boycott united forever

I have a defined benefit pension program and I don't have money taken
from my paycheck to fund it. You said your're in California right? Are
you sure that the money they take out of your check isn't for supporting
you local illegal aliens? :-)

Jon Kraus

Bob Fry wrote:
"GP" == George Patterson writes:

GP You're thinking of a 401K. A pension used to be a guaranteed
GP retirement income in exchange for spending your life working
GP for the company. One could argue that you exchanged a higher
GP salary for a lower salary and a pension, but no money was
GP taken out of your paycheck.

I work for the State of California, have a defined-benefit pension,
and for sure they take money from my salary to help fund the pension.

Gig 601XL Builder wrote:

But the company ought to be liquadated to pay the pensions. Think
of it this way. You go to work at the airline. They promise to pay
you $X now and if you hang around they will pay you $X after you
retire.

Labor is supposed to be the first thing paid.

Nope. The first groups paid are the IRS, the bankruptcy trustee, and
the bankruptcy lawyers and accountants.

Then come the secured creditors, who mainly have claim to physical
assets like real estate, aircraft or other vehicles.

Next are the priority creditors. Any payroll earned in the previous 90
days and not yet paid, and employee benefit payments due the previous
180 days will allow employees to claim those amounts along with other
priority creditors.

The shortfalls in payments to the pension plan, other than the payments
due in the six months prior to bankruptcy filing, will be part of the
unsecured debts. These generally are paid in cents on the dollar, if
there is even enough money for that.

Therefore, liquidating the airline would only serve to cause many
existing employees and suppliers to lose their means of income, and
disrupt many cities across the country. If the company can truly
restructure into a going concern, then it should be allowed to do so.
Otherwise, it would be punishing those that contributed the least to the
company's problems.

gatt wrote:

The best way to solve this problem would be to take the CEO, shoot
him through the head and hang his corpse from a Wall Street lamp
post so that every other executive out there remembers, for
example, why the french still celebrate Bastille Day. But we
can't do that.

Which CEO would you do that to? The one who oversaw things at the
airline many years ago and set the stage for the current problems, the
later one who saw the problems coming, and tried to change the way the
company was run, but was forced out by the union representation on the
board, who said he was too pessimistic, or the current one who inherited
the whole mess and has been trying to turn things around, but had no
alternative but to declare bankruptcy?

So boycott United forever and make sure that the rest of the executives in
the aviation industry don't try to pull the same stunt on America's pilots
and airline industry workers.

And just who do you think that would penalize? The original owners, the
shareholders, have already lost everything with the bankruptcy
declaration. People owed money, like the fuel vendors, the caterers,
and other contractors might only get a few cents on the dollar, if that,
if the company is liquidated. Finally, the employees would be forced out
of work, and any existing suppliers would lose a large part of their
businesses. It seems that boycotting the airline would only hurt the
people who were least involved with the whole situation. Is that really
what you want to do?

Jim wrote:

The PBGC funds pensions based on premiums paid by companies with
pensions--not taxes. From their website:

"Our financing comes from insurance premiums paid by companies whose
plans we protect, from our investments, and from the assets of pension
plans that we take over, but not from taxes."

The problem is that the PBGC doesn't have enough money to pay for all
the pensions it has to support. Also from their web site:

"As of September 30, 2004, the PBGC’s own balance sheet showed a $23.3
billion deficit, with $39 billion in assets to pay $62.3 billion in
guaranteed pension benefits to more than 1 million workers and retirees.
By law, the PBGC is required to keep premiums as low as possible and has
no call on the U.S. Treasury beyond a $100 million line of credit."

This was before almost $7 billion in additional unfunded obligations was
added by the shift of the United Airlines programs over to the board,
not to mention the possibility of Delta and other airlines also coming
under its umbrella in the future. The board estimates that single
employer plans in the country as a whole are underfunded by about %450
billion. Perhaps %100 billion of that problem could be passed on to the
PBGC in future years.

The reality is that the PBGC will have to significantly increase
premiums paid by other healthy companies to make up the difference.
This leads to a couple of problems: One is that the other companies will
find themselves competing with restructured companies that have reduced
their pension obligations, and in essence passed them, through premiums
paid to the PBGC, to their competitors. How long do you expect Delta or
Northwest to last when they not only have to pay their own premiums, but
those of a restructured UAL and US as well? There was a cascading effect
in the steel industry as each company in turn passed obligations on to
the PBGC, and the airline industry is now doing the same.

The second problem is that there is a point where all the companies
under the plan will balk at significantly increased premiums, and will
appeal to Congress for relief. Consider that many companies in the auto
industry is approaching the same state as the airlines and the steel
companies before them. It's only a matter of time before GM dumps its
plan on the PBGC.

My bet is that Congress will have to take action and inject cash into
the plan to keep it solvent.

Here is some testimony given by the director of the PBGC that goes into
further detail:

http://www.pbgc.gov/news/speeches/testimony_100704.htm
http://www.pbgc.gov/news/speeches/testimony_042605.htm

Andrew Gideon wrote:

They are bankrupt, and the pensions will now be paid by all of us.

It's quite dishonest in a very real way. The company contracted to make
payments that it is now refusing to make. Rather than selling off all
assets to help fund those promises, they've been passed on so you and I
will be paying them.

It's especially unfair to those of us that receive no benefit from
guaranteed pensions (because we don't get pensions).

As the Pension Guarantee Board is currently set up, only companies that
have guaranteed pensions will pay to make up the difference. Those who
don't get pensions don't have to pay.

However, as I noted in another post, the Board's obligations are getting
so big that Congress might have to step in to financially support the
plans.

The roots of the problem are similar to those affecting Social Security
and Medica The number of people paying into the plans has diminished
compared to the people collecting money. Further, many of the private
plans invested in the stock market, and the value of the money invested
tanked along with the market, meaning there now isn't enough money to
fully support all those who are expected to retire and collect
benefits. Many of the companies are close to bankruptcy, so they can't
afford to increase contributions. It's a catch-22. They make partial
payments and go bankrupt, or they don't and perhaps stay solvent. Either
way, the employees lose.

[Warning for people who are deficient in detecting sarcasm: Look out
below!]

Sure the PBGC is underfunded by $450 billion and many companies with
pensions are on the verge of bankruptcy. But don't worry that they
will all fail, because the economy is doing SO much better according to
the administration. Look at all the new high paying jobs that have
been created here and Bangalore! CEO salaries are at record highs so
things are SURELY ok with the economy, US companies and their employees
who will soon be able to trust their future retirement to the ALWAYS
growing stock market rather than a mere promise from the government.

Also, don't forget we now have much better corporate governance and
oversight Just look at the justice brought to criminal mastermind
Martha Stewart. We'll just ignore Ken Lay who could not possibly know
the petty details of Enron operations. I'm sure his compensation was
well earned. And besides, he was such a good friend of the party!

Oil prices going up? No problem. The prez and the Saudi's are
friends. (I saw them holding hands!)

Oh, and please don't argue that a single terrorist attack of one tenth
the scale of 9/11 would be a major setback because it won't happen.
That's right, we are now SO much better protected with the TSA, Patriot
Act, and TFRs not to mention the COMPLETE elimination of the great WMD
threat to the US from Iraq. In addition, the US has clearly taken a
lead in reducing the threat from Korea and Iran. I hardly think about
them at all. Oh yes, Freedom is on the march!

So don't worry about Congress stepping in to bail out the PBGC. The
economy is sound thanks to this administration's oversight. Be
comforted that we are led by the party that believes in less taxation
and less regulation so you know they are going to act in YOUR best
interest. Right?

-Jim

Jim wrote:

[Warning for people who are deficient in detecting sarcasm: Look out
below!]

Sure the PBGC is underfunded by $450 billion and many companies with
pensions are on the verge of bankruptcy. But don't worry that they
will all fail, because the economy is doing SO much better according to
the administration.

.... I feel so relieved, now that you have explained it so clearly.

Years later, some new jackass comes along, wrecks the company and walks off
with a $1.5 million guaranteed pension after a trivial amount of time.
Meanwhile, the pilots, flight attendants and everybody else who MADE UNITED
WHAT IT WAS are screwed out of their contracted pension.

This is typical union a**hole envy mentality. $1.5M is a bunch of
money, but I'll bet United's run rate is about that much every 5 min.

Try looking at the real killers of the company; those egotistical
union pilots that get $250K + a year for 20 hours of work a month,
Flight Attendants that "play the game" with their sick time and
schedule and ground employees that take an hour and a half to turn
around a plane.

You want to see how a airline can be killed by the employees, take a
close look at Pan Am. United's going down the same path. Blame all
the executives you want, but you need to point fingers at the unions
to assign the real blame. They are the ones running the show.

George Patterson wrote:
StellaStarr wrote:


You seem to think a pension is some kind of welfare.
It's money you arranged to have taken out of your paycheck, to save up
for retirement.


You're thinking of a 401K. A pension used to be a guaranteed retirement
income in exchange for spending your life working for the company. One
could argue that you exchanged a higher salary for a lower salary and a
pension, but no money was taken out of your paycheck.

George Patterson
There's plenty of room for all of God's creatures. Right next to the
mashed potatoes.
They take $$ out of my paycheck for my pension. The rate varies
periodically, but it's been as high as 7.5% and no I don't have the
option to take my money and not have a pension. One part of it is State
pension the other county.

Margy

In article , Don Hammer
wrote:

Try looking at the real killers of the company; those egotistical
union pilots that get $250K + a year for 20 hours of work a month....

Surely a group of pilots should know better than to believe that. VERY
few pilots approach anything close to what you describe, and if they
do, it's for about a year before they turn 60.

The rest of us are away from home 400 hours a month (compared to your
typical nine-to-five gone less than half of that), and dreaming of the
day we hit the six-figure mark.

Ah, yes, the "greedy union pilots."

Try being a seventh-year employee at a regional airline, flying as a
Part 121 captain, for less than 40K a year. Try and balance that
against your mythical 20-hour, $250K captain.

--
Garner R. Miller
ATP/CFII/MEI
Clifton Park, NY =USA=