Raise for management

[Bob Owens]

Drummond needs to get Doyle and Virella to get stuff moving on money they can get us now. Prefunding match, gain sharing, remaining stock, and then get the NMB to give us a decision on representation. If the F/As can turn down a 12% (what I heard) then we should get at least that in JCBA.
 
He should tell 591 to stop c***blocking any type of membership benefits off stupid worthless DFR lawsuits.

All of those issues are tied up because of the bad language your buddy Don put in there. 
 
Prefunding match---"successful resolution of the 114 process"
Gain sharing--Just like JLT and PLI No specific language whatsoever, not even how much of the "gain" we would get
Remaining Stock- thats tied up in the courts, 
 
How was the lawsuit blocking any of those issues from being resolved? 

 

[Overspeed]

Bob,
I believe there is a 29d filed but yet to be presented grievance on gain sharing. The language is done but the company has not acted yet. Even if it's more money than we have now isn't it worth getting it for us?
 
Based on the letters between the IAM, the TWU, and GP the lawsuit has slowed down the whole JCBA process. The TWU refuses to meet with the IAM to discuss plans for a JCBA. The IAM wrote a letter condemning the GP's actions as self serving to the NMB. Why don't you guys just hash it out like good union men and women? Have a sit down and work it out.
 
Yes I know the stock is in process but if I remember from the road shows the Int'l held we were told that once the 1114 ruling was done, the money should becoming? Is that not true?

 

[Bob Owens]

Bob,
I believe there is a 29d filed but yet to be presented grievance on gain sharing. The language is done but the company has not acted yet. Even if it's more money than we have now isn't it worth getting it for us?
 
Based on the letters between the IAM, the TWU, and GP the lawsuit has slowed down the whole JCBA process. The TWU refuses to meet with the IAM to discuss plans for a JCBA. The IAM wrote a letter condemning the GP's actions as self serving to the NMB. Why don't you guys just hash it out like good union men and women? Have a sit down and work it out.
 
Yes I know the stock is in process but if I remember from the road shows the Int'l held we were told that once the 1114 ruling was done, the money should becoming? Is that not true?

Yes the 29D was filed and yes we should take whatever monies we can get out of this worst deal in the industry that you voted for.
 
I think the IAM should act like good Union people and do what the AFA and ALPA did or give them the opportunity to get cards and lets have a vote and let the members decide. I want no part of a more fractured, more undemocratic structure than we already have and I want no part of the IAMNPF. 
 
No, the stock has nothing to do with the 1114 process, the stock is being held up by the lawsuit filed by those who chose the bird in the hand and are now saying they want the two in the bush as well. You are confusing the Equity with the Prefunding match. Don told everyone we were getting that money no matter what, and maybe we will, but for some unknown reason Don tied us receiving the match to the 1114 process which had nothing to do with us or our match. The company is using that language to try and justify withholding our monies so we will have to wait on that to go through the process as well. 

 

[Overspeed]

Bob,
Excuse me. I mixed up the stock and match in my response.
 
Yes, I heard the 1114 ruling we would get the company match back. Drummond postponed the match arbitration so I guess we keep waiting and waiting.

 

[Overspeed]

Bob,
Isn't the JCBA process the best opportunity to fix the items you believe are wrong?

 

[Bob Owens]

Bob,
Isn't the JCBA process the best opportunity to fix the items you believe are wrong?

No its the earliest opportunity,  but we need to go in there as one Union, not some in one union and some in another and we definitely do not want the IAM taking the lead. We saw what kind of contract they can get out of Parker when the company is reporting billion dollar profits. We need to put Jim Littles Association aside and move in with one Union. 
 
My biggest concern is through the Association the IAM will use our pension to fund a contract. I believe they want the hundreds of millions AA has stowed away for our pensions to bolster the IAMNPF.
 
Right now our pensions are at AA, due to the benefits we have where we can retire at 60 with no penalty and just a 1.5% penalty prior to 60 the capital requirements of our plan would be considerably higher than the IAMNPF where you get hit with a 4.8% penalty for each year prior to 65. 
 
IIRC when the government pushed Social Security from 65 to 67 they in effect cut the pensions all those who would be affected by 13%. So cutting our retirement from 60 to 65 would be like cutting our pension by roughly 32.5%. 
 
Lets say that currently the AA plan needs $1billion to be fully funded, well if we were moved into the IAM plan, all other things being equal they would only need around $675 million. $325 million simply vanishes off whats needed for the fund. If our fund was 85% funded they may get money back and get rid of $150 million in liability.  The company would also save money by just contributing $2/hr for up to just 2080 hours even if the average number of hours worked is 3020. 
 
Some may claim that there are laws protecting Early retiree pension benefits and they cant do this, both the IRS and ERISA address protecting Early retiree pension benefits, what can be missed is they are talking about people who are retired. Not people who are working. So if you are 55 and retired they cant come along and say, well now you have to be 65 (they cant push it past 65 either). But if you are 60 and still working it can be changed to 65. Early retiree benefits are considered a perk, not an essential part of the plan, actuarially it does not add or subtract value to the plan and the reason why you get less when you retire younger is because the assumption is you will still die at the age they used and what they are doing is spreading the same amount of money over a longer period of time. So if they take away our ability to retire early in theory the value of our pension has not changed -at 65. The formula will have remained the same but our ability to retire at 60 with full benefits would be gone. What you earned stays the same. Of course in reality it has changed because favorable assumptions were used to give us the ability to retire at 60 with no penalty or 55 with a 15% penalty vs 48% with the IAMNPF. Its a negotiated perk, not considered a part of the protected plan. 
 
My concern is the members will buy into this because the savings will be used to buy us back things such as vacations, Holidays, higher hourly wages etc without actually costing AA a penny. The IAM side loses nothing, we would be paying for their raises and securing their pensions with ours. The Association will claim they got us Industry leading even though we will be the only workers in the industry that cant retire and work another job. AA benefits by trapping us all here that much longer and with the shortage of mechanics they will need to keep us here as long as they can. AA also makes out because they get to dump their pension liability and get the cheapest pension plan in the industry where no matter how many hours we work their pension cost is fixed and does not carry over, they have no liability, the IAMNPF takes on the liability. 

 

[swamt]

What risk, don't you mean gain?
 
Is Parker talking about paying himself half pay with gutted benefits, high medical premiums and all the rest of his compensation be on profits? No, he is getting a very good paycheck with the bonuses on top. He earns more than a livable wage so whats the risk he is exposed to? He can only suffer from less gain. 
 
Parker is asking us to accept half pay with no chance to share in the gains the company is making. The increases he has proposed do not lift us, they keep us at half pay with no profit sharing. 
 
The fact is we shouldn't have to give concessions or continue to work for half pay and hope for profits to have skin in the game, we are "at risk" either way because if the company doesn't make it we lose our jobs right? 
 
He wants us to accept concessionary wage rates based on Bankruptcy with slight enhancements and no share in the profits. I'm ok with no profit sharing as soon as he restores all the concessions, he wants it both ways, concessions without any chance of a share of the gains.  When they took the concessions that was not the deal. The deal was give the concessions and you get a share of the profits. Now that they are profitable they want to keep the concessions and not give profit sharing either. 
 
Parker is full of crap, it has nothing to do with not wanting to expose us to risk, it has everything to do with locking in the value of the concessions and making sure that no matter how profitable the carrier is they are still enjoying the concessions they won through Bankruptcy. He is so f%^&ing greedy its not as if he just wants to lock us out of the profits that our concessions contributed to, he wants to lock out out of whats way in excess of that as well, he wants to make sure that no matter how much money this company makes that we will not share in that success and and continue to suffer from the years of failure, he wants to stick our noses into the ground and hold us there for no other reason than his own greed.  IMO he is a sick dishonest bully who even if he speaks softly is more dishonest and ill willed towards his employees than Frank Lorenzo. 
 
So Parker, the same guy who tells workers to accept concessionary terms to minimize the risk of them losing their jobs then turns around and says even if the company makes huge profits the workers would be putting themselves at risk by accepting profit sharing. he is basically saying we are better off to just accept being poor so he can get richer. We must share in the losses but not in the gains. 
 
How can anyone not see that? 

Bob, I couldn't agree more.  Your right that the co said they would share in the profits if unions would worked with them during BK.  AND this is why I was slamming your leaders for not getting any kind of a "snap-back" clause.  Hell, they did the exact same thing to you guys in 2003.