TWU-IAM Finally Getting Ready for JCBA Negotiations

[700UW]

Bob stop with the fear mongering and lies.
 
The IAMNPF doesnt and wont take your frozen pension, AA would have to put billions into for that to happen.
 
It would be financially irresponsible to put the IAMNPF into the yellow or red status and screw current members to take your frozen pension, the PBGC would have a lot to say about.

Stop fear mongering.

 

[Bob Owens]

Bob stop with the fear mongering and lies.
 
The IAMNPF doesnt and wont take your frozen pension, AA would have to put billions into for that to happen.
 
It would be financially irresponsible to put the IAMNPF into the yellow or red status and screw current members to take your frozen pension, the PBGC would have a lot to say about.
Stop fear mongering.

Who is lying? The fact is the Association already said they are looking to get us all into the IAMNPF, and with an average age of 55 why would they want us unless they were also getting our AA pension funds? The AA plan for TWU would not need billions because under the IAMNPF the liability would be much less due to the elimination of perks in the AA plan such as being able to retire at 60 without penalty, plus the increased penalty under the IAM plan that would go from 3% per year prior to 60 under the AA plan to 4.8% per year prior to 65 (under the AA plan if someone retired at 55 they would only lose 15% but under the IAMNPF they would lose 48%) and the restrictions on working. Under the AA plan you are only restricted from working for AA, but under the IAM plan you cant work in the industry.  
 
The Association already stated that they intend to get us all under the IAMNPF, how would that benefit us other than trapping us at AA till at least 65? How much would we see from the IAM plan after only being in it for five to ten years? Isnt it true that under multi-employer plans they can reduce our pensions? With wages going up into the mid $40s wouldn't we be better off going for a 401K match somewhere between what the Pilots and Flight Attendants are getting instead of the paltry $4160 contribution to the IAMNPF? If we settled for what the Flight attendants have we would average around $10,000 CONTRIBUTION per year from the company, into an account we control with no restrictions on employment, vs the $4160 going into the IAMNPF no matter how many hours we work. 
 
I already lost half my pension, I don't want to put any more of my future at risk by putting my pension into a fund controlled by a Union that I'm not even a member of. 

 

[Bob Owens]

So.. what exaxtly are you doing Bob? What have you done to help get the membership a better agreement? And.. does your buddy Harry agree the association is going to take our pension?

What I'm doing is counteracting the damage you are doing. 

 

[700UW]

See there you go again with fear mongering.
 
The Association will try to negotiate the TWU members moving forward into the plan, stop with the misinformation already.
 
You lose credibility.
 
Once again, call the PBGC, AA would have to pump billions of dollars in order for the IAMNPF to take over your frozen plan. 
 
The plan would go into the red or yellow if they took your frozen pension plan on as is without AA putting billions into it.
 
You constantly avoid any truth that doesnt fit your mantra, stop with fear mongering, your a union leader, be honest and truthful, which you arent being with your posts in regards to the pension.
 
So Bob you blame the TWU for your CBA, well how many negotiation committees have you been on and how many CBAs?
 
Blame yourself for a change.

 

[1AA]

Bob stop with the fear mongering and lies.
 
The IAMNPF doesnt and wont take your frozen pension, AA would have to put billions into for that to happen.
 
It would be financially irresponsible to put the IAMNPF into the yellow or red status and screw current members to take your frozen pension, the PBGC would have a lot to say about.

Stop fear mongering.

All the IAM pension has to do is make another adjustment and walla, they are back in the green with millions of our money that we will never collect as promised. It's my pension and fellow AAER'S. This has absolutely nothing to do with you.

 

[Bob Owens]

See there you go again with fear mongering.
 
The Association will try to negotiate the TWU members moving forward into the plan, stop with the misinformation already.
 
You lose credibility.
 
Once again, call the PBGC, AA would have to pump billions of dollars in order for the IAMNPF to take over your frozen plan. 
 
The plan would go into the red or yellow if they took your frozen pension plan on as is without AA putting billions into it.
 
You constantly avoid any truth that doesnt fit your mantra, stop with fear mongering, your a union leader, be honest and truthful, which you arent being with your posts in regards to the pension.
 
So Bob you blame the TWU for your CBA, well how many negotiation committees have you been on and how many CBAs?
 
Blame yourself for a change.

Maybe you should call them. We aren't talking about the APFA , or the APA or the non-union members in the plan, its not short billions, maybe hundreds of millions but most of that would go away with the inferior IAMNPF plan. 

 

[AANOTOK]

I wish just one of you folks who keep throwing that bullcrap "AA pension to IAMMPF plan" would back it up with one fact. Anyone??

 

[swamt]

32 weeks, 6 months and three weeks. Wow!

Today is March 1st.  March 4th marks 30 weeks since the filing for the association...

 

[P. REZ]

Very interesting comments from many people on the subject of Pension versus a 401k. I definitely see both sides of the argument but I always remember the "3 legged stool" ( Google it) for what a person should try to achieve for retirement purposes. According to the "3 legged stool" approach, a person should save for retirement from 3 angles, a Pension, Social Security and personal savings(ie. 401k, IRA, Roth, etc.). Right now most Americans have 2 of the 3 if they are lucky.

P. Rez

 

[chilokie1]

See there you go again with fear mongering.
 
The Association will try to negotiate the TWU members moving forward into the plan, stop with the misinformation already.
 
You lose credibility.
 
Once again, call the PBGC, AA would have to pump billions of dollars in order for the IAMNPF to take over your frozen plan. 
 
The plan would go into the red or yellow if they took your frozen pension plan on as is without AA putting billions into it.
 
You constantly avoid any truth that doesnt fit your mantra, stop with fear mongering, your a union leader, be honest and truthful, which you arent being with your posts in regards to the pension.
 
So Bob you blame the TWU for your CBA, well how many negotiation committees have you been on and how many CBAs?
 
Blame yourself for a change.

Forget the past this is all about our future, so ask yourself a few simple  questions.
 
1. How can you have a joint agreement with 2 completely different retirement plans ?
2. How can you merge two completely different contracts with different work scopes,
do you really think the Company will take the best from both? Anything less would just
be perceived as another concessionary contract.
3. Why would the TWU even agree with this association to begin with? Size rules.
4. Would you back or trust this agreement that had zero influence or knowledge from its
memberships, or local presidents.?

 

[FWAAA]

Today is March 1st.  March 4th marks 30 weeks since the filing for the association...

According to the AA 10-K filed this past week, 75% of the maintenance personnel at the combined new AA work for pre-merger AA and 25% of them are employed by the pre-merger US.

If the TWU had any balls, they would have laughed off the ridiculous attempt by the IAM to remain on the property. As worthless as the TWU has been for the AA mechanics, the IAM-TWU "Association" is even more worthless.

 

[OldGuy@AA]

I wish just one of you folks who keep throwing that bullcrap "AA pension to IAMMPF plan" would back it up with one fact. Anyone??

I can tell you I have asked for a document from the TWU international promising not to allow our pensions to be dumped into the IAMNPF and to date there is no document.  You have to wonder why if it isn't going to happen why won't they put it in writing?

 

[Bob Owens]

I wish just one of you folks who keep throwing that bullcrap "AA pension to IAMMPF plan" would back it up with one fact. Anyone??

The fact is we do not know, but how often have we been burnt but whats not said? How many times have we been burnt by what they later claimed they alluded to and we should have understood before we voted YES like they recommended? 31 years? You should know what I'm talking about. 
 
What we do know is that the Association already stated that they intend to get us all in the IAMNPF, and at the very least will make every attempt to keep those who are already in the plan in it. My concern is what I stated already. Most of us would have 10 years or less in the IAM plan, so there isn't much appeal to that. The amount we would get from the pension is minimal but we would lose the match we currently get and there would be no push to get at the very least what the Flight attendants got which is a contribution thats nearly double what we get as a match. The only way for them to make the plan appealing to us would be if they could promise a figure close to what we would have received under the AA plan had it not been frozen just as we were at the point where the compounding effect of the formula added the most value.  If our funds were rolled into the IAM plan the plan would see a huge influx of cash. 700 is claiming that our part of the pension is billions in the red, thats not true, possibly a few hundred million but not Billions. The IAM plan is not nearly as generous as the AA plan so much if all that shortfall could simply disappear  in the changeover. Our normal retirement age is 60, under the IAM its 65. From what I've read about SSI is for each year they push normal retirement back, like when they pushed it from 65 to 67, those who were pushed back effectively lost around 7.5% of the value of their SSI pension, and the government saved 15%. So if our normal retirement age gets pushed back five years they can save as much as 37%, probably less because not everyone retires at 60, so lets go with 20%. If AA is 80% funded and the news terms under the IAMNPF lower the amount projected to cover what we are entitled to by 20% then the IAMNPF pretty much gets 100% of the funds needed to cover what they are projected to need to cover us where our new normal retirement age has been pushed back 5 years and they prohibit us from working and collecting a pension, not just at AA but anywhere in the industry. So since we wont be able to accumulate enough to retire at 65 we will have to stay until we are near death and can no longer work period. In the meantime we become easy marks for management to continue to exploit and the Union no longer has the threat of accountability for inferior contracts because whatever pension we do get is tied to them. 
 
The fact is I cant say with 100% certainly that this is their plan, but 700 cant say for sure that it isn't. IMO the company wants this, the IAM wants this and the TWU under Little was ok with it because Little was retiring anyway. 700's only argument is that the IAMNPF would not want us because of the liability, I have already cast doubt on that claim, in addition to that the IAMNPF would cost AA less money than even what we have now with the paltry 5.5% match we have. Lets face it we will be making at least $45 an hour before long, in just straight time hours alone thats $4576 vs the IAMNPF of $4160, then add in another 20% to our match with OT and it costs the company over $1000 more for the 401k than the fixed IAMPF plan where no matter how many hours we work the pension costs are fixed, thats if we were still willing to settle for less than half the match our pilots get. We should be shooting for the same exact match the pilots get, not some half assed $2 contribution to a pension run by a Union we dont even belong to. Our wages are much lower than the pilots so they really don't have a good argument against it. 
 
 
I was part of the negotiating committee and I did all I could to get those in control to push for a release when it was obvious the company was not going to move, that was in the Summer of 2009. The International refused to move the process forward. I put out what I saw to the membership, we made videos as well and we recommended No. Even after the members rejected a TA, even after the members were told that if they rejected the TA it could mean a strike, the International refused to push for a release, they refused to move the process forward. I don't know what you think I should blame myself about. You on the other hand support every concessionary deal that you come across, even giving additional concessions eight years after losing the excuse of bankruptcy, to a company earning billions per quarter, but then you say its my fault. 

 

[bigjets]

Forget the past this is all about our future, so ask yourself a few simple  questions.
 
1. How can you have a joint agreement with 2 completely different retirement plans ?
2. How can you merge two completely different contracts with different work scopes,
do you really think the Company will take the best from both? Anything less would just
be perceived as another concessionary contract.
3. Why would the TWU even agree with this association to begin with? Size rules.
4. Would you back or trust this agreement that had zero influence or knowledge from its
memberships, or local presidents.?

Seems like the only time the twu will flex its muscle is AGAINST the membership. Why act like a union using your numbers to better the lives of the membership, when all you have to do is collect dues.

 

[1AA]

Today is March 1st.  March 4th marks 30 weeks since the filing for the association...

NMB sent filing letters in the workplace dated August 8 2014.