I am bringing this to
your attention because our current contract becomes amendable on May 4, and some pilots
who are scheduled to retire on or after May 1 may be under the impression that they too,
will receive this income supplement. That is not the case. LOA 14-1 only applies to a
named list of pilots who have retired during the course of contract ’95.
Our Negotiating
Committee plans to bargain for retirement benefits for this entire pilot group, as well as
some form of retroactive retirement benefits for pilots who will retire on or after May 1
and before a new contract is signed and ratified. However, for those of you who reach age
60 after our amendable date in May, you should understand that the company has no current
plan to provide the retirement supplement.
Pilots Delinquent or
in Bad Standing
Whatever your reason,
and however much you owe, your identity and the amounts owed will soon become a matter of
public record. Your fellow pilots who pay their bills are very interested. If you are
behind in your payments I urge you to contact one of the MEC officers soon to rectify the
situation.
PBS
If you have not yet
completed and returned the PBS Development Survey, please do so as soon as possible. The
PBS Committee needs your feedback to make sure that the PBS program will meet this pilot
group’s needs in terms of ease of use and functionality. The forms are available in
the T4 pilot lounge, as well as the web site. You can return them to the ALPA box in the
pilot lounge or fax them to the MEC office.
Fenix Flight
Local Council
Meeting
That’s it for this
week. The next hotline will be Thursday, April 20. Thanks for listening. And remember,
wear your ALPA pin and green badge.
Negotiations
LOA 14-1
Delinquent and Bad Standing
PBS
Fenix Flight
Local Council Meeting
MEC Hotline
Good evening, this is MEC Chairman Roger Cox
with the MEC Hotline update for Thursday, April 13. Tonight’s topics are:
Our negotiating team has been in Washington DC this week completing another week-long
session. Negotiating Committee Chairman Pete Neff will provide an update tomorrow evening
on the Negotiating Committee KIT system hotline. Nine sections and two side letters have
been addressed and are essentially finished. This means that approximately one third of
the total subject matter is nearly complete even though we have not yet reached the
amendable date. In many ways this is excellent progress. The more difficult distributive
(money) issues now lay before us. As many of you know, both the company and our side have
made changes to our respective teams, but the roadmap and schedule remain on track. If you
have further questions about our negotiating team I encourage you to talk with your local
council reps or a pilot-to-pilot volunteer.
I would like to bring to your attention letter of agreement 14-1: Mandatory Retirement
Supplement in our current contract. Many of you do not know that under LOA 14-1, the
company agreed to pay certain specified pilots $920 per month, from the time of their
retirement at age 60 until they began receiving Social Security benefits. This agreement
was made because those designated pilots would have retired at age 60 with absolutely no
company-paid retirement benefits.
Paying your bills is a basic responsibility of adulthood. We always have a few who get
behind in paying their ALPA dues, and we spend a good bit of time and effort reminding
them to pay up. There are those who have financial reverses or bookkeeping
misunderstandings; for them ALPA has very reasonable payment plans and good customer
service to discuss your questions. There are others who deliberately play the delinquency
game, falling far behind, waiting for a warning, then paying a small amount and staying in
arrears forever.
The PBS Committee also plans to update its KIT system hotline message today at 5pm. This
week’s message will include information on the second A320 parallel bid run for bid
165.
The March-April issue of the Fenix Flight is currently at the printer and should arrive at
your home address within the next two weeks. If you would like to submit articles for the
May-June issue, please do so by May 1. Previously, the deadline for articles has been the
15th of each month; however, in an attempt to get the Fenix Flight to you in a
more timely manner, we have moved up the deadline to the first of each month.
The next Local Council meeting will be held next Tuesday, May 9. The time and location
will be announced at a later time.