1. I believe AA contributed to both political parties although I think the republicans got more.
Bush also got a brand new 737 to fly around the country.
2. AA's plans were overfunded a few years ago. While I am not a pension expert, I do know there are tax laws that limit a companies overfunding of pensions. This law tries to prevent companies from escaping taxation. What AA and the unions are trying to accomplish is to spread the payments over more time. If the old funding rules were to return (after the short repreive that was granted a couple of years ago), AA, NW,CO, and DL would be required to put all or most of their cash in the plans and they would have to file BK. After filing for BK, then they could just dump the plans on the PBCG like UA and US did and go for a lot more non-pension concessions. Then when the PBGC goes broke because of all these defaults, they will ask the government for an S and L type bailout. Do you think that this government will agree to bail out the PBCG for the sake of working peoples pensions? No, working people will just lose more if not all their pensions. That is why I think it is imperative to try to maintain what we have.
So maybe we should take another 25% paycut to save a pension thats the equivelent of 3%? While there may be a limit to what they can dump in the pensions I doubt that the law required AA to withdraw the excess earnings of the plan itself. That would not make sense because everyone knows that the economy is cyclical.
3. There is a big difference between UA and AA. The management at UA did not put any effort forward to save the plans.
Maybe they did, but after AA undercut them so deeply there was no way they could compete. By the way you talk as if UAL no longer provides for a pension when in fact they are providing a 5% contribution to the 401K. In other words 2% more than AA is putting away for us.
Not only did they walk away from a $9.5 billion obligation to their workers, they also made other retirement benefits so expensive that it is the same as not having any at all.
You mean like our prefunding and vision benifits?
Add to this their wages are/will be less than ours.
Well for the last two years our wages were less, and AA is not BK. How about comparing our wages to other non-BK companies like SWA? Who makes more? I'll answer that, SWA makes around $20,000 more than we do a year. So LCC workers are not a threat to our standard of living, we are a threat to theirs.
4. I believe that AA and the unions are making a genuine effort to preserve the plans.
Then you probably believe in Santa Claus too.
The employees of AA are being asked to contact congress to support the plan in the same way we are being asked to contact congress with respect to the Love field issue.
Lets not forget how after 9-11 the unions joined with the companies to lobby for emergency funds for the industry, however, after the airlines got their money the companies refused to support funding to help all the displaced workers. You know, the workers that were illegally laid off, the layoff that generated the force-majeure grievance that has dissapeared.
It is just not the TWU working with AA but APFA and APA.
And those are company unions also, not quite as bad as the TWU but they have more at stake with the company than the TWU does. If AA were to get the contracts abrogated in BK the APA and the APFA would dissapear.
Since the pilot's DB retirement plan is worth about $1-2 million dollars, don't you think that APA's position lends credibility to the effort?
For the APA, yes. Not for the TWU though. Lets also not forget that the APA is a democratic union, they replaced their leaders after the concessions. So did the APFA, however we are still stuck with Little, Gless, Yingst, Connelly etc. While some of the Local leaders have been replaced the top leadership, as always with the TWU, remains intact.
Another way we can guage AA's sincerity in this matter is by observing whether or not they are using their lobbyists in Washington to push for the preservation plan.
We can also ask the same question of the unions.
The difference is crystal clear between AA and UA and some of their unions regarding pensions and other retirement benefits. The difference between managments I have already explained.
How about talking about working benifits? Are you saying that for our entire working life, a period from the age of 20 to 65 we should work for much, much less so from the period of 65 to 75 we can enjoy a higher ratio? My higher multiplier is offset by not only a lower average wage over any given 10 year stretch but the fact that we lose the first year. Something the TWU always leaves out when they tout the pension.
The fact is that since the late eighties I've been paying for my retiree health care, no other workers were. I've been paying for current medical for over 15 years, UAL only started paying two years ago. We've had to pay out of pocket for LTD for over twenty years at a cost of nearly $1000/yr so Sonny and the TWU could pocket the commissions. We were the first to give up doubletime, holiday pay, sick time, the 80 day IOD bank, OT for training off shift, which we only just got back and scores of other concessions. We did this to "save jobs" and to "save the pension". We undercut the BK airlines who were then forced to make even more cuts to try and match our cuts. They put in a 5% 401k match instead which will require them to lay out more money than AA is putting away for us.
But look at the differences between the TWU and AMFA. Before UA management even entertained the notion of terminating pensions,AMFA's national director, O.V. Delle-Femine was quoted as saying "We've got to gut the pensions, I don't see any other way." I have never before seen any union capitulate before they negotiate. His shocking statement made it quite clear that AMFA would not fight for the pensions of those it represents.
I think that "statement" has been explained already. You are taking it completely out of context. AMFA took a strike vote and made it clear to the public that if the members reject the union would strike, the TWU at AA has not come out so strongly at AA even though AA is not BK. In fact Jim Little cancelled our vote and puyt a new contract in place without ratification by the members.
Can you imagine the firestorm at AA if Jim Little said this?
No, instead Jim Little said that if we do not agree to the most massive concessions ever given that the company might go straight into liquidation.
The members can vote or recall Delle out of office, we cant do that within the TWU to Little.
Also, AMFA was the first to agree at UA to expensive retirement healthcare.
Wrong. WE have been paying for retiree health care for twenty years already.
And on top of all this they bring back a concessionary contract, something they said they would never do.
Not true. Thats something some supporters may have said, but one thing is that even though they brought back industry leading gains in the past they have never agreed to industry leading concessions like the TWU.
AA and the unions are taking the correct course of action to preserve what we have.
Preseve what we have? Lets not forget that the reduction of wages reduced our pension already. So we lost on all fronts. We should have fought back and if AA had gone into BK Co, DL and NWA would have been right behind us. Workers in this industry would have been better off if we ALL were in BK. With more than half the capacity operating in BK anbd the chance of financial collapse the government would have been forced to intervene, instead we, the workers were forced to bail out the industry. In the meantime the industries that feed off this one go unscathed.
But since the other 3 (NW.CO, and DL) want a mandatory freeze on pensions and with a government that wants no more pension accruals, I think the odds that AA and it's unions will be successful is less than 50%.
Well AA was the leader in knocking downm wages by 25% so this time they get to look like the good guy as far as pensions, but in the end they still benifit from shedding their DB pension obligation, after years of withdrawing the excess earning of the plan.
But I think their efforts are genuine.
Not to worry, in 195 days maybe Santa will give you what the TWU and AA took away. Just be a good boy and do as you are told and everything will work out OK. So keep slinging them bags as your pay and pension dissapear. Dont entertain thoughts of striking or fighting back as that would put Jim Littles pay and pension in jeopardy. Just keep on working.
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