Age 60 Battle vs ALPA

[330 Man]

LHR rain,
If you look at my post you will note that I do not say anything about Usair. I will be the last person who will defend Usair. I am on record in these forums as being unhappy with the usair management, MEC, and alpa itself. It has not had good management since 1989, and only now has a slim chance with the America west merger. To say that I am defending Usair is once again one of your little lies.

Your ignorance is showing through because you know nothing about the law in the states regarding airlines in bankruptcy. Because I think that there is hope for you yet, I will once again attempt to help you understand.

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If you are correct in saying a judge "took" your pension why did not this same judge take Delta's, NW, CAL et al?

First of all, there is more than one judge in the federal bankruptcy system in the states. The judge assigned to the case is determined by where you file bankruptcy. Secondly, none of these airlines are in bankruptcy yet and their management can do nothing unless they are. They must convince the court and the PBGC that the pension funds are indeed insolvent. Only then will the judge make a ruling. You can bet that Delta will file soon to get pension relief.

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United voted, yes they voted to give up their pension.

No they did not vote to give up their pension. In fact the united pilots and flight attendants are suing to try and get their pensions restored. I do not know the status of the mechanics.
As a side note ALL employees of Usair had their pension funds terminated, and I believe that it is the same with United.

Maybe a united pilot could shed some light on this.

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You say US Air did not and I guess I have to beleive you at this time.

Do not take my word for it, you can get all of the information from alpa, as it is all public record.

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But why did you not go on stirke like the NW Engineers and stand up for something. Put another way what did you as an individual or as a pilot group do to stop this atrocity from happening. I believe you did nothing!

In the states you can not just go on strike. You must negotiate until the mediator declares an impasse. Then a 30 day cooling off period has to take place, when intense last minute negotiations happen. At the end of the 30 days the employees can strike and the company can impose a contract. The northwest engineers went on strike because the 30 day cooling off period had expired. There was never an impasse called or a 30 day period started at Usair. If we would have gone on strike we would had been ordered by a judge to return to work and fined millions of dollars in damages. The American Airline pilots tried this in the 90's and lost big time. The judge ordered them back to work and the union had to pay the company over 40 million dollars in damages. (it may have been more than this, I can not remember the exact amount) You can not just go on strike. Airlines, trucking companies and railroads are the only industries in the states who have to follow these rules. It is part of the railway labor act, which also covers airlines.

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As you alluded to some people have balls and US Air has proved time and again they did not.

Time and time again huh! Tell me about all of these times I would love to hear. We would have loved to go on strike to stop the pension termination. We could not. It was against the law.

I have enough balls to tell you that you are full of crap and you have no idea what you are talking about. I back up what I say with facts. You do not. All you have is your emotions and a sence of how you want things to be. Just because you want things to be a certian way, it does not make it so. Facts are facts, and history is documented. You can not change either for the sake of argument. Unfortunately how you want history to be is not how it happend. I lived it, you only imagine it!

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Don't take your frustrations out on someone else and don't ruin the industry by raising the retirment age.

How exectly will raising the retirement age ruin the industry. Did it ruin the industry when the age 60 rule was put into place? Of course not. And how am I taking my frustrations out on someone else? Could I not turn around and say the same to you just because we disagree? And that is not a problem for me. The problem is that when I state the facts to back up my opinion, you tell me that my facts and arguments are wrong, even though I was there and you were not. In this case you presume to know more about it than I do. As I said I lived it, you only imagine it! That is where I have a problem with you. I would never presume to take your right to tell us all your opinion. But, please do a little research.

No one gives up their pension. We did vote to take the pay cuts, and I think it was a mistake because our management just pissed away all of the savings we gave them. As I have told you before, we never had the chance to vote on the pension termination. It was a court order, and you do not ratify a court order, you obey. You will not find one pilot in the states who voted to give up their pension. It did not happen. Please educate yourself and learn the truth, it will make you wiser, and cut down on the frustration level for the rest of us!

330 Man