TWU and IAM representation alliance vote

[Flying low]

I'm wondering if LA LI and 700 can take their little spat to a private forum. It sure is getting hard to read these pages without having to put up with their grade school "name calling"...

 

[swamt]

 
 
I see what ya did there.  "Taking off for the holidays".   Now that was funny.

Not following you with the phrase "I see what you did there"  Care to elaborate?  Glad you got a good laugh though, I think...

 

[Rogallo]

The Tulsa base shuts down on 12/24 for a week??

 

[blue collar]

Not following you with the phrase "I see what you did there"  Care to elaborate?  Glad you got a good laugh though, I think...

It's because no one gets the holidays off, lol

 

[Rogallo]

No one on the Line!

 

[La Li Lu Le Lo]

The Tulsa base shuts down on 12/24 for a week??

Yes. You probably won't see a lot of people until Jan 5th though.

 

[Real tired]

Copied from a US Air thread:

700UW said,
In 2008 when the Transition Agreement was negotiated the IAMNPF was ratified in the CBA by the membership.
********************************************************************************************************


So truth be told, the picture becomes quite clearer. Thanks to all who contributed to this thread, we know that prior to 2009 the IAMNPF was teetering on falling to a less favorable status amongst pension funds. Maybe the question needs to be, "Who really benefitted from the influx of new US Air members to the IAMNPF?" I believe a T/A presented in 2008 while the employees were still reeling from BK was a shameful opportunity by the IAM to slip it in when odds were favorable for that CBA to be agreed to. Would the membership be educated as to what the fund really had to offer and was there any ability to pull that one issue off the table had enough employees disagreed? Apparently not. No doubt many Funds were challenged by market downturns over time yet I suspect there are many similarities to shenanigans played at other Pension Funds such as the Teamsters Pension whereby leadership has a hard time keeping their mutts out of the till. The TWBoo here at AA has already tried to market this Alliance BS with the promise that we also will obtain immediate vested status with the IAMNPF and will be included. Although there is no interest for it, you have to ask how wise it would be to again try to inject a large workforce on the mechanic side that already is making preparations for retirement. This short sided strategy by the Fund administrators will undoubtedly lead to further future benefit reductions to keep it sustainable. Finally, my intentions of this thread was mainly generated by the difficulty some folks at US had to maintain a civil discussion of this topic. Intentions were to only help provide each other some specifics to a subject that is important to all. In the end, this is an evolving company and more change is coming and this topic really needs to be decided as to whether it's worth fighting for. I believe not and if you agree, the challenge will be to keep the discussion going and not let it trickle down to the Forum archives of obscurity.

Great, insightful post.  And you got it, my friend.  You got it.
 
May I ask which folks at US were being uncivil with their discussion of the topic?

 

[WeAAsles]

For those of you that are thinking that the AA Frozen pension will just be rolled over into the IAMPF that is not true and simply will not happen or be allowed. Not only would the IAMPF accept billions in underfunding but that would obviously take the fund out of the Green Zone and cause it by law to have to make even further cuts to payouts for ALL participants. So #1 that makes zero sense and #2 it would not be allowed by law. Why would the IAMPF even want to take on AA's liabilities?

 
AMR says unless the pensions end, the company will have to come up with more than $800 million a year to pay for them.

 
In fact: AMR lobbied for and obtained pension relief from Congress that allowed the airline to reduce and defer pension payments. This funding relief has saved AMR more than $2.1 billion over the past six years. That's more than half of AMR's total $4 billion in cash on hand. In effect, that's money AMR borrowed from its workers' pensions, money that helped keep the company aloft.
For the next six years, thanks to the pension relief it already obtained, AMR's annual pension cost will be roughly half the $800 million the company says it will be. So the pensions are a lot more affordable than AMR claims.

http://www.pbgc.gov/...-the-facts.html

 

[Realityck]

For those of you that are thinking that the AA Frozen pension will just be rolled over into the IAMPF that is not true and simply will not happen or be allowed. Not only would the IAMPF accept billions in underfunding but that would obviously take the fund out of the Green Zone and cause it by law to have to make even further cuts to payouts for ALL participants. So #1 that makes zero sense and #2 it would not be allowed by law. Why would the IAMPF even want to take on AA's liabilities?

 
AMR says unless the pensions end, the company will have to come up with more than $800 million a year to pay for them.

 
In fact: AMR lobbied for and obtained pension relief from Congress that allowed the airline to reduce and defer pension payments. This funding relief has saved AMR more than $2.1 billion over the past six years. That's more than half of AMR's total $4 billion in cash on hand. In effect, that's money AMR borrowed from its workers' pensions, money that helped keep the company aloft.
For the next six years, thanks to the pension relief it already obtained, AMR's annual pension cost will be roughly half the $800 million the company says it will be. So the pensions are a lot more affordable than AMR claims.

http://www.pbgc.gov/...-the-facts.html

 
 
It's nice to hear someone tell it like it really is rather than fabricate another AMFA fairy tale.

 

[TRAVIS]

This is good... NOW catch this... 2 of the total of 6 yes voters agree and they both support the IAM......LOL!

 

[Real tired]

For those of you that are thinking that the AA Frozen pension will just be rolled over into the IAMPF that is not true and simply will not happen or be allowed. Not only would the IAMPF accept billions in underfunding but that would obviously take the fund out of the Green Zone and cause it by law to have to make even further cuts to payouts for ALL participants. So #1 that makes zero sense and #2 it would not be allowed by law. Why would the IAMPF even want to take on AA's liabilities?

 
AMR says unless the pensions end, the company will have to come up with more than $800 million a year to pay for them.

 
In fact: AMR lobbied for and obtained pension relief from Congress that allowed the airline to reduce and defer pension payments. This funding relief has saved AMR more than $2.1 billion over the past six years. That's more than half of AMR's total $4 billion in cash on hand. In effect, that's money AMR borrowed from its workers' pensions, money that helped keep the company aloft.
For the next six years, thanks to the pension relief it already obtained, AMR's annual pension cost will be roughly half the $800 million the company says it will be. So the pensions are a lot more affordable than AMR claims.

http://www.pbgc.gov/...-the-facts.html

Good post, and you are correct.
 
I can think of only three things that could happen to AA's frozen pensions. 
 
The first is the company comes up with the money and funds the pension.  The second is the pension stays frozen.  And the third is the company terminates the pension and it goes to the PBGC just like ours.
 
But the one place it won't go, and you are correct, is to fund the IAMNPF.  It just doesn't work that way.  If anyone from AA is to be in the IAMNPF, that money will come from somewhere else, such as your 401K match money.

 

[TRAVIS]

You AA boys don't need to make the same mistake we did and put a noose around your neck and tie yourself's to a unstable IAMNPF. They will sell you out every time to keep this turd like they did with our profit sharing at US and pay scale is prof of this also. So think hard before that short step and sudden stop by the noose.

 

[Bob Owens]

 
In fact: AMR lobbied for and obtained pension relief from Congress that allowed the airline to reduce and defer pension payments. This funding relief has saved AMR more than $2.1 billion over the past six years. That's more than half of AMR's total $4 billion in cash on hand. In effect, that's money AMR borrowed from its workers' pensions, money that helped keep the company aloft.
For the next six years, thanks to the pension relief it already obtained, AMR's annual pension cost will be roughly half the $800 million the company says it will be. So the pensions are a lot more affordable than AMR claims.http://www.pbgc.gov/...-the-facts.html

Show us the law that says that our Union (which for the first two years is to be run by the IAM should this Allance scam come to be) cant negotiate a deal that rolls our pension into the IAMPF.

Your claim makes no sense, if in BK the company could have involuntarily transfered the pension to the PBGC then what would be stopping them from negotiating with the Union to transfer those funds, and the plan to the IAMPF? Clearly the Pension is transferrable.

That $2.1 billion that AA "saved" is $2.1 billion that should have went into our pension. Call "Funding releif" what it really is, legally sanctioned underfunding of the pension.

 

[Bob Owens]

Good post, and you are correct.
 
I can think of only three things that could happen to AA's frozen pensions. 
 
The first is the company comes up with the money and funds the pension.  The second is the pension stays frozen.  And the third is the company terminates the pension and it goes to the PBGC just like ours.
 
But the one place it won't go, and you are correct, is to fund the IAMNPF.  It just doesn't work that way.  If anyone from AA is to be in the IAMNPF, that money will come from somewhere else, such as your 401K match money.

Seems to me that the company has to come up with the money, frozen or not, unless they work out a deal with the Union.

As I asked WeAAsles, where is the law that says that the Union cant negotiate a deal to transfer the AA/TWU pension into the IAMPF?

Clearly pensions can be transferred, yours was transferred to the PBGC.

Whats to stop the Union from negotiating a deal where we lose the option to retire without penalty at 60 and roll our pension into the IAMPF with equity in the company to cover the shortfall between fund assetts and obligations? Lets face it, this is the Union that negotiated zero profit sharing and bottom of the industry wages with a company that was sitting on $10 billion in cash and had just reported a $1.5 billlion profit for just one quarter. Dont underestimate their ineptitude.

 

[mike33]

Show us the law that says that our Union (which for the first two years is to be run by the IAM should this Allance scam come to be) cant negotiate a deal that rolls our pension into the IAMPF.

Your claim makes no sense, if in BK the company could have involuntarily transfered the pension to the PBGC then what would be stopping them from negotiating with the Union to transfer those funds, and the plan to the IAMPF? Clearly the Pension is transferrable.

That $2.1 billion that AA "saved" is $2.1 billion that should have went into our pension. Call "Funding releif" what it really is, legally sanctioned underfunding of the pension.

 I think is you read the IAMNPF bylaws and such, that the Fudiciaries that are in the fund have to approve a new entrant...can't imagine them approvong a BK / frozen pension from a BK Airline.....
 
BTW bob i totally agree with you but the key words are " SHOULD HAVE ", but it wasn't.......