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CAUSE

Air line pilots have long recognized the need for a retirement system which would adequately reflect and meet their peculiar needs. Plans and studies looking to the development of a retirement program began as long as ten years ago and doubtless would have come to fruition long before now except for the absorption of the energies of all the members of our profession in war.

During the war and in the immediate post-war period several air line companies established pension plans of their own. Without belittling the doubtless worthy motives which underlay the adoption of these plans, it is a reasonable speculation that the high war period profits, coupled with a high excess profits tax, led the air line companies to take the action which they did. Directly or indirectly Uncle Sam has footed most of the bills.

As the Interim Retirement Committee has shown in several different forms, these company plans are geared mainly to the needs of persons who can remain in the service of an air line employer to a relatively advanced age. While the plans do recognize that the pilots require a treatment different from that of other male employees, the recognition is so limited as to be substantially worthless. The fact that several companies have recognized the existence of a special problem with respect to pilots does, however, constitute some validation for our demands.

At the Ninth Convention in February of last year action was taken which was the direct cause of the work undertaken by the Interim Retirement Committee in the past 18 months. The enabling resolution recited the basic factors underlying the demand of air line pilots for an adequate retirement system: a short period during which air line pilots are able to function as such; the minimization of costs of existing air carrier plans and the protection provided individually by pilots; and the lack of any plans in many of the individual companies.