Fanblade wrote:Very very few words in that post that are not for the explicit purpose of discrediting.
That's rich coming from the guy who wrote this:
Fanblade wrote:Actually I think the important thing for me to understand is that Rockie's persona dominates the age 60 debate on this forum. If he doesn't like the message he will use whatever means neccassary to, drive the unwanted message into confusion, bury it in pages and pages of diatribe, personal attacks, or simply wear out your adversary and drive them to give up. Which ever comes first. It's a domination strategy. It's not about free speech, open dialogue or the truth. It's not about facts. It's all about the belief that reality isn't reality. Rather perception is reality. In this alternate reality even numbers add up differently.Actually, its just about controlling the message.I get it.
You really don't like being disagreed with do you?
Ah_yeah wrote:Gawd, the more one ponders this, the more strange the outcomes could look.
I have been following this issue with keen interest, primarily for its impact on other unions and employers in the federal jurisdiction. Here’s how I see this unfolding, assuming that the court of appeal decision goes in favour of the coalition (an assumption that is anything but certain).
Given the potential liability to both ACPA and Air Canada, I expect both to seek leave to appeal from the Supreme Court of Canada. They will be unsuccessful, I predict, as one or two things will determine the outcome of the application. First, the Federal Court of Appeal will make its decision bullet-proof. Second, the SCC will decline to hear the case on the basis that there is nothing of significant national importance to justify it hearing the appeal.
Regardless, if the FCA decides in favour of the litigants the case will be referred back to the Tribunal for a final decision on liability in accordance with the wording of the FCA decision. Only the Tribunal has jurisdiction to decide the complaints, not the FCA, so it will be up to the Tribunal to issue the final decision on the complaints, upheld or not upheld.
There are two consequences of the coalition pilots winning at the FCA and the Tribunal. First, the 70 pilots in this proceeding will be entitled to a Tribunal hearing on remedy. It will likely not be scheduled for months after the Tribunal decision is out, given the glacial pace at which the Tribunal has heard and decided the cases in the past as well as the difficulty of finding dates when all counsel are available for one or more very lengthy hearings.
Nevertheless, the consequences of the FCA decision, including the financial significance of the downside, will eventually filter down to the average line pilot and there will undoubtedly be a very emotional reaction as a result. I expect ACPA to experience considerable turmoil dealing with all aspects of this, including how to eventually satisfy all of the judgments. The questions posed above will need to be answered, especially, who pays and how much. It should be remembered, however, that this is not a class action suit. There will not be one single award of $x. There will be individual awards to each complainant pilot, and each award will come at different times in varying degrees of sequence as the remedy hearings are heard and the awards are decided by the Tribunal. Also, each award will vary according to evidence specific to that pilot's circumstances. Death by 200 cuts.
Second, the present FCA case involves only 70 complainants. As I understand it, there are about 130 other pilot complainants whose complaints have been held in abeyance awaiting the outcome of these court proceedings. The Tribunal will schedule those complaints for hearings and the hearings should likely be expedited, at least as far as the liability issue is concerned, given that almost all of the liability issues will have already been decided by the courts.
In any dispute there is always the possibility of a settlement, but in my view, given the size of the potential liability as well as a recent change in law regarding wrongful dismissal damages (pension payments are not necessarily deducted from damage awards, based on a SCC decision of last year, adding a sizeable potential sum to each damage award in the case of pilots earning a six figure pension), the chances of settlement are slim—both Air Canada and ACPA will undoubtedly vigorously oppose any sizeable payment to any pilot.
As suggested in a previous post, the potential total liability is huge. But it is not unprecedented. In 2011 the Supreme Court of Canada upheld a Tribunal decision from the same Tribunal member who decided this case, awarding over $150 million in damages to employees and former employees of Canada Post in the pay equity Tribunal decision.
Again, all of the above is speculation based on the tenuous assumption that the coalition pilots win on all three of the appeals at the FCA. If they lose on any of them, none of the above scenarios is likely to come to pass.
Need some insight on "when this should have started" please go to my post today, (Dec 11 2014) on this site, titled Age 60.
There are to areas of interest, Canada, and the USA.
This issue started back in the 1950's.
I would assume.....that time line, is soon enough for you?
As Bluemic has very clearly stated, (on his way, to and from the sofa) acpa, has dragged you all into this for one very, very specific reason, they (select group in the various MEC's) wanted to get rid of the senior pilots as quickly as possible while benefiting their move up the list.
I’m not now and never have been one of the FP60 litigants – I keep repeating this in the hopes that my views will be accepted as an observer and not a participant with an interest in the legal outcome of the January 2015 court hearing.
It would appear that only the intervention of a certified Actuary is going to settle this income loss/gain debate between Fanblade and Rockie, and given that actuarial services are very expensive I suspect such an intervention will never happen here to settle things to the agreement of all.
My personal point of view is that an Actuary would conclude very quickly that there are simply too many dynamic variables at play throughout a pilot’s career that would prevent any reasonable set of assumptions being developed and applied to an income projection model. Actuaries rely on statistical data to develop assumptions such as life expectancy or interest rates. There is no data to reliably predict a company’s health 20 -30 years out (expansion or retraction) and there certainly is no data to reliably predict individual pilot bidding patterns.
As I have stated before, I’m with Rockie vis-à-vis the consequence of the removal of mandatory retirement at age 60 and its effect on seniority progression/income loss/gain. Fanblade, on the other side of the debate, is very passionate and certain of the opposite effect on the pilot’s career.
I believe all can agree that there has been a definite slowdown in seniority progression due to a slowdown in retirements, and agree also that this is a short-term effect, in as much as by 2017 retirements will resume at pre-2012 rates.
The effect of this 5-year hiatus on income is a much more contentious issue. Fanblade has developed a chart based on what I presume are some form of (actuarial-like) assumptions that leads to a projected career income loss, the effect of which is greater on the more junior pilots. I believe that I understand Fanblade’s logic and as I explained in a previous post, I believe that his logic is flawed in as much as it is impossible to develop actuarial assumptions that could be applied to a projection of a pilot’s future income.
I was content (sort of) to leave it at that (agree to disagree) but the thought kept gnawing away that surely there must be a way using Fanblade’s preferred method (math) to demonstrate what I believe to be true: that at the end of a career, a pilot’s total income will not be in the loss column, but rather a gain at best, or break-even at worst.
I came up with a chart (see attachment below) showing years of service from 1 to 40. With each of these years is assigned a symbolic wage amount. To keep the math simple, Year 1 was assigned a wage of $1000 with each subsequent year increasing by $1000 thereby representing an expected wage uplift (be it an increase due to equipment change, right seat to left seat, or just an annual across-the-board raise). So, in column 1 are years of service and column 2 are annual pay rates where Year 1 = $1000, Year 2 = $2000, Year 5 = $5000, Year 20 = $20,000 and so on until finally Year 40 = $40,000.
I then created a column 3 that showed cumulative earnings throughout one’s career. Obviously at the end of Year 1, the cumulative earnings would be $1000. For each year thereafter would be added the previous year’s earnings. So at the end of Year 2, the cumulative earnings would be $3000, at the end of year 10 the cumulative earnings would be $55,000 and so on up to year 40 where the cumulative total is $820,000. I should state at this point that my “math” was done manually so any error is mine and unintentional.
A pilot retiring under the old system with 35 years service would have cumulative earnings of $630,000. What effect does the new regime have on a pilot who, for example, was age 40 when the rules changed? He was expecting to retire at age 60 with 35 years service and $630,000 cumulative earnings based on him “moving up” every year with an increase in pay. But at age 40 the rules changed and, to create a worst-case example, has been penalized with zero (no) advancement in pay or seniority progression for 5 years due to every pilot senior to him staying on the seniority list.
What happens now? The method I used was to go back 20 years on the chart from year 35 (60-40=20 years to retirement) and look at his salary per year (that which he would be earning at the time of the retirement rule change) and then freeze that salary for 5 years (see column 4). In this example, he would be in Year 16 of the pay scale making $16000/year and would be frozen at that rate for 5 years. At the end of the 5th year of the freeze he would start advancing again, making $17,000 in the 6th year, $18,000 in the 7th and so on up the scale with the difference being the 5 additional years between ages 60-65 now becoming income producing years at rates of 32, 33, 34, 35 and $36,000/year. Working to age 65 now increased cumulative earnings from the previously noted $630,000 to $730,000. No income loss here.
Using the same method for a pilot aged 55 (see column 5) at the time of the rule change results of a cumulative earnings increase from $630,000 to $785,000. Again, no income loss. What is the impact on the most junior pilot, for example, bottom of the list, hired on 01 Jan 2013?
For this example I created a 6th and 7th column, with the first 5 years frozen at $1000/year and after that, Year 6 at $2000, Year 7 at $3000 and all the way up to Year 40, which is now set at $36,000. Taking numbers from column 3, looking at a 35-year career with no interruptions and retirement at age 60 under the old mandatory retirement rule, we have seen cumulative earnings of $630,000. From the 6th and 7th columns, this new, bottom-of-the-list junior pilot, frozen in advancement for the first 5 years but now able to work for 40 years instead of the original 35 will see cumulative career earnings of $670,000. Admittedly, only a slight increase, but an increase nonetheless. A pilot hired in 2017 will suffer none of the freezes, and over a 40-year career will see a significant cumulative earnings increase from $630,000 to $820,000 as shown in column 3.
It bears repeating (as a reminder) that my numbers do not in any way represent actual wages. They are simple numbers used to represent, calculate and compare whether wage loss or wage gain has been caused by the change in retirement age. My logic assumes a wage increase for everyone, for each and every year, a 5-year freeze in advancement and a 5-year addition to the number of years able to be worked. I don’t claim that my chart is accurate (although I believe it to be reasonable) and I will be happy to receive any comments that might improve or reveal holes in my thinking. I am simply trying to demonstrate that over one’s career, the potential is there to earn more income and not suffer, as Fanblade postulates, an income loss.
I am sure Fanblade, that you will be first to pounce on my “math” and quick to point out that the most junior pilots, even using my model, receive the least gain – at least that’s what my chart appears to reveal. But … even the most junior seniority number doesn’t lose wages. Had ACPA taken a different approach to FP60 this inequity might have been identified and mitigated but of course history cannot be undone.
Not a factor in my chart, but a huge and significant issue nonetheless, is the ability to contribute for 5 additional years to your pension plan – particularly for those pilots who started later in life and not close to being able to achieve 35 years pensionable service. Other items that might have been negotiated had ACPA not been so recalcitrant with FP60 are the 35-year cap, early retirement penalties, indexation, survivor benefits, etc. It was disheartening to watch how quickly the pension plan went from billions in deficit to a surplus around the same time that the retirement rules changed. True, it was not all due to the change in retirement age, but the change had significant impact on the plan’s funding and the pilots didn’t see a dime of the benefit that went to (or didn’t have to be taken out of) the company’s coffers.
But, I’m off-topic, so … contemplate the above and fire away! Plug in your own circumstances and let us know how you have been impacted.
To save those posters who are going to say that they now have to work beyond age 60 against their wishes, yes, I realize that you most likely will take an early retirement benefit penalty if you choose retirement before 65. The outcome for ACPA pilots fighting FP60 has been far from optimal, but ACPA has no one but itself to blame for ignoring the opportunity to make the change in retirement age work for everyone, particularly as regards pension matters.
Your chart is correct Doug and it's a variation on the "pennies in rows on the table" example Fanblade gave. Like me you know that more years of service equals more rows of pennies which equals more money. Fanblade I think views the different levels of increase for junior guys as a loss compared to senior guys, and to illustrate it withheld pennies in his hand resulting in fewer on the table. Which of course is wrong.
Guys making more money for those years is a completely predictable inequity that the union should have addressed, but we know they chose different and convinced the pilots to sign off on what they did do instead.
I told myself I wasn't going to respond to this anymore as I didn't see any willingness to understand. Only a pit bull behaving like a troll......then you went and did a bunch of work. DARN YOU!
I will do my best to ignore him. I see he wasted no time with a preemptive attack. Putting words in my mouth and all.
Your graph is pretty much the same as mine. Mine just more simplistic. One difference that does stand out is you didn't factor in pension past age 60 for the initial column. I have simulated below by just adding 17,500/year for 5 years. 50% of final wage. The second is you need to compare apples to apples. Compensation to a specific age for everyone. One of you comments compares total compensation to age 65 of a new hire, against total compensation of the litigants to age 60. What about the 5 years of pension income missing from that tally. It is why I have used the term total compensation.
The overriding disagreement here has been this. Everyone seems to understand that total compensation to 60 is reduced by this change. The disagreement is over, is this reduction in compensation to age 60 recovered by age 65 if we continue to work. In your example the new hire was able to recoup the litigants SALARY to age 60 by about age 64 if he continued to work. He will never however recover total compensation versus the litigant by age 65.
Below are lines 35 and 40 from your chart. I amended column 1 at line 40 to demonstrate pension compensation.
You're comparing pilot to pilot Fanblade whereas we are comparing each pilot's "total compensation" only with himself pre-change and post-change. Everybody already knows there is an inequity between every different level of pilot compensation. Higher paid pilots will make more than lower paid pilots. The pilots making the most are 777 pilots. The pilots making the least are new hires. But nobody is losing unless they retire before age 65. Can we agree on that at least?
You can continue grinding your axe at the inequity of it, but unfortunately the opportunity to address it was forfeited in favour of seniority advancement while delaying the process. Not my choice as I'm sure you know - it was the pilot group as a whole and ACPA. If it bothers you that much why didn't you argue against it when it might have mattered?
My apologies Fanblade, for dragging you back into this, perhaps I should have stayed away as well … guess it has something to do with my having too much time on my hands …
I’m unaware of what caused you to bring “the litigants” into my analysis, as I don’t believe that I made any reference to them with my income comparisons. Nor was it my intent. You noted that one of my “comments compares total compensation to age 65 of a new hire, against total compensation of the litigants to age 60”, and later, “so what does it tell us about the relationship between new hires and the litigants in your scenario”?
Well, I was not attempting to develop any relationship between new-hires and the litigants. My comparison (in the instance of a 2013 new-hire) was intended to show the difference in career income between a pilot who worked for 35 years (with no 5-year hiatus) and retired at age 60 under the old rule (I agree, the litigants would fall under this description) and a pilot hired after Dec 2012 who suffers the 5-year hiatus and is able to work 5 additional years under the new rules. If you read into that that I was comparing a litigant to a new-hire today, that was not my intent. My intent was to examine if the new-hire of 2013 would have been better off (comparing only employment income) under the old regime or under the new.
My intent is to provide a chart that all pilots still working after Dec 2012 can use to analyze whether or not they might expect an income gain or loss as a result of the abolition of mandatory retirement at age 60. It is not the intent of the chart for one pilot to make a comparison against another, only a tool to allow individuals to answer the question: Will I lose income or will I gain income as a result of the change in mandatory retirement age causing a 5-year hiatus in advancement but now off-set by being able to work beyond age 60.
I didn’t factor in pension because pension income and employment income are separate, and a pilot cannot collect both at once. A pilot, before he retires (with 35 years service) or early retires, would be wise to work the numbers to see the impact of retiring vs. continuing to work. Retirement may be the preference, or maybe not – his/her choice.
The thought just struck me, by including pension income (presumably of the litigants) after age 60, are you attempting to show that today’s worker-bees, even when working 5 additional years, will not enjoy the same "total compensation" at age 65 as will have the litigants at age 65 (their employment income + their 5 years of pension income)? This is getting complicated - at least for me! Because if you are, then why stop at age 65? Pilots retiring at age 65 under the new rules will have a higher pension (due to being able to contribute up to 5 additional years to achieve 35 years pensionable service) so why not take the “total compensation” comparison out to 70 years … 75 years … heck, let’s take it to actuarial life expectancy date and draw the ultimate comparison. Yeah, yeah, I know, now we’re really getting silly.
In any event, we’ve both given (or tried to give) out best shot at this; time to let individuals mull over our thoughts and charts and draw their own conclusions. It’s been a slice - over and out!
My apologies for the "litigant" comments. I was showing my own bias I suppose. You are correct we can not collect both a pension and a salary. You have to choose one or the other. In the case of pre 2012 there was no choice. You had to take your pension.
The thought just struck me, by including pension income (presumably of the litigants) after age 60, are you attempting to show that today’s worker-bees, even when working 5 additional years, will not enjoy the same "total compensation" at age 65 as will have the litigants at age 65 (their employment income + their 5 years of pension income)? This is getting complicated - at least for me! Because if you are, then why stop at age 65?
First off BINGO! Why 65? Inaccurate comments like this.
Rockie wrote:
Incorrect. There will no doubt be some impact if a pilot still chooses to go at 60, but the severity of that impact is anything but clear. If a pilot chooses to go to 65 they will make more than they would have not only in career earnings, but also for the majority increased retirement income as well. Longer time earning a great living, and more pensionable time resulting in a better pension. Simple arithmetic if you care to look at it.
Numbers taken from your spreadsheet.
Compensation to Age 65 for ACXXXXXX F. Blade
Pre 2012 - 35 year career plus 5 year pension.
Total compensation to 65 - 717,500. Comments: includes pension 60-65
Post 2012 - 40 year career
Total compensation (junior in 2012) to 65 - 670,000 Comments: choose to work to 65
40 year career.
Total compensation ( senior in 2012) to 65 - 785,000. Comments: choose to work to 65
Now you're talking about lifetime earnings. How you could calculate that is pretty hazy and certainly nothing you could draw conclusions on I don't think.
Basically you're saying the five years extra working for a junior guy at a lower salary won't make up for what he would have made earning a pension for those same five years and that in concept I agree with only if everybody was going to get a 35 year career pre-change, but we know that's not true. In my case I will never make per year in pension what I made after a few years at Air Canada, however my pension after the change will be increased making my lifetime earnings much greater than it would have been. Assuming of course I live as long as I statistically should. The same applies for most people in the group you say is most effected since their median age on hiring was around 35. Most still won't get a full pension even after this change, but it will be greatly improved thanks to the five extra years contributing.
Any lifetime calculation for earnings would have to be specific to an individual pilot to have any meaning at all, and even then would require very large assumptions on many variables that in the end may not resemble reality.
Rockie wrote:Now you're talking about lifetime earnings.
No, total compensation to age 65. The same frame of reference you set 5 pages ago. The same frame of reference you have insisted EVERYONE will make more to, if they work to it.
Rockie wrote:Basically you're saying the five years extra working for a junior guy at a lower salary won't make up for what he would have made earning a pension for those same five years and that in concept I agree with only if everybody was going to get a 35 year career pre-change, but we know that's not true.
Correct. We were looking at longer careers in all of the scenarios. Shorter careers will produce different results. Careers where people are hired older or younger than the average age will have differing results. I never said every junior pilot working to 65 will make less. I simply refuted your claim that EVERYONE working to 65 will make more.
Rockie wrote:In my case I will never make per year in pension what I made after a few years at Air Canada, however my pension after the change will be increased making my lifetime earnings much greater than it would have been. Assuming of course I live as long as I statistically should.
Hired at a later age? Yes absolutely that could be true. The smaller the pension income the more lucrative continuing to work becomes. The pre and post 2012 difference could actually be very substantial for that individual, as the older the person is hired at, the more substantial the gain.
Why is it that ICAO is not being taken to task for mandatory retirement at 65 ? If one applies the same principles that age discrimination is illegal, it should be any age. I have my theories but I'm curious what "the panel" thinks.
[quote="Ah_yeah"]Why is it that ICAO is not being taken to task for mandatory retirement at 65 ? If one applies the same principles that age discrimination is illegal, it should be any age. I have my theories but I'm curious what "the panel" thinks
Ah_yeah wrote:Why is it that ICAO is not being taken to task for mandatory retirement at 65 ? If one applies the same principles that age discrimination is illegal, it should be any age. I have my theories but I'm curious what "the panel" thinks.
Ah_yeah wrote:Why is it that ICAO is not being taken to task for mandatory retirement at 65 ? If one applies the same principles that age discrimination is illegal, it should be any age. I have my theories but I'm curious what "the panel" thinks.
This topic could easily be the subject matter of a separate thread. Nevertheless, here is a quick snapshot of the issue.
ICAO is part of the United Nations. It is not a regulatory body. It makes standards and recommended practices that are implemented as law by its member countries. Countries can opt out of some of the provisions. Canada has elected to opt out of the maximum age restriction.
During the Tribunal hearing, I subpoenaed the head of Transport Canada as a witness. His evidence was that in Canada's submission to ICAO with respect to its original consideration of a maximum age restriction, Canada voted against any maximum age restriction because in Transport Canada's view, it would contravene the age discrimination provisions of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. One vote out of 144 or so.
The United States has not elected to opt out of the maximum age restriction; consequently, the ICAO restrictions now preclude any FAA Part 121 pilot (or equivalent, airline pilot) over age 65 from operating in USA airspace. The USA simply does not recognize the licence.
Changes in ICAO standards and recommended practices are initiated by a committee within ICAO, and only member countries can make submissions. Obviously, not every country espouses the same values as does Canada with respect to age discrimination. In fact, age was not included as a criterion in the International Declaration of Human Rights.
ICAO is part of the UN. The UN has a very strict policy against any form of discrimination, including Age Discrimination.
This is laid out in ST/SGB/2008/5 The mere mention of Age is "Prohibited Conduct".
Despite this, the UN continues to discriminate by Age in its' employment practices, a situation which is being challenged by various employees. The UN also discriminates against pilots, having an age limit of 65 in contracts, despite this being in clear contravention of the above strict policy.
Further, the November 2014 change to ICAO recommendations regarding age (no pilots over 65) is totally unsupported by any facts or data. In the justification, reference was made to the concept that medical problems in the "General Population" increase with age. No supporting data is given. What is more, in the original supporting information justifying the change from age 60., it was made clear that one cannot extrapolate medical information from the "General Population" to the Pilot Population, because those with serious disease are selected out of the Pilot Population. When ICAO looked at 15000 Pilot Years of data, they could find no reason for any mandatory age; older pilots (over 54) were found to be safer pilots, and incapacitating medical events occurred earlier. Because Scheduled Airlines have two or more pilots, no age was found to be necessary.
The Age 65 policy, and the (now dropped) Over/Under rule were put in as sops to those countries that could not get their minds around the concept that age is not disqualifying for pilots.
If the UN was serious about its' policies, ICAO would not be recommending any age at all, but relying on Medicals, Line Checks, and Simulators etc, as Canada and other countries do. Twenty plus countries have no maximum age for pilots. The experience makes it clear that age is not a valid measure for Pilot Competency.
Hopefully, the whole issue will be revisited and reality will be used to make policy, but the UN (and ICAO) are enormous bureaucracies and things move very slowly.
I see on another forum, that aprx. 20-30% of the AC pilots are retiring at age 60. How does that affect your formula? Your numbers don't make sense, on the entire issue, and it is even further reduced, due to variable retirements actually happening as we type away at this issue.
Could someone, please look and see who from the previous years of acpa work, (acpa bulletins) specifically, on the Age 60 Committee, tell, me, and the others here, who, is now past 60 from the Age 60 Committee, and who is over 60 from the various MEC's starting back around the mid time frame of 2005, lets say, and is still flying at AC even though, they fought tooth and nail to make sure the age 60 rule, booted out as many pilots as possible.
Norwegianwood wrote:The 3 wise men will render a decision in about 8 weeks! NW
Two wise men and one wise woman will render the decision. The panel was composed of Madame Justice Johanne Trudel, Justice Richard Boivin and Justice Denis Pelletier.
We are awaiting a detailed update from our counsel, but word is that things went very well for the coalition side.
