Well here it is, the link I was looking for where the mortality information came from -apparently a Boeing study based on retiree data.
http://home.att.net/~coachthee/Archi...rementage.html
I live in the real world Mr Midland. I knew the contract I signed and I have watched BA rack-up record debt levels by buying pure cr@pola, whilst running an operation that makes a whelk stall look like a model of efficiency, and now I am expected to pay for the profligacy of others with my pension. I tell you one thing for sure - if WW gets his "real world view" imposed on OUR T's and C's then, to maintain your company's "real world competitive advantage", yours are in for a beating as sure as eggs are, well, eggs.
The raw fact is I flat-out will not accept the cancellation of my contract, the doing of which will enrich Mr W@lsh beyond the dreams of Cresus, (the particularly sordid part of the whole proposition). If BA cancel the pension, OR bidline, then its game over. If we are all going down the contractor route, and I still maintain that this is the route WW would like to take - indeed his pension "proposals" are so outlandish as to all but guarantee a strike, which makes me think he is trawling for a shut down excuse, then what is there to lose? Sure, I should be an altruist and toil away, mortality data in mind, for the better good of BA, like it was a religious order perhaps. I dont think so - the current management "team" are set on out bully-boying even Mr O Le@ry's cack-handed mob. I've seen more loyalty amongst parking attendants than they can drum up between them, and indeed I now feel the raw contempt for them they so regularly show us.
No, its game over for that sorry lot and I dont give a ..mn. Like it or not, and I'd be the first to say the independants have had a raw deal over many years - the Dan Air takeover being a particularly sorry example - BA WAS the benchmark contract. If they get away with this then EVERY UK professional pilot is going to feel a very chill wind indeed - their companies will HAVE to in order to maintain a cost differential.
I will fight for my contract and if we lose then its pastures new and no looking back.