PUB call 17 jun 21
 

There is a PUB call scheduled for the 17th. The topic is a negotiation update.

I wonder if PSPP will be defined this time? Also, will the MEC be told by then its their Defined Benefit improvement focus?

Bye to the Defined Benefits plan
 

Say goodbye to your A plan because our MEC is already working with the company to give it up. Read the new contract when it is sent it out. We are going to lose our A plan

Good......About time.

Amen! We’ve become such an echo chamber on this front. Our A-plan is a dinosaur that is going to cost our younger pilots serious dollars if not seriously reformed.

if we can improve the $260k limit and get automatic steps for inflation it’s fine. Treat the A-plan as you bond/fixed income portion of your retirement and invest the B-plan. Save a little more on the side and you’re fine.

You might not get to live paycheck to paycheck on your $350k salary and still retire with a +50% income replacement like you can now, but you can live comfortably and retire with 75% replacement. We should Accept a little personal responsibility, there’s not enough of that going around.

a major overhaul that re-invents the wheel is unnecessary.

A plan is going nowhere unless the membership votes it away. Plenty of info out there way getting rid of it is foolish. If you believe that we don't have leverage to get what we want, they you are misguided. And we aren't hurting the junior pilots by keeping the A plan, we all get it. The company has a legal obligation to pay us a A plan and that plan should be at the IRS limits. They can afford it. How much money has the company made in the past year and still making?

I am junior and will NOT be voting our A plan away.

Same here. I’m junior and under 40.
I want the A-plan. We would be foolish to get rid of it.

No PBS either.

Hear! Hear!

I haven’t even been born yet and I want my A plan! But in all seriousness, flood you reps with emails letting them know that you will not accept anything that takes away our A plan. If we then find that the NC has opened with a plan that doesn’t include it, time to fire them! We can’t let this be open for discussion in front of the company. Period!

Totally agree. Rock solid pensions at critical infrastructure companies screw young employees unless the plans are totally redesigned every few years into something financially-unrecognizable (also known as non-pensions). We must protect our younger colleagues from the financial ruin inflicted by solvent and healthy A plans. Hopefully the company will heed our cry for help and destroy this dinosaur before it starts paying us for the rest of our lives no matter how much we worked. God help us all. DR K

I’m sure the great pension minds of this forum will show up to “educate” everyone on what type of “pension” is best. I won’t be attending because I trust the true experts on this subject. The last PUB call was an attempted hijack by a few known quantities. It was funny to hear these individuals stutter and scamper when called to the mat for the false facts they attempted to present.

Now back to arguing over the definition of a pension based on our own definition we each individually make up.

I wonder if the MEC plans on answering any questions this time around? I hope they watched the tapes from the last one and realized how foolish they looked dodging questions from their own association members. Shameful really.

I was on the call and me and numerous others sitting together in the AOC didn't see it that way at all. What we saw was a select few “pension expert pilots” trying to highjack the call and make leading statements and frame them as questions. Then when said pilot was asked to define the “IRS Limits” he spoke of it was a stutter fest. Another person tried to redefine the term pension and was swiftly corrected. Much like the argument played out on this forum.

Lets all just make up our own facts and definitions….Then lets post then to an internet forum and argue about them. Or we can use the definitions laid out by the regulators. What a thought!

Here are the questions I asked:

How do you expect to get membership buy-in if you refuse to tell us what you are negotiating. No I am not asking for the table position, I am asking for the concepts being considered. Since you are leaving the membership, IE the ALPA foundation, in the dark, how can you envision any success moving forward? Do you plan to just surprise us with the TA and hope we like it? HOW did that work in ’15? And how will it be different this time?

Has the MEC reps been given retirement options to compare and contrast prior to voting on the openers document and did the MEC select the path forward in regards to retirement. If not how could they have voted for the openers not knowing what they allowing the NC to bargain for on our behalf. And were they given a cost benefit analysis on each choice?


Does PSPP, a variable benefit plan, have the same three to one funding protection requirement our current Defined Benefit has? And if not, where does that burden lie, and what is the value of that burden?


Why were there reps saying the Defined Benefit retirement fund is under funded during the last council 7 online briefing? Is it under funded and is/are the ramifications?

Asked for a friend.


When will the MEC know what our retirement proposal is, and who decides, MEC or NC?


Why are comments turned off? Who made that decision?

Only one of those questions were read and answered. I guess they are picking and choosing which questions they want to answer rather than allowing the members ask unfiltered questions. So much for transparency :rolleyes:!

Maybe they will circle back.

or maybe not.

First off, I was glad to see the membership participation, listening in to the officers. After they turned on the participant list I could see just over 100 pilots on the first call, I saw a high of 87 on the second call.

It was interesting to hear the NC chairman walk back his earlier comments about who decides the negotiating goals, the path to those goals, and when the MEC would know what the NC was going to bargain.

Sadly, it is very hard to watch our union officers in transmit only mode by not allowing us to ask our questions directly, allowing for no follow up, and turning off comments. The last time that happened, we got contract '15, and a lot of our dues were spent.

I hope it is not "here we go again". But without the membership involvement, do they have any boundaries?

Final thought, I am tired of hearing about the wonderful surveys and how they are following the results. But ask yourself, did they ever ask us HOW WE would like retirement improved? NOPE. They do not want that question answered or they would not be able to go after PSPP.

Ok, and when is the new secondary line generator coming? You know the one from contract '15. Union leadership seems to have forgotten that as well, but then again, how many of them use the secondary system anyway?


Its time to decide, do you want to be a crewbus commando, or do you want to ensure favorable results by giving 1% of your time to your contract?

You're a FOOL if you vote away an A plan instead of voting to improve it.

Guess you never met an Eastern pilot. Or Pan Am. Or United.....

Please educate me. Since when was it ever proposed to "vote away" our A plan? I must have missed that email or communication from the union. What I have seen discussed is different A plan formulas, but it is still an A plan (pension).

From the Opener: "Increase total Defined Benefit value for all pilots"

Enough
 

What did you accomplish during your time as a rep?

Is this sour grapes because the MEC clearly didn't want you (twice) for MEC Chairman?

How do you preach unity, when all of your efforts are slinging mud at a body that appears to be functioning fairly well? You reference Crewbus commando....aren't you an APC commando?

It's getting old. You are management's wet dream.

looks like I now need to block nowork’s new account

How do they notify us of crew calls? This is the first that I've heard of one and would've liked to have listened in....

Another Union in negotiations recently had a meeting with an Actuary whose job was to determine what our total retirement was worth as part of a comparison for an arbitrator. The number that they came up with was 41% of our total income is retirement. UPS is 44%. Currently. So I'm not sure what it'd take to vote away an A plan but even something like 30% cash over cap would not be in the ball park.

Go to ALPA website, sign up for email notification, specifically MEC updates & Positive Rate emails.

There’s this thing called email. ;) But ALPA would need to know yours for it to work.

if this new Aplan gives ANY control of funds to ALPO...i am out.

The PUB call announcement is sent via textcaster and email

for emails

go to

fdx.alpa.org

sign in

scroll down to administrative section of icons

select email and contact update

enter your information. (note it will send you to alpa.org and then go to the red "my ALPA" section, upper right of the page)

For textcaster

go to

fdx.alpa.org

scroll down to pilot services

select "texcaster"

Fill in your information

Hope this helps

Not sour grapes, I made a commitment to the pilots. I stand by my oath to them and I am involved.

As for the chair, I may not have been the right guy, but the current MEC chairman is the wrong guy. Sadly, we will all pay that price, but at least I stood to be counted. How about you?

I talk about membership involvement. You can't have unity if the pilots don't get involved. How many union meetings have you attended?

I talk to pilots all the time. The level of predetermined doom and apathy is what I am trying to correct. I simply ask for 1% of their time. Go to one meeting a year. Call your rep once a quarter. Write one email a quarter. Is that too much to ask to ensure an industry leading contract that treats us professionally and compensates us fairly?

If so, good luck. If not, take a stand and give 1%.


Lastly, unity is not do what we say of your a troublemaker. It is getting involved and having the complete discussion. How about this PUB call, no comments allowed, no asking our questions without their filter, no follow up.

So which side of that are you on?

Get your ears on
 

EVERYONE should be asking their fellow crew members if they are engaged and paying attention to what’s going on. The Negotiating Committee and the Company are negotiating right now!!! Most people I’ve talked to didn’t know this.

NOW IS THE TIME

YOUR FUTURE PAY, BENEFITS and QUALITY OF LIFE ARE UP FOR GRABS RIGHT NOW

RUMORS will start being passed around —- blow them off and listen to the official communication. Bad actors and passionate voices on both sides of the fence will say and do things that will divide us — intentionally and unknowingly.

TRUST the MEC and the NC. Wait and see what’s been negotiated before voicing judgement. If they deliver a winning TA we’ll pass it. If they come up short of our expectations we’ll vote it down. We remain in control no matter what happens. Now is not the time to go NORDO and fly blind.

I originally said that the train had left the station, and ALPA really really wants this because any huge pot of money can eventually find a small trickle of management fees (0.5% of a billion $ is nothing to sneeze at). See other union pension plans. I propose the following:

You as a pilot commit to a binding contract for the rest of your term of employment for one of the two choices:
1. The vegan (non dinosaur) pancake plan as proposed in the modeler.
2. The defined benefit as currently defined with the caveat that it is plus upped to meet or exceed choice 1.

The company gave the mechanics way back when the option of staying with their current plan or opting for the new and improved plan. So, the company ran two different plans at the same time for the mechanics. By having all our independent contractors commit to a particular "pension" plan, they can put their future money where their current mouth is. Then we will see if we have the behavior of the US Women's Soccer team.

My favorite part of the Pub call was when PM stated that the "experts" they keep referring to with respect to the financial decisions about our retirement are FDX ALPA pilot chairmen, FDX ALPA full time employees, ALPA national pilot experts, ALPA national full-time employees and an outside company Chiron. So pretty much what everyone has been saying. No actual financial services experts have been consulted at all. We have pilots making a massive financial decisions for all of us. I've heard very few pilot financial planning plans that seem to work out well. I know I've learned my lesson and quit trying to beat the stock market with my own "expert" advise.