Largest pension default in American history: United Airlines

[Bluebear]

CHICAGO - A federal bankruptcy judge approved United Airlines' plan to terminate its employees' pension plans Tuesday, clearing the way for the largest corporate-pension default in American history.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/united_airlines

==

I am so sorry for our friends at United.

on edit: Judge was appointed in 1987, Reagan's legacy lives on!

http://www.ilnb.uscourts.gov/JudgeWedoff/Wedoff.htm

[Roland99]

1. And we're to put our Social Security into the stock market?

[Bluebear]

2. Yes so we can all sell pencils on the street at 75.

Criminal! #@^^^&@2@@@@@!!!!!!!

[fishwax]

9. yeah, no kidding

:grr::eyes::crazy:

[WLKjr]

5. Tell me about it

this is a REALLY GOOD EXAMPLE OF WHY BUSH'S SUPPOSED SS PLAN


WILL




NOT




WORK

[SoCalDem]

3. Another bunch of Boomers edged out of their expected retirements

just as they expected to start collecting them..So much for the "good union jobs" they all thought they had..

See how important judges are now?? Judges that are anti-union rightwingers just salivate when they hope to get these kind of cases..

In days gone by, UNITED would have been watched more closely and would not have been able to participate in "merger-mania" like they did..All those buy-outs and mergers have a loing term effect.. they DO get rid of competition, but they also weaken the parent company...

and no one notices??

9/11 was another "reason" to look away from the obvioous BAD management that leads to this kind of collapse..

The airlines were bailed out while the rubble was still smoldering..

[WLKjr]

4. This is sick, I am about to rant

It's okay for United Airlines to get rid of pension plans and declare bankruptcy so EASILY, screwing A LOT OF PEOPLE like you and me.............


BUT IT"S NOT OKAY for me or you to declare bankruptcy due to insurmountable medical expenses or some other catastrophe in a persons life. They make it harder for us to get our lives back on track while making it a piece of cake to big business.

The government FUCKS AMTRAK, yet gives a hand out to the Airlines that have a shitty business model and are continually losing money and do nothing but FUCK THIER EMPLOYEES in order to save money. What the hell is wrong with our leaders and these corporate fuckheads?

This pisses me off so much, they shit on me and others yet do favors for these turds like the big whigs at U.A.,


I hope they have a warm corner in hell, the bastards!

[Bluebear]

6. And now every airline can follow suit

and screw their workers out of what they worked years for. Yet, as you metnion, the workers cannot file bankruptcy to discharge THEIR debt.

At least those "homo's can't marry". You still happy with your voting choices, working-class Bush voters?

[SoCalDem]

8. It's NOT ONLY what they worked for.. It's RAISES they "passed on"

because they were offered "deferred benefits".. That money went straight into the pockets of their CEOs...and they laughed all the way to the bank..

Every contract with "givebacks" is money LOST FOREVER...labor STOLEN..

[blondeatlast]

21. Precisely. Give, and give, and do please give some more, so that you

can keep the job you've had with us for 15 years.

You can donate the money to my country club membership.

I have this sneaking suspicion that the unions will rise again very soon...

This is a freaking TRAGEDY.

[Occulus]

52. My union can't rise. We're forbidden by law from striking.

USPS. Can't strike. Period.

[Bluebear]

26. "Labor stolen"

Those two words are profound and exactly true.

[xray s]

11. Don't forget the taxpayers will pick up part of the tab

Pension plans are insured by the Feds (Federal Pension Benefits Guarantee Board), but not necessarily at the benefit level promised to employees.

And that Federal insurance program is in financial trouble.

The economic train wreck in BushWorld continues on in slow motion, and no one seems to care.

[Bluebear]

13. No one does care on that side. They need to stop stem cell

and gay marraige. Meanwhile the worker's future is screwed.

[More Than A Feeling]

39. Point of order: That institution is not funded by taxes

If you go to their website, you will read that it is funded by insurance premiums paid by the proprietors of the pensions, investments made by the corporation itself, and assets of plans they have taken control of.

http://www.pbgc.gov/about/default.htm

[hatrack]

57. We already picked up $20 billion in bailouts and loans for these schmucks

Guess they burned through that, and now it's time for us to pay some more - though we're not paying much compared with United employees.

Maybe they'll start caring when a bunch of airlines go on strike. Of course, they'll only "care" when MSNBCNBCBSCNNFOX runs endless hours of footage of weepy children forced to wait in airports and angry business travelers pounding car rental counters.

Then they can run headlines like "Terror in the Skies!", kind of like they did for one off-course Cessna today. :eyes:

[splat@14]

22. Problem is that now theres no choice for any a/line supporting a pension.

This ruling relieves UAL to put their money in other places to sell their reorganization plan. All the other airlines with pensions, not in bankruptcy, still have to pay their pension requirements which leaves UAL with an unfair advantage. Sends a clear message that in order to level the field, dumping the pension obligation is the thing to do.
My opinion is that this will spread beyond this industry to other hard hit sectors like manufacturing (Ford, GM, Boeing, etc).

The pensioner and the tax payer get hurt. Someone on this board said it earlier; that every Executive, and CEO ought to have their wages and bonuses stripped before any of this shit happens.

[Turn CO Blue]

33. United loses $10M per day, so stripping the bonuses

from the CEO's would perhaps only cover a day or two. I'm thinking since United has been flooding the markets with way too much capacity (too many seats compared to demand for a given route), that the airline should have been forced to liquidate one or two (or ten) company-owned aircraft to help pay off the pensions -- after all, United has thousands of aircraft (not all leased, either).

I guess the other vendors and the bankruptcy judge wouldn't have liked that though.

United is just a big clunky dinosaur. They have terrible customer service, and worse management, and it has really hurt their earning potential.

The workers will slow down or strike this week - and if United liquidates - where in the world will they all find jobs? There aren't any airlines hiring...

[SoCalDem]

7. WLKjr ...How much do WE pay our lobbyists?

Do WE offer congresspeople and senators golf weekends in Fiji? Steak dinners in the chi-chi places in DC??

Do WE stuff money in the pants (skirts) of our legislators??

Do WE offer outlandish speaking fees to rabid activists with connections to the press??

Do WE publish book after book berating and belittling the opposition??


Therein lies the problem

[WLKjr]

45. Are we supposed to start doing those things?

Becuase the thought of even attempting to do it makes me sick.

[SoCalDem]

50. Nope,because it would be impossible

BUT because we are unrepresented,we get screwed.. The sad thing is that the votes we give them are supposed to guarantee that they are working for US.. Green talks louder though..:(

[WLKjr]

53. yeah it does, it's sad

I also heard that the real ID passed 100-0 today, then some people turned around and griped about it even though they were dumb enough to vote yes for it.

frickin idiots

[IChing]

10. I see a national strike brewing

When GM does the same thing to their workers, we have possibilities growing, and that's the only positive thing I can say about this bullshit.

[phylny]

12. Incredibly scary.

This is why my husband (who will probably leave BigEvilCorporation in six years or so at age 55 or 56) is taking a lump sum. Assuming they last six years (and they should) he'll leave them and go someplace else, taking his money with him.

[rigel434]

14. tough issue

This is a tragedy which will be repeated often in coming years.

However, it is a fact that the big airlines are unable to compete with the Southwests of the world with their far less generous benefit plans. So one way or another, these fat defined benefit airline pension plans were going to go.

The thing that makes me mad is that the executives get to keep their fat benefits. I'm actually somewhat sympathetic of the obstacles big airlines face in trying to compete with these new airliners who pay their pilots half as much. But the executives should feel the pain as well.

[Bluebear]

15. Welcome to DU

Whether the airline pension plands were fat or not, they were part of a contract bewteen two parties. People made plans based on what they were promised. Now there is no recourse for the workers because they can not discharge debt like United can as a corporation.

Maybe we need to end bankruptcy protection for companies. You go out, you go out. How is that, Bushies?

[blondeatlast]

25. Where do you get the idea that Southwest offers poor benefits?

I know about 14 people that will have a mighty disagreement with you on that one.

Welcome to DU, and a handy hint--sooner or later, any statement you make is gonna be challenged. Sorry that I have to challenge your very first, but I know several people who work for Southwest, and they have nothing but praise for their employer--and I'm as big of a union supporter as it gets.

Anyway, I do welcome you. I hope the next time we meet we can be in a happier circumstance.

:toast:

[Jensen]

27. I agree with your statement....

Southwest employees are union they are paid quite well, they are full time employees and they do not have CEO that steal the employees money such as the wolf's that have attacked United Airlines for years.

Even under the bankruptcy this CEO will make 4.2 million and just recently gave himself and his minions a 1.2 million bonus.

Welcome to bushworld!

[Ysolde]

35. I've been in the airline business...

since 1989 (IT side) and Southwest has always been a union shop -- it's just been run by management that cares about its employees so they've never been in the antagonistic mindset of the other airlines' management.

But, Southwest also has a business model that the other airlines refuse to emulate (dump hubs, use point to point, single aircraft in fleet, etc.).

The management of the other airlines should be drawn and quartered and forced to not only give up their bonuses, but also their lavish pay checks, their back pay, their exorbitant perks, and, especially, their entire retirement benefits before ANY worker has to give up his pension. Too many of these management types suck a huge paycheck and get credited years of service and then end up with lavish retirements while the workers with decades of service get squat.

Sorry, this is a sore spot and it just makes my blood boil! :mad:

[blondeatlast]

47. Southwest was the ONLY airline to turn a profit and refuse the

post 9/11 bailout.

I have many friends at SWA, and they were just as proud as the management was of those facts.

[newyawker99]

40. Hi rigel434!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[warrens]

16. I am never flying United again

And when I boycott, I BOYCOTT. I haven't had a sip of Florida orange juice since the Citrus Growers paid Rush Limbaugh $2 million to feature a big pitcher of OJ on his short-lived television show (wonder if he had to give the money back when he got cancelled)? Same for Outback and Hooters and Wal-Mart and Home Depot. United is now on the list. I have nearly 100K FF points with those clowns, the fourth time I have gotten to 100K. Screw them. I'll give my business to GOOD companies like Southwest and Jet Blue and Midwest Express, people who treat their employees well. This is just outrageous.

I heard some asshole from corporate threatening workers if they pull a sick-out or wildcat strikes, but they richly deserve it. I've already emailed them telling them they lost a customer for life and there is nothing they can do to ever get me back. And I am their favorite customer, a business traveler who has to travel at short notice and gets stuck with the fattest fares. They're going to miss me and the thousands of others who will do exactly what I am doing.

[Bluebear]

17. Beware the angry worker with nothing left to lose.

I don't think United will survive screwing over tens of thousands of workers like this.

[cliss]

19. You could be right.....

Now think back a few hundred years.....to France. To the French Revolution.

Those fat-cats might be comfortable now.....but as this country sinks deeper and deeper into the pit..

Visualize for a moment, the US looking like a 3rd world country, like maybe India or Bangladesh, with people laying around, starving.

Do the CEO's REALLY believe they can hang onto their money, with that kind of thing happening?

[blondeatlast]

28. It won't be long until the comfortably middle-class, yet retired, are

walking dazedly in the streets.

There will be a reckoning. The only question is when?

[nittygritty]

18. Unfuckingbelievable....

the time for torches and pitchforks draws nigh...

[Hamlette]

20. what's to stop all employer's from doing this?

is anyone's pension safe? United did the same thing the federal government did with our social security, spent the savings.

These are the kinds of moral values dems should be screaming about. It's keeping your commitment to your workers. It will have a huge impact on every generation, not just old people. Imagine moving mom and dad into your house. I guess that's what they want everyone but the very rich to do.

This is very disturbing news.

[Bluebear]

24. Nothing stops other employers. The precedent has been set.

The fat cats can pay themselves millions in "bonuses" and bankrupt the company, saying "sorry, workers, no money left for your pensions now". And Bushco has ended bankruptcy protection for the poor schmoes left in the wake.

[blondeatlast]

29. That's what is scary. It's happened how many times now?

There is a reckoning coming, and it is gonna be hell for us all, regardless of who wins in the end.

[Bozita]

38. "Other corporations are watching these proceedings VERY closely" -- ABC

Scary, damned scary.

Anybody think there's no class war?

The race to the bottom accelerates.

[Swamp Rat]

23. Other than I will NEVER fly United again, I don't know what else to say...

FUCKERS!!! :mad:

[Stinky The Clown]

30. Well isn't this just special

First Enron fucked people out of their pensions

Now United sues people out of their pensions.

Meanwhile, boyking does his impression of this guy ...


While playing one of these ....


And the press sounds like these guys ......


Just another day in Fuck The Citizens Land

[EVDebs]

31. Now the question is 'Will the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corp go under ?"

http://www.pbgc.gov/about/default.htm

How much more 'globalization' and high oil prices can the economy sustain ? Multinationals are dumping any kind of pension/healthcare benefits to employees to keep up with their "race to the bottom" competitors overseas. It's got to stop sometime. Unless you're a Thomas Friedman or Fareed Zakaria disciple.

[Bluebear]

34. Oh you got that right

And we're supposed to invest all our SS into the stock market??

[EVDebs]

44. Thanks, bluebear. You can see this spelled out in print at

"The Benefits Trap" by Businessweek last summer

www.businessweek.com/magazine/ content/04_29/b3892001_mz001.htm

>snip>

" Perhaps most important, in the global economy, long-established U.S. companies are competing against younger rivals here and abroad that pay little or nothing toward their workers' retirement, giving the older companies a huge incentive to dump their plans. "

This 'competition' from overseas is often from the multinational's own affiliates and is just the excuse to drive labor costs down as far as possible. This was the thesis of Jeremy Rifkin's book "The End of Work: The Decline of the Global Labor Force and
the Dawn of the Post-Market Era" from clear back to 1994-- see weblink at
http://www.jobsletter.org.nz/art/rifkin01.htm
for more information on this intentional global process to destroy labor and jobs in the promotion of 'globalization'.

In my opinion Pat Buchanan had it right when he wrote "Suicide By Free Trade"

www.amconmag.com/2004_04_12/buchanan.html

"Indeed, if the issue is jobs, Republicans ought to be thrown out. For not only are they not creating them, they have no idea how to stop exporting them. In their hearts, some of them think it a good thing. They are like the doctors of old who sincerely believed bleeding the patient was the way to get rid of the disease because that is what their textbooks and wise men told them."

[dolo amber]

32. Man, ain't that some shit?!

I heard this on NPR...they're all trying to paint it as basically "we can pay our pensioners and lay a gazillion people off or we can stop pensions and keep the people on the payroll feeding their families"...

Fucking ASSHOLE!! Don't make promises your bank account can't keep, you corporate dickheads... :grr:

[Bozita]

36. This was the lead story on ABC's evening news

Stated that other corporations are watching very closely.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

37. Why isn't Bush complaining that this judge is passing laws from the bench?

[KlatooBNikto]

41. Now GM has a precedent to cut its retirees loose.

[blondeatlast]

49. Delta's in trouble too. Watch for them to pull the same on their

Unions.

[in_cog_ni_to]

42. Now I'll have to get a "Don't United Airline-ize Social Security bumper

sticker to go with my "Don't Enron-ize Social Security" bumper sticker. I'm sure this won't sink into the sheeple's thick skulls that THIS is EXACTLY what will happen to their SS.

[anarchy1999]

43. Just the first of many to come. Believe it or not LaRouche was writing

about this a couple of years back warning it was going to happen. Many of the companies invested the employees pension funds in the stock market during the booming 90's. Instead of putting the profits from the gains back into the pension funds, (as they should have), they paid their CEO's huge bonuses. Then the stock market went bust and the pension funds went bust. What should have been going into the pension funds was gone and then some! Whoops!

This will wind up being bigger than the S&L Bailout for taxpayers and then next will come the pop of the real estate bubble as Freddie and Fannie go bust over hedging and derivatives.

[blondeatlast]

46. Groundworkers have voted to strike--less than 1/2 hr ago...

LBN thread:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x1463620

FAs and mechanics call for CEO to resign to prevent strike--how likely is that?

I support my union brethren 100%!

http://www.unitedafa.org/

[Catherine Vincent]

48. So does that mean other corporations will follow now that this

judge ruled against the employees of United Air?

[blondeatlast]

51. Of course it does. Delta's filing bankruptcy papers as we type,

we already know this is what GM and Ford blamed their "junk" ratings on.

I'm just waiting for Dear Laura to say it: "Let them eat cake."

[rumpel]

54. When I read the story in the LATimes this morning it occured to me

something is not right here.

a) the pre 9/11 stock matter
b) congress approving airline companies assistance funds
c) change of head at United, who according to the article is a former Oil Exec

But United Chief Executive Glenn Tilton — a former oil industry executive who took United's helm in September 2002 — has pushed hard for the labor concessions and the pension plan switch, saying they're the only way the airline can climb out of bankruptcy.

and this section

Moreover, United and most of its union employees have another battle to wage. United also is asking Wedoff to throw out the airline's wage-and-benefit contracts with most of its employee groups, so it can secure the more than $3 billion in annual labor savings — aside from the pension costs — that United says it needs to survive.
A hearing on that request begins today, and some United employees have threatened to walk out if the carrier wins that contest as well.

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/la-fi-united11may11,1,5762842.story?page=1

(page 1,2,3)

On Mr. Tilton

http://www.chevron.com/news/press/2002/2002-05-28.asp

ChevronTexaco Issues Statement on Appointment of Glenn F. Tilton as Interim Chairman of Dynegy Inc.

SAN FRANCISCO, May 28, 2002 -- ChevronTexaco Corp. (NYSE: CVX) issued the following statement concerning the actions announced today by Dynegy Inc. (NYSE: DYN), which included the appointment of ChevronTexaco Vice Chairman Glenn F. Tilton as interim chairman of Dynegy:

"ChevronTexaco supports the action of Dynegy's Board of Directors to ask Glenn Tilton to assume a role as interim chairman of the board and Dan Dienstbier as interim chief executive officer while that company undertakes a comprehensive search for a permanent chairman and chief executive officer. Given his extensive industry experience and proven leadership skills, we believe Glenn Tilton is well suited for this interim role. As a major stockholder with strong commercial relationships with Dynegy, ChevronTexaco has a vested interest in supporting a strategy that will restore investor confidence in the company, to the benefit of all Dynegy shareholders. We support the efforts of the entire Dynegy management team, including president and chief operating officer Steve Bergstrom, to continue to take the necessary steps to address the challenges facing the company."

ChevronTexaco holds approximately 26.5 percent equity interest in Dynegy. In addition, Dynegy purchases ChevronTexaco's North American natural gas, and ChevronTexaco purchases natural gas liquids from Dynegy. In November 2001, ChevronTexaco invested $1.5 billion in mandatory redeemable Dynegy preferred shares to fund Dynegy's equity infusion into Enron. The preferred shares are convertible into Dynegy common stock at ChevronTexaco's option, in which event ChevronTexaco would own an approximate 36 percent equity interest in Dynegy. If ChevronTexaco does not convert the preferred shares by November 2003, Dynegy must redeem them at that time for $1.5 billion in cash.

Correct me if I am wrong, but I thought at one point UA was employee owned?..

why do I get the feeling it is an orchestrated effort orginating somewhere to destroy unions?

[blondeatlast]

55. When you sense a smell, look first to the Heritage Foundation.

I've already done my time in the muck for today, but here's a quick search of "labor unions" from the site:

http://www.heritage.org/about/searchresults.cfm

FWIW, a search of "glenn tilton" yielded no results.

[noiretextatique]

56. what happened to "personal responsibility?"

of the variety we heard so much about before the credit card company bankruptcy bill was passed? how can anyone who has ever had a job anywhere support this decision?