The presenters have been coached and come from an outside consultancy in some cases at about £1000 a day. Nice work if you can get it?

I know this is a Rumours network and we should never let the facts get in the way of a good story but I can assure you with some authority that their are no consultants doing the presenting (if there were, any worth their salt would get much more that £1000 a day by the way) and the proposal will still allow retirement at 55.

Porky
Are you a manager, because you seem unable to comprehend the significance of a change to the NRA.
Yes, you can still retire at 55 but your pension will be substantially reduced as you would then be retiring "early".
As an example: a 40 yr old who has already served 15 years can expect a 35%c reduction in pension if he retires at 55 instead of continuing to 65. This pension is then capped at 2.5% max per annum so will be worth very little after just a few years if there is any significant inflation!

Managers should be ashamed at the prospect of benefitting by massive bonuses just from robbing their staff. Or are you enjoying peddling these lies to your own people?

Do the crews really have any chance, though? I doubt it. Just another summer of discontent, but back to work as normal early Sept....

Guys,

You can retire whenever you want after 50, or 55 when the law changes.

Your pension to-date cannot be touched, this only counts for future pensions.

If you CHOOSE to work longer, you will not only earn the extra money (i.e. at least 40% more than you would receive if you retired and drew pension) , but, assuming you have paid into the pension for a few years already, within a year or two you'll be back at full pension, and if you CHOOSE (a choice you didn't have before) to work longer you'l earn even more from your pay and get an even bigger pension.

Come on guys the pensions world is changing, wishing it would stay the same isn't going to help you and if you force BA to pay the whole wad, then I doubt we'll be around long enough for you to draw a pension. One little crisis and we're up !!!!! creek.

I love the rumour about the 1000 pound coaching for presenters. Got any other gems? How about we start one... ummm I know, Willie is going to get 100% pension after 2 years. there you go, spread that one about a bit....

Also, what is the hang up about management bonuses? SMs and above have not incremental pay awards and they can can sacked and shown the door on the same day of the screw up. Thier job is to keep the company going despite all of the crap/oil prices/industrial unrest etc, your job is to fly the palnes. it's horses for courses. How would you like to be on Performance related pay and bonus dependant on how much money the company makes, rather than an increment, I bet you'd be less inclined to stike if it would hit you in the pay check???

Crash_and_Burn

A little disingenuous don't you think? I don't have a "choice" under the new proposals as leaving at 55 would cost money - the extra years working would only get you back to the position you thought you had before. Once past that point you would, I agree, begin to build up extra pension but at the cost of your life expectancy............

With respect Crash, you're missing the point.

I am happy with the principle that if I CHOOSE to work for longer I will earn more and get a bigger pension. What I object to is effectively being FORCED to work significantly longer for the pension I was expecting at 55. As I said earlier, my figures mean I break even at about the age of 63, which is eight years longer than the current situation. If I am in fact able to leave as planned at 55, I will get a 40% cut in my pension. That is neither practical nor fair.

If I leave at 63, before the proposed Normal Retirement Age, I will still take a cut in my pension compared to staying for the last two years....

and finally....

No. I won't be earning any more money. In fact, I will be working those last ten years for what amounts to a third of my pay. Why? Well, under the current system I will get two thirds of my salary at 55 for not working for BA (I consider it deferred pay - they could have paid me significantly more per month but with no pension but they chose to do it this way). If I now have to work those extra ten years, I will only be getting a third more than I would have done had I been retired.

Consider the people who are actually going to have to live with this before you start spouting the management lies. :hmm:

I am speaking as one of the lucky ones that retired from flying, still in part 6 (APS) and able to commute a tax free sum. I also had a crystallised pension as my NRA was 50 and CRA 55. Will the NRA=CRA or will there still be CRA>NRA and the facility to crystallise in the proposals?

Back to the quoted post...

Before looking at this presentation be aware that my wife's pension (if she survives me) is 50% of my pension BEFORE commutation. The break even point where the loss in pension on a monthly basis is greater than the tax free sum is when (if) I reach about 78 years old. With my wife it doesn't apply as her pension (assuming she survives me) will not have changed by taking the lump sum.

Perhaps if the presenter were in receipt of the present BA pension rules he might just come to a different conclusion.

Nobody want to compare figures with those in the rest of aviation.No?, I didn't think so, not out loud anyway. Oh well, gave you all a laugh!
Just trying to interject a little perspective.:cool:

Ok, I'll bite.:rolleyes:

I don't work in the rest of aviation. I work in my own bit of it and that bit promised me a decent pension at 55, which they're now trying to take away. How would you feel?

With reference to the capping of the pension at 2.5% instead of 5% I was able to cull the following information using the RPI figures from the Office of National statistics.

Over the last 57 years,

Yearly inflation remained at or below 5% for 64.5% of the time.

Yearly inflation remained at or below 2.5% for 19.3% of the time.

I'd feel screwed.....looks like your "bit" of aviation just jumped into the sewer that is the rest of aviation:\

Hi All!
BA are flying one enormous great kite but I'll leave you guys to decide that for yourselves.
What interests me is Balpa's position with regards collective bargaining.I'm not sure that Balpa legally can reach an agreement with BA on this matter and either party have any right to expect the pilot(s) to accept it.What about those who are not Balpa members?(This is a relatively minor point but think about it).Industrial law may have changed and I'm no expert but I believe any pilot if he or she so wished could say "No,I'd like to stick with my present pension arrangement".There are some close to retirement or elsewhere who might be inclined to test this in a court of law.This present "Con" compares slightly to the case of the APS/NAPS merger.Just because BA are suggesting something doesn't mean it'll stand up to legal/professional scrutiny.
On the other hand someone should ask Balpa where they stand if they don't like the final settlement.
Bob Ayling saw a window of opportunity with the pensions merger and likewise WW with this debacle.I wish all you guys all the best for the future.HTH.
As an american once said "How do you get to be the world's most profitable airline?Get the staff to subsidise it."

If you had cause to strike it should be against the amount of tax you pay. Scotch Gordon has robbed your and everyone elses' pension fund to the tune of GBP5 billion per year for the last 9 years and you want to blame the company. Gordon must be having a good chuckle. To add insult to injury, he is giving your money to his client electorate in the civil service and local government so that they can retire at 60. Wake up boys!!

Human factor,

Yes I too would be P*****s'd! Again it all depends on which side you sit. A, B or C pay scale. Should one group of workers within the same company effectively get a rise in pay at the expense of the the others, as happens when companies allow two types of funding schemes.

Let me see if I've got this right.

Everybody else in the World is losing their pension and being stuffed by meglomaniac bosses, so I'm afraid you airline pilots are going to have this crap visited on you.

It has no postive impact on safety. It cannot enhance customer service. It greatly increases the chances of an accident. But we have to put up with it, so bend over and smile sweetly at the boss.

Give me a break:*

I think the cost of the Chancellors Pension Raid on APS and NAPS combined was just over £822 M to date.:mad:

Oops
 

Interesting snippets in today's press :

http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,1745465,00.html

and last paragraph here :

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/mai...03/ixcity.html

So, with NAPS's world beating investment advisers we should all be well ahead.

This letter to the UK newspaper The Independent in early April, is the kind of small straw that the pilots should be keeping a record of. It beautifully states the problem that they have and shows the destruction of pensions across industry lines and governments. The more of these small items that they can collect - and generate - then they will raise the profile to the British public and perhaps, just perhaps, start to humiliate the Board and shareholders. If they can prove how the previous Board got away with the robbery, then it may be possible to convince this lot to put it back. Gordon Brown's dirty hands not withstanding. It says it all in 220 words.

Sir: May I add to the letters responding to your leading article (29 March) on public-sector pensions. When I joined local government in 1971, all staff over 18 were required to join the Local Government Pension Scheme. It was a non-negotiable condition of service that we do so, as was the condition that we pay 6 per cent of our salary into it. There was no choice about joining the scheme, nor about the contributions. Nor were we allowed to join any other scheme instead. If I had refused to join the scheme, my contract of employment would have ended.

In exchange, I was promised the pension deal outlined by Unison. By the 1980s the Thatcher government decided that this was restrictive and all employees should have the choice of joining a private scheme, even to transfer their previous contributions to it. In common with most employees, I stayed where I was.

This meant I was still entitled to the pension deal outlined by Unison. I have kept my part of the deal, the deal which I had no choice but to accept, for over 30 years. It is insulting enough that the pension promise is being broken; that local government staff have been singled out in this way, when teachers and civil servants have not, makes it more so.
JOANNE ASTON

Would anyone like to illuminate us to the pension deal that the directors enjoy and whether their bonus whould be affected by getting this through.

As an outsider (on a pension) I would suggest that any trade off agreed should be balanced by an equivalent share of the equity in the airline.