Yep, he totally gutted our pensions....totally without cause. This is the kind of "businessman" Fred is. FedEx sent out the talking heads to tell us stupid employees that Fred was killing the pension in order to save it. "You see, those pesky ERISA laws are forcing us to fully fund our pension plans, so in order to do that we need to kill the Traditional Plan". All BS. FedEx could have easily afforded to keep the Traditional Plan, which was hardly generous, but much better than the Pretend Pension Plan (PPP) we have now.
Fred saved himself a bundle, by playing-off the pension mess the passenger airlines were experiencing at this time (remember, we're an "airline" too). They were losing money, while FedEx was raking it in big time. About this same time, Fred was buying-up companies. Hey, what a great place to both save and obtain some cash....The First National Employee Pension Plan Bank. He kills two birds with one stone, eliminating the retirement plan and freeing-up additional investment capital at the same time.
I still remember the required videos telling us that eliminating the pension was for us. God, what huge brass balls that one took, and yet, the believers still believed.
Fred, what a guy.
Yeah, they were already hiring in people for years under the new plan. The way I feel about it is if you go into a situation knowing you are in a cash balance plan and are ok with it that's your business. If however they offered a traditional pension when you started and you got on with them because that was important to you, they have an obligation to fulfill their promise to provide you with a traditional pension. What amazes me is FedEx can tell you every year what you've accrued in the plan so far and what your projected monthly payment at retirement will be, right up until they come out of the blue and say the rule changes are forcing them to terminate the plan, and people buy that. Exactly the same thing going on with Ground, telling us the marketplace has changed, that shippers are looking for cheaper alternatives. And people buy that, not thinking about all the Ground infrastructure they built, all the stations that were closed down, all the no longer needed stepvans replaced. Of course shippers want cheaper alternatives, they wanted them 15 years ago when they were paying through the nose for Express. But coworkers act like this is the new normal in the market, can't put 2+2 together that they've been played, been used, to get FedEx to this point. And what is criminal about it all is that it's not just shipping Ground that will get profits to almost double. It's our poor raises and our ridiculous portable pension plan too. They could have made plenty just shifting to Ground, but they just couldn't help themselves, they're control freaks who just had to stick it to us too just because they could. Pirates.