"John Galban" wrote

The deferred compensation described sounds like the company promising
to pay you later (originally because they couldn't afford to pay now).

Nope... at PanAm, at contract time, there were just so many dollars on
the table, take them now or take them later. We, the pilots had our
choice, more pay...more vacation...more health care...or more pension,
take your choice. At PanAm, we usually sacraficed pay for better working
conditions....and our working conditions were great!

A 401K (or similar individual retirement account) is usually not
under the direct control of a company, and cannot be squandered by
them. A promise by a company to pay your salary after retirement is
just that. Words.

Not at PanAm, the pilot group (unlike the other employee groups) insisted
that our pension plan be held by an outside source, in this case,
Prudential Insurance, and PanAm paid monthly on behalf of each of us. We
felt fairly safe when the axe fell on PanAm.....WRONG! Prudential went
to the NY Federal Court and obtained permission to dump the obligation
off to the PBGC. You can't trust anyone.

Bob Moore