined benefit for people already on property.

Doing so creates not only a "B-scale" at a highly profitable corporation, but opens a fracture point in pilot group unity pitting junior against senior. Sure, that may not exert itself during a TA vote or even the next CBA, but somewhere down the road when those "B-scale retirement" pilots become 50%+1 of the group, what will they be willing to sacrifice at your expense in order to benefit them?