Originally Posted by
NWAFA
The NW Flight Attendants pension was frozen in 2006. DL wants to change our pensions to match those of their Flight Attendants. The DL Flight Attendants pension is offset by Social Security when they reach 65. That doesn't happen with NW Flight Attendants. We get our full negotiated pensions when we retire and our Social Security.
Even if NW Flight Attendants lose union representation, our pensions stay intact. This is something that the older DL Flight Attendants discovering. While NW Flight Attendants become DL Flight Attendants, the DL Flight Attendants won't be equal to us in this respect. They're starting not to like it.
So to treat the DL Flight Attendants more fairly, they should at least not have to suffer under the offset.
The galley gossip is pretty off-base and misleading in this regard.
Both airlines have different retirement plans. While some NW employees near retirement may get more than equally tenured DL colleagues, the Delta Retirement Plan offers the majority of flight attendants better benefits, largely because it has not been frozen or terminated.
What may be most telling is that while the non-represented DL employees have suffered the same layoffs and wage reductions as the rest of the industry, they've continued to maintain the same level of benefits and have received wage increases at a much faster rate then if the were represented.