Real tough to improve wages and benefits at weaker passenger carriers when pilots at a strong airline like FedEx agree to give up their A Plan and agree to hourly rates that the big ALPA carriers had in 2000, fifteen years ago. Yes, all the passenger lost their pensions or had them frozen but it was ordered by a Judge.

 

That's not what our training shop folks believe. Our current CBA didn't stop us from training large numbers before. Why do you think it would limit things now?

 

Uh, limited number of sims. Just talked to a 76 guy, 4 months to check out. The company isn't going to just create more instructors overnight either, that check out is a couple of months. And the hiring process is about a month from interview to a job offer.

 

If this TA is voted down, I will do the same thing I do every time a majority of voters decide to "help" me out. Like giving me "free" healthcare. I will reassess my finances with respect to long term goal timelines. I will adjust assets with respect to risk to compensate for either a stagnation or possibly a decline in my anticipated income. I will shift my upgrade timeline even further into the future because as our union collapses and people start to realize that there really isn't a quick or even positive solution to voting down a TA, Memphis is going to become an angry cesspool of bitter pilots on both sides of the voting ballot. And I will continue to bid schedules that allow me to enjoy my time at home.

 

My thoughts exactly.

 

Yup, things are really backlogged right now and have been for months. But we are leasing sims all over the world and finally resolving the perfect storm of stupidity that caused the backlog in the first place. It will take months to get things moving again. It will also be months before we have the pieces in place to start negotiating again. The race is on. The company keeps adding pilots. We can only reduce our personal flying to BLG. Guess who has time on their side with respect to leverage?

 

And you think we'll have more leverage in 6-10 years, I guess.

 

You are right, lets just give the MEC the right to vote Yes on our behalf on all contracts. I mean, if we have an option to vote yes or no, why would anyone vote anything other than yes?

Maybe we won't get more in a new TA, but we certainly won't get less. New pay rates have been offered, I doubt the company is going to convince a mediator or the Union that those rates wouldn't be included in the new TA. And as I have said before, this isn't about pay rates. The most junior guy on his second year is making over $120K. Our pilot group as a whole, makes more than the big 3 Pax carriers. This contract is about retirement, work rules and ambiguous language. 3 things that need to be fixed. But if we can't even ask for a better TA, then we are done as a Union. At a time when we DO have the best leverage we have ever had, and will have it after peak, we should be able to send this TA back.

And there won't be bitter pilots, well maybe a few, no matter what way this TA goes. I do know if this TA passes, I'll have pretty much figured out what the future holds. It will be a yes vote on every contract, our Union leadership will continue to sell us what they think is a good deal and I'll have no faith in the Union again. I'm not bitter, but that is how I"m going to feel.

 

You already asked me that question and I already responded to you and you partially agreed with my response. But I'll repeat it. I believe we will never have as good leverage as we had 3 months ago. Which helped us gain the current TA. In my opinion, we will NEVER have as good leverage again. That means 2 months from now or 6-10 years from now. So no, we will not have more leverage in 6-10 years. But we won't have more leverage on 21 October either. Again, I will take complete ownership of that statement. I hope I'm proved wrong. But, unfortunately, I am almost 100% certain I won't be.

 

Busboy, great question, but I believe certain assumptions would need to be made before any comparison between increasing the cap on the A-plan, or the "cash over cap" on the B-plan could be made.

The A-plan, a defined benefit plan is not controlled by the individual, so a yearly rate of return can't be calculated as a personal benefit. If the cap were increased to $300,000/yr vs. the current $260,000/yr the actual benefit in retirement would increase to $150,000/yr (from the current $130,000/yr). assuming earnings reached and maintained the $300,000/yr (high five years earnings averaged), and the Crewmember had at least 25 years of service. So the benefit would be an increase of $20,000 over the current CBA numbers for every year of retirement. This is not factoring in right of survivorship. In a simple example, you would receive an additional $200,000 benefit over a ten year retirement.

What is referred to as the "B-plan" is a different beast. It is capped by the IRS at $53,000 in 2015, so the aggregate of your 401k contributions (Max $18,000 pre-tax this year), additional after-tax contributions (up to 5%), the Company's matching ($500), plus the current 7% of salary, or 9% in the current TA will in many situations hit the $53,000 IRS limit. It certainly will as in the above example where the individual is making $300,000/yr...This does not include the 50 and over $6,000 catch-up contribution, and is not to be confused with the $265,000/yr Qualified Plan Compensation Limit.

The excess sick bank money is where the "cash over cap" comes into play. The excess sick bank would bring you up to the IRS $53,000 max (if you haven't already reached it)...The remaining funds above this limit would be returned to you as after-tax funds. So there is a limit here as well. Raising the B-fund percentage does very little in terms of increased retirement compensation for Highly Compensated Employees, although obviously you could take the extra money and invest it. For example: If you received an extra $10,000/yr for ten years as in the A-plan example above, and invested it receiving a 7% average return, you would have a future value of $144,526, or about three quarters of the funds associated with the A-plan increase. That's assuming you don't want to use your sick bank.

These are quick calculations. If someone sees any flaws in my logic (very possible), please feel free to correct me.