To what extent is this driven by the members? For example if the goal is to get a job as senior officer, get your ticket punched then go shoreside - in that case a member might be willing to take lower wages.
There’s other scenarios where that might be the case.
Many funds.union or not took big hits during the Recession. As did I in my pennies invested. No one was safe. Appears you have taken the time to research on AMO, have you spent your precious time to investigate the other unions gains or losses during that same time period?. Take the time to research how AMO fund is doing now and rated by the government "Rating.authorities’ Much better since the McKays upheavel. Note also, dues have not been raised for many years, the medical is good as it’s ever been, the defined pension was discontinued because it was only 60 or so percent funded after the McKay disaster. Check those numbers today, much higher, I think in the upper 80’s…I think the goal is to bring back the defined pla if it can be monetarily feasable,while protecting the overall plan. Less than 10% of the country still honors defined pension plans. Sad to see that. Many went underwater trying to honor that and if they survived, greatly reduced pensions.
One nice thing. The McKays went to prison for stealing pension funds. When is the last time a CEO of a corporation went to prison for bankrupting a defined benefit plan? For that matter, what happened to Chouest when they decided that they wouldn’t contribute to the employees 401k because they weren’t in the mood? Chouest hid conditions of the matching contribution in the fine print. Employees took Chouest at their word but didn’t read the fine print. Chouest said they would match IF they could afford it. Apparently they couldn;t afford it and buy fuel for their corporate jets so they did not. Perfectly legal. At least with a union you have some recourse.
Well said sir as an example how tedious pension plans can be. Sadly, never got matching 401k, but still contributed the max early on because it was my money, not theirs.Both sons and wife had decent 401k plans with some matching. Good for them. When my wifes plan was taken over by a new owner who cut the matching by almost 50%, she retired. Kinda sounds like Choust and many more. Shit happens often in the benefit world. Agree,Best thing to happen to AMO was jailing the McKay brothers and electing Paul Doell to dig us out of that hole they left.
It’s amazing what progress can be made once boomers are kicked out of the way to make space for the younger brains.