Your pension was also overfunded at one point. There's a lot of places you can (and should) go with that issue. I'll do some legwork on PW, but I don't think I'm too confused about the guy's actions. If I say "I'm not a fan of Frank Lorenzo" and then gloss over the effects of his exact actions it makes Frank sound less bad. But it's not reality. PW was going to put anything up to save the A fund. Anything; He was never going to cut the rope. It's a generational thing and I think it's sort of what Andy is talking about when he says the pilots have a responsibility for UAL being a screwed up place to work. Huge mistakes were made by UAL pilot leaders and not enough UAL pilots are taking issue or doing anything about it.
If you're not sure about the scope give away, I am pretty sure. The original scope was given away under a MR under Glawe. Contract 2000 gave away even more. PW signed away the EMB170 because the company came to him and said that our regional partners wanted to have another aircraft besides the CRJ's, so they could pit manufacturers against each other and get better prices. The EMB170 was over the weight limit, so he waived it. It was complete BS, especially the
way he did it.
As far as the pension goes, yes at one time, and times in its multi-decade history, I'm sure it was overfunded. Most pensions follow the peaks and the troughs of the stock market, just like your 401K does. The problem was that between the increase in A fund benefits negotiated in C2000 and low interest rates and low stock prices at the time of our bankruptcy, it was massively underfunded, and ultimately seized by the PBGC. Of course, conspiracy theories are rampant amongst the pilots, especially the ones that haven't seen the inside of a union hall in their entire careers, but that's only because they weren't paying attention and just got the facts from their buddies who were equally as clueless.
I agree with you that our first round of cuts while in bankruptcy had much to do with trying to save the pension. Was that the wrong thing to do at the time? With the benefit of hindsight, sure! But to criticize the actions of union leaders who were working for a bankrupt airline and were forced to deal with a company under the duress of the 1113c process.........again hindsight is 20/20.
I'm familiar with Andy's comments and the comments of furloughees on this forum and our internal forum. The bottom line is that UAL pilots, ALPA, or whoever else you want to blame did not lay off our pilots. Management did. I realize ALPA is a convenient punching bag, and we hear quite often that "ALPA didn't do enough," but when you're dealing with a management team like ours, it's like talking with a brick wall. For example, did you know that when UA ALPA went to our management to negotiate furlough mitigation, we were told that if we took ANOTHER paycut, they'd cut the number of furloughees? That's what we were dealing with. Other management teams were offering payoffs and other deals to get pilots off the property. We got the hand- then it's ALPA's fault because we "didn't do enough," when in fact we're dealing with a management team that really could care less. Situations like this would make any union or any pilot group "look bad," but what do you do when you're dealing with a guy like Tilton and his cronies? It makes for a bad relationship, and unfortunately that's the way it is here.
