after 6 months of absolute radio silence the best we came up with is a survey. meanwhile delta has had a year of contributions made into their plan.

what is there to even survey or ask? how much are you willing to give up in order to get the plan started?

 

Yes, basically. I guess they will ask if we are willing to limit the PRAP, but have the MBCBP. But then again, they already know that answer.

 

IMO the company is exploiting a legal "concern" aka excuse not to start the MBCBP - unless they get concessions from the pilot group. They are confident that no matter how this tactical pause turns out, it saves the company $$$ - whether by purely delaying the start or by additionally getting free concessions from the pilots (during record profitability and peak pilot contractual leverage, no less).

I think UALPA should be pushing loudly for "backpayments" as this issue marches towards inevitable arbitration/grievance and continues to be drawn out. I do NOT think the MEC should make some extracurricular deal just for the sake of "getting it started". That by it's very nature will IMO require concessions and split the pilot group.

UALPA should be beating the drum for the pilot group to clearly lay this delay at the feet of the company, where it belongs; if the company isn't comfortable holding up the UPA contract they agreed to, then the burden is on them to fix it ASAP. Whether the company is getting cold feet or straight up negotiated in bad faith, it doesn't matter; backpay to make the pilot group whole and fulfill the legitimately negotiated intent of the contract.

​​​​​​​Anything else deserves unified outrage from the entire United pilot group.

 

What’s crazy to me is pilots still don’t understand why the contingent benefit rule affects us, and not AA/DL/WN.

Our UPA outlines different features in the CBP compared to the other airlines. I guarantee that the company would mirror AA/DL/WN’s plan tomorrow, but that would also cause pitchforks within our pilot group.

 

I think most people understand. DL can do exactly what UAL legal is saying what would limit ours (i.e. forcing spill through after tax contributions).

 

How about instead of the smug self-congratulating, you explain exactly what the rest of our dumb pilots fail to grasp?

 

not sure where you've been the last 6 months but the only difference in our plan is the rha which has been mentioned many times is not uniteds concern, it's the plan interaction with the 401k. which delta has been running for a year with no issues.

the point of the thread is what is the point of this survey? we already voted that we won't take any changes or concessions to get the plan started.

 

could you explain it to us?

Super serious, it will be helpful to a lot of us.

 

I am not on the R&I committee, I reached out last year for a more technical answer to understand why our legal team was conceded with the IRS’ Contingent Benefit Rule, and no other airline’s legal team was, expecting to hear that our legal team is more conservative, paranoid, trying to screw us, etc.

its best to file a PDR for this because I am not a tax expert and there minutia in the answer.

MEC Video on the IRS Contingent Benefit Rule

 

The union explained to me the RHA is exactly the problem - because right now, we can control how much annual spill we want the company to contribute to the RHA. That is acceptable in the RHA, but not in the CBP. If you recall - that is why in that LOA (which I was glad was not ratified), the RHA went away.

The R&I committee is way better at explaining this than me.