United And AFA Reach Pension Agreement

[Cosmo]

United and its Flight Attendants today announced that they have reached a tentative agreement on a replacement defined contribution pension plan to be effective January 1, 2006, subject to member ratification by the end of February. You can read some of the details in this AFA press release.

I would be very interested to hear the views of Fly and any other United flight attendants regarding this tentative agreement.

 

[FA4UA]

ummm... call me crazy but wasn't this the original offer from UA?

I love how AFA is touting a huge victory! What a laugh! Because of this "victory" AFA represented FA's now have gone about a year without ANY contribution towards any plan of any sort. That year lost is irreplaceable and unacceptable! All the other employee groups have retro-active retirement plans back to the ditching-date of our pensions from what I've heard.

I'd like that lost year of contribution please.

FA4UA

 

[Fly]

I believe the salaried employees were granted something like a 3% match PLUS a 4% direct contribution months ago and without the confrontation. Typical.

 

[Jetlaagd]

ummm... call me crazy but wasn't this the original offer from UA?

I love how AFA is touting a huge victory! What a laugh! Because of this "victory" AFA represented FA's now have gone about a year without ANY contribution towards any plan of any sort. That year lost is irreplaceable and unacceptable! All the other employee groups have retro-active retirement plans back to the ditching-date of our pensions from what I've heard.

I'd like that lost year of contribution please.

FA4UA

I am quite certain that the IAM and its members also will have gone close to a year witout any contributions. This was also a so called victory for the IAM. I think there is a legal reason for this. When a company terminates a pension plan. I believe UAL has to go 1 year before they can sponsor a replacment plan.AFA and the IAM were aware of this.That is why the flight attendant plan lost a year. Someone please correct me if I am wrong!

 

[DCT JVL]

I am quite certain that the IAM and its members also will have gone close to a year witout any contributions. This was also a so called victory for the IAM. I think there is a legal reason for this. When a company terminates a pension plan. I believe UAL has to go 1 year before they can sponsor a replacment plan.AFA and the IAM were aware of this.That is why the flight attendant plan lost a year. Someone please correct me if I am wrong!

I don't believe the company is actually required to contribute any money into the plans until 90 days after bankruptcy. However, most union members have been accruing this money since 6/1/05. Depending on your agreement, the company should be depositing between 4% and 6% (excepting the pilots) of your considered earnings into your DC plans 90 days after bankruptcy exit.

I realize that not having the money now means a loss of interest, etc., but a combination of a desire to hold on to cash during the bankruptcy and legal reasons led to this arrangement. If, in fact, the AFA doesn't get retroactive accrual back to the middle of last year, that is a loss for the flight attendants.

I should also note that in some cases (like SAM) the DC is part of a 401(k) match. In other cases, there is no match required.

 

[mmahpeel]

ummm... call me crazy but wasn't this the original offer from UA?

FA4UA

I understand the original offer was only 3% only to either a DC or 401K, not 3% for the 401K match and 3% to the DC, and without the 20 mil in convertable notes.

 

[The Gopher]

I believe the salaried employees were granted something like a 3% match PLUS a 4% direct contribution months ago and without the confrontation. Typical.

SAM are getting up to 4% matching and between 2-4% direct, based on seniority + age. So if you contribute 4%, the company matches 4%, and gives 2% off the top, for a total of 10%. If you have seniority + age >40, it goes up to 11% (3% off the top). I forget what the last threshhold is.