Look at your total value statement to see what your pension costs the company. Its been shown on several occasions, ( I believe by FWAAA) that our Pension is cheaper than Souhwests 401k match per person.
That begs the question - If this is so, why is it such a point of contention? Is it only a union-initiated sticking point? Surely, if only frozen, those near retirement wouldn't mind funding a 401k that received a decent percentage of matching funds.
Personally, I'm not very enthralled re: being dependent on a company like AMR to fairly administer anything they might believe could be used to the corporation's benefit - as the old simile goes, "I trust them about as far as I could throw a bull by the tail", considering their propensity to play games with their employees as we've seen in the last 7 years..
Freeze the pension or buy it out for a fair sum placed in the employee's 401k funds (as was done by another employer of mine 30+ years ago) and initiate another "PlAAn" for everyone with a decent (not less than 5% match). Again, the TWU is trying to make political hay over nothing, but I believe it's far more nefarious that that.
One way or another, we (the workers) won't lose this pension - even worst case (if it's turned over to the PBGC), it will simply delay retirement plans for some but does have a maximum of greater than $40k per year. HOWEVER ... does everyone remember "why" Carty was supposedly forced from AMR's top job? It was over the establishment of an executive slush fund that wouldn't have come to light until after the contract voting was done, were it not for the supposed "screw-up" in the FA's voting. Is anyone so stupid as to think this slush fund was solely Carty's doing even though he was the one chosen to fall on the sword and take one for the team?
The slush fund was established to pay (as we were told) retirement benefits to the top executives who may not get their "due" (remember the max) should the PBGC be "awarded" administration of the AMR retirement funds. Should this happen, executives will be paid from the fund in excess of what the PBGC insures. If the pension is frozen or done away with, one would think the original $46 million (plus earnings and contributions, of course) wouldn't go very far (consider the salaries of the hogs at the trough). Therefore, the pension has to stay in force to pay for the lavish retirements of these SOBs without a severe depletion of this slush fund - we're taken care of rather nicely (even with PBGC involvement), but only commencing at age 65 - the execs would be rather screwed were they subject to our pension limitations? Poor babies.
Another thing to consider is the issue of this pension being non-portable. Should one die before retiring how much does one think his/her heirs will receive from this pension for their lifetime of labor? A 401k goes to one's family/heirs as a part of one's assets held by one's estate. Not so with this pension as it's company controlled. True, the wife get's a percentage if it's set up that way, but not the entire amount of the savings.
That begs the question,
again, Who the TWU is really working for while on our dime?
Boomer needs to get in on this - he's got a pretty good financial mind and is good at dissecting this stuff.
Your opinion re: this Mr. Boomer sir?
