Viewing page 5 of 45

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

-3-

Next, we know that there is solid support within the Association for contractual provisions permitting financially-protected early retirement by airline pilots. That support reflects, in our view, the feeling of the membership of this Association that no outsider should have the power to tell an airline pilot that he must retire at any specified age, and the feeling that so long as they can maintain their physical and other qualifications for this profession, and so long as they wish to continue flying, airline pilots should, like every other citizen of this country,be in a position to continue their careers. We fully support the right of an airline pilot to decide to retire with financial protection at age 45, age 55 or age 65 as a matter of his own individual and very personal decision.

Which should be contractually protbltied [[prohibited?]] by suitable provison under-the rail road labor act

We believe that it is a proper function of the Association to protect and increase the total dollar value of the flying career which airline pilots may reasonably anticipate. Each year of an airline pilot's career at top earnings levels will soon be worth more than $50,000. When we talk about the difference between retirement at age 60 and, say, age 65, we're really talking about more than a quarter of a million dollars, not too many years from now.

Finally, the creation of our Committee was particularly timely in 1968 because it followed shortly after the passage by Congress of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, which became effective this year. This legislation made crystal clear that is was contrary to the conscience and policy of our nation for employers to terminate the career of any person between the ages of 40 and 65 solely because of his chronological age. In one broad sweep, this new statute outlawed all the age discrimination in employment practiced in this Country with one single exception--the discrimination practiced against airline pilots by the Federal Aviation Administration. While the new law outlawed discrimination boy employers, it failed to reach exactly the same kind of discrimination when it was committed by an arm of our Federal Government. If the FAA compulsory retirement rule had been established by an airline, it would clearly have been invalidated by