Blanche wrote:
Let's remember that the majority of those who are losing in the
UAL pension debacle are NOT the senior pilots. They are the
mechanics, the flight attendants (who NEVER joined into the
"employee owned" mantra), the gate people, baggage handlers,
the admin staff (usually not union), and so on.

It's not quite that simple. The PBGC will not guarantee over ~$50k/year
in pension payments, and it's mostly pilots who are getting payments
above that range. There is pain being distributed throughout the
organization, but the mechanics, FAs, etc are losing proportionately a
lot less than the upper-tier pilots.

Also, I read somewhere that around 1/3 of UAL's pension funds were
non-guaranteed funds (meaning UAL opted to not pay to insure them
through PBGC) which is a pretty high percentage. This was not a secret
nor were the under-fundings that had been going on for years. Frankly,
UAL's unions were so uniquely obnoxious that I can't excuse them from
culpability for all this. That place was a roaring party when times
were good but hangovers are a bitch.

-cwk.