Quote:
Originally Posted by kwri10s
Thanks for the quote, but I think you cherry picked. So let me do the same thing. Here's a quote from farther down the page. "The final regulations provide guidance on the circumstances under which a qualified retirement plan can be amended to eliminate or reduce early retirement benefits, retirement-type subsidies, or optional forms of benefits. Specifically, the final regulations provide rules under which a plan may be amended to eliminate benefits that are burdensome to the plan and participants and have minimal value to plan participants."
Yes I also picked a quote that really does not add to the discourse either. But that's what you did. Posting an answer you knew did not answer the question. In full disclosure, I cannot find any reference where an employee group amended their contract to reduce a benefit. But I also cannot find any reference that says an employee group is prohibited from decreasing their benefit. Ball is still in your court. Where does it say an employee group cannot decrease their own benefit??? That is the posed question. Could the A plan be contractually diminished down the road by the pilots?
Your accrued benefit cannot be reduced. By law. Simple as that. If you had 20 years at 338k earnings cap, you can’t suddenly have 20 years at 200k.
Future accruals of benefits in a pension, conceivably could be reduced. This would have to be agreed upon by the Union per the CBA.
This is highly unlikely as it wouldn’t be fair to that group relative to another group of pilots, which goes against the whole point of a union.
Nothing is risk free. There’s a risk of not getting a pension increase without ending it for new hires. There’s a risk of the pension being frozen or terminated regardless of what we decide for TA2.