On 5/12/05 11:58 AM, in article , "gatt"
wrote:


My dad worked for 24 years at UAL-PDX. Laid him off in his 24th year, a
year before he was eligible for full retirement. He was UAL-PDX employee
of the year a couple of times, received all kinds of awards and bonuses...he
received one award for not missing a day of work for something like five
years.

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.

Yes, they made United what it was, and is: broke. The new guy just got the
blame, but he did not wreck the company all by himself, nor could he have
possibly saved it. The unions and everybody else lied to your dad. Everyone
who knew anything at all about business and financial planning knew that
there was no way in the world that United (or anybody else, for that matter)
could possibly honor such a lavish pension system. It was a Ponzi scheme
that eventually collapsed, just as all such chain letters and pyramid
schemes must.

Every other industry that had this kind of pension system has collapsed. The
amazing thing is that the airlines held on as long as they did.