Disability Benefits For Pilots Over Age 60

[yycflyguy]

HERE WE GO AGAIN!

[Noo]

If they wanted to work past 60 why wouldn't they make sure the contract provides disability benefits for that age range? Especially when they didn't have the financial means to make ends meet if they had a health problem. 60-65 would be the most likely time that you are going to experience health issues in your career. If you don't have the money to look after yourself then retire at 60 and take your pension. This just seems crazy to me.

I shudder to think what disability benefits for 60-65 are going to cost the other pilots at Air Canada during the next contract negotiation.

[Old fella]

So let me understand this as somebody outside looking in, an AC pilot beyond 60 yrs of age cannot get any type of disability financial compensation should he/she be unable to perform their duties in the cockpit. The only redress available is to go on immediate pension which 60 yrs of age and above is unreduced in order to receive income. If so well that is blatant discrimination because pilots can do their jobs until 65 yrs as their best before date expires then.

[altiplano]

No, it's if they HAVE and are eligible for an unreduced pension, they are ineligible for disability.

ie.25+ pensionable years at AC and 60+ years old.

If you aren't eligible for an unreduced pension, and are over 60, you ARE eligible for disability.

[altiplano]

25-40 years in a well paid job, and a pension waiting that pays above the average Canadian salary.

Hardly discrimination... you can't be backstopped for every eventuality in this world... That's just the way it goes... fill your bank account while you can, and know you have full disability until you need your full pension... it's a pretty decent deal.

[atphat]

I want all the cake. I would like to eat it too.

[altiplano]

I want all the cake. I would like to eat it too.

I have all the cake and I have eaten most of it... better bake me some more.

[Rockie]

Still some holdouts incapable of recognizing age discrimination even when it’s laid out on a platter before their faces for years now. In the words of the almighty Donald...sad.

But that doesn’t explain the desire to deny sick benefits to your co-workers. You guys have a mile wide mean streak that just won’t go away.

[altiplano]

Says the generation that brought us b-scale and lost the DB pension, instituted pay groups and flat pay, and has left our contract in generally piss poor shape.

Talking about "mile wide streaks" it's more like a mile wide entitlement streak, from the generation that keeps on taking.

It's nothing personal, I don't expect the insurance when I get there... if it can be achieved at no cost to the membership, great, I'd be happy to see you have it... but disability insurance forever isn't a right... so I doubt it can...

We will have to pay. It will require more give to get this insurance extension, and there is not much left to give.

Maybe the 777 Captains, or everyone over 59 with six figure pensions in the bank, can go on strike... I'm cheering for you...

[Rockie]

Your attitude has been left behind by humanitarian progress Altiplano. You’ll find out just how far when you discover you need what others gained on your behalf despite your misguided and deliberately uninformed opposition.

[Sinister]

Still some holdouts incapable of recognizing age discrimination even when it’s laid out on a platter before their faces for years now. But that doesn’t explain the desire to deny sick benefits to your co-workers. You guys have a mile wide mean streak that just won’t go away.

Watch the song sung change when each reaches age 60, just like it did for the members of the Age 60 Committee who fought the repeal of mandatory retirement on "principle" then put their principles behind them when the opportunity to earn the big bucks came their way after they turned 60.

[altiplano]

Your attitude has been left behind by humanitarian progress Altiplano. You’ll find out just how far when you discover you need what others gained on your behalf despite your misguided and deliberately uninformed opposition.

If it's humanitarian, then I'm sure, if not this tribunal, there is a committee somewhere that will force the corporation to give it to you. I think that's great if it's the case.

But there is no way we should take a hit somewhere else in our deal to get it...

[Rockie]

But there is no way we should take a hit somewhere else in our deal to get it...

Back to this one. Everything in negotiations is a tradeoff, not that it's been proven there would be one in this case since it has nothing to do with negotiations and many other reasons. However just because you completely lack any foresight whatsoever or interest outside of your immediate wants and desires doesn't mean you're right.

[Duke Point]

Still some holdouts incapable of recognizing age discrimination even when it’s laid out on a platter before their faces for years now. In the words of the almighty Donald...sad.

But that doesn’t explain the desire to deny sick benefits to your co-workers. You guys have a mile wide mean streak that just won’t go away.

You spend way too much time on the forum trolling for trouble for someone who is suppose to be "enjoying retirement"........

Its ironic that you would use the phrase..." a mile wide mean streak that just won't go away".......you kill me.

[Rockie]

You spend way too much time on the forum trolling for trouble for someone who is suppose to be "enjoying retirement"........

Well....

1. I'm not retired nor at your previous arbitrary retirement age, and;
2. Are people supposed to discard their ethics and humanity when they retire? And;
3. Don't count on me doing that when I do retire. You'll be disappointed.

[Doug Moore]

Still some holdouts incapable of recognizing age discrimination even when it’s laid out on a platter before their faces for years now. In the words of the almighty Donald...sad.

But that doesn’t explain the desire to deny sick benefits to your co-workers. You guys have a mile wide mean streak that just won’t go away.

You spend way too much time on the forum trolling for trouble for someone who is suppose to be "enjoying retirement"........

Its ironic that you would use the phrase..." a mile wide mean streak that just won't go away".......you kill me.

Been a while since I've been here. This month is the 10th anniversary of my being retired. Don't know where the time goes but it seems to go faster and faster the older I get! The job wasn't my life but even today, every time an airplane flies overhead I still look up - just as I did when I was a 10 year-old kid. I would be less than honest if I didn't admit that even 10 years later, I still miss the people I worked with and the many great layovers where, before the days of daily frequency, those 4 and 5 day layovers in places like Rome, Lisbon, Amsterdam and Sydney, were like mini-vacations. Many great memories.

Well, those days are long gone and the job today is not like it was 30 or 40 years ago. The title of this thread caught my attention and having read through the comments it's clear that regrettably, with regards to the senior vs junior discussions, not much has changed in the 10 years that I've been out of the system. It got me to thinking about an old joke (and maybe it still makes the rounds) about the pilot seniority system wherein it was described as being akin to a ladder with the "old" senior guys at the top, who when looking down the ladder, saw nothing but the keen smiling faces of the ambitious, younger pilots below them wanting to move up. And those smiling younger faces below, as they looked up, well all they saw were assholes. It was just a simple joke, in a time when we could laugh at ourselves, a time before political correctness and easily offended sensibilities. The thing of it all is, forums such as this has revealed that those at the top who were looking down the ladder thinking they were seeing only a younger version of themselves have come to realize that, sadly, some of those younger guys are not a younger version of themselves at all, but rather are the epitome of what the young guys profess to be looking up at - they just haven't come to realize it yet.

There was also another old saying about the seniority system: "IN time, YOUR time will come; in the meantime, DO time." What some have not come to accept, or worse, are not aware, is that doing time is the critical part of becoming knowledgeable, aware and informed. A case in point being these disability benefits. As a 30 or 40 year-old, one may see no need but as one gets older one will come to appreciate those benefits being there, and particularly so if the day comes when that benefit is needed. If one never needs it, consider it "good fortune" at having won the health lottery, and if a fellow pilot ever needs it, be happy for him or her that it is there. And in the meantime, everybody pays for it by "doing" time.

[Raymond Hall]

The title of this thread caught my attention and having read through the comments it's clear that regrettably, with regards to the senior vs junior discussions, not much has changed in the 10 years that I've been out of the system.

Agreed, Doug, not much appears to have changed in pilots' attitude. I love your analogy. Perspective is often determinative of attitude.

Nevertheless, there have been significant changes in the law in the last ten years, especially with regard to age discrimination. Mandatory retirement provisions have been repealed in all Canadian jurisdictions. Pilots who strongly opposed removing the age-60 limitation are now flying to age-65, doing exactly what they opposed us doing.

The Ontario case that I cited above appears to be another in the evolution of legal game-changers. The Ontario Human Rights Tribunal finally issued a press release a couple of days ago announcing the decision, and the story has been picked up in several newspapers, including the Toronto Star. Expect a long report in the Globe and Mail very soon (I was interviewed yesterday, although I was not involved in that proceeding). The implications of the case are significant for not just Ontario, as the underlying Charter principles that are clearly articulated in the decision (which, in my view, are likely to withstand judicial scrutiny on review) have implications for other professions and other jurisdictions, affecting both disability insurance benefits such as dental and health plans, and disability insurance income (long-term disability).

I use the word "evolution," because indeed nothing happens overnight. It has been 12 years since we first brought the age cases before the CHRT. And some of those cases are still ongoing. There are about 45 pilots still before the CHRT regarding their termination of employment prior to the repeal of the mandatory retirement provision, and I have another 18 presently before the Federal Court of Appeal regarding the dismissal of their complaints by the CHRC after the Federal Court of Appeal dismissed our Charter case in 2012.

The 2012 FCA decision that ended the Vilven proceedings was based upon a decision of the Ontario Court of Appeal, "Bedford," dealing with the legal doctrine called "stare decisis" (pronounced STAR-EEE DEE-CY-SIS). It held that in order to deal with the Charter issue on mandatory retirement, the Tribunal and the Courts were bound by a 1990 decision of the Supreme Court of Canada dealing with the mandatory retirement of university professors. The FCA said that because of the binding precedent we could succeed only by having the SCC overturn is 1990 decision. So it overturned the previous upholding of the complaints by the Tribunal and the Federal Court below. We applied to the SCC for leave to appeal, but because the SCC can only hear about 80 cases per year in total, it filters applications based upon criterial of "national importance," granting leave only to about one-tenth of the applications. As the statutory provision permitting mandatory retirement had already been repealed by the date of our application for leave, the probability of getting leave was very low, and indeed our application for leave was dismissed.

Soon after, the Ontario Court of Appeal Beford decision was overturned by the SCC. The SCC said that lower courts could indeed revisit prior binding SCC decisions, under limited circumstances, including changes in evidence and changes in law after the prior decision.

So even though the prior complaints were dismissed, we recently re-filed our Charter argument with the CHRT in the remaining ongoing cases. Twelve years, and counting... But as Yogi Berra so succinctly stated, "It ain't over 'till its over!" The recent Talos decision may be an indication of how the argument might actually be viewed by the Tribunal when the Charter issue is decided (in the next few months).

Incremental changes are occurring. Gradually societal attitudes with respect to traditional forms of age discrimination are eroding. Too late for both you and me, however.

My Richmond law office is under the flight path between YVR 26L and 26R. As a result, I am distracted every few minutes by aircraft passing overhead—aircraft that were so much a part of my life. I often see the very aircraft that I used to operate passing right overhead, likely operated by some of the very individuals who staunchly objected to you and I flying at the age that they now possess. Like you, I loved that work and everything that it entailed, but inexorably, life moves on...

[Sharklasers]

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[altiplano]

Make it optional insurance for everyone over 60 with an unreduced pension available... and let them pay for it themselves of they want it. Same choice for everyone when they get there.

Forcing people, who don't want that insurance, to pay for others is BS...

Maybe we could come up with an actuarial calculation of a reduction in your pension to pay for your GDIP past 60, if you decide that's you want that...

I mean, we'll all pay for it if we stay and want GDIP coverage after we qualify for an unreduced pension. Or we can let it ride and hope to stay healthy, and leave with our 6 figure pensions if we don't... kinda like the survivor benefit choice.

Same deal for everyone. That's equal treatment. Pay for it yourself.

Or maybe we should take it off pension benefits for years 30-35 to pay for it, MPU reductions for years 30-35.... hell, let's get rid of DB years over 30 altogether. That would probably pay for your insurance and then some!

[Raymond Hall]

How much more time should the 55 year olds sitting in the Airbus who had the prospect of a long early fully funded retirement taken from them by Ray Hall be expected to "do".

Well, sir (madam?), I am flattered, but truly, you give me far too much credit. I did not repeal mandatory retirement. Parliament did. What I did was tell you six years before it actually happened that it was going to happen and that you could actually get some cash from the resulting monetary saving, cash that would likely far outweigh any cost to your career, if and only if you changed your attitude.

Air Canada, in its 2013 Annual Report posted a $125 million gain that it directly attributed to the pilot collective agreement reduction in training costs as a result of the repeal of mandatory retirement in 2012. My plaintiff appeal was then, and still is now, interpreted by you and your peers as a selfish attempt to personally benefit, resulting almost consistently in attacks against me for sounding the alarm. And the financial gain to the union was given 100% to the employer. You got nothing for it. Nothing.

Trying to encourage a younger pilot to see the impending change in law, given the tenor of social change in the country at that time was like trying to warn a cottage owner on the Big Island now, looking resolutely at the ocean and admiring the view while lava silently flows down behind his cottage at an ever advancing pace.

Similarly with the existing legal situation. There is an inexorable change continuing to occur in the legal landscape with respect to age discriminatory regimes, including disability income and disability insurance. I started this thread because the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal decision is like the canary in the coal mine. Apparently, despite recent history, and despite any notice that you might be provided of the dynamic, the only time that you will recognize what is about to happen is after the regulatory change overtakes you.