Q: Why is sick leave not paid out 100% when I retire?
There is no federal or state requirement for vacation or sick leave to be cashed out upon retirement. Anything we have needs to be bargained. Today, sick leave cash out is 25% of your total sick leave balance, regardless of the balance and we wanted an improvement.
We were able to get the same percentage cash out as pilots, which was based on their total bank. Our agreement will actually be better, because it was based on a percentage of 1700 TFP (the previous sick leave cap). The payout percentage stayed the same even though we successfully increased the sick leave bank balance to 2400 TFP.
Although we would prefer 100% cash out regardless of balance, at the end of the day the Company was not willing.