AANOTOK said:
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.
