The Outrageous Skies

It's bad enough that United Airlines asked to be relieved of its pension obligations to its employees, especially after years of convincing many to take early retirement in order to preserve their pensions, and asking, or demanding, other concessions that translated into hardships for workers, while management maybe had to leave St. Bart's a day early.

But what's worse is that a Bankruptcy Court in Chicago granted their request. What this means in terms of money is still unclear---technically it's a transfer to a government agency, but it's likely the benefits will be cut, though so far no one is saying by how much.

Apart from the rank injustice to the rank and file, those of us who depend on United, not as a matter of choice but of monopoly or damn close to it, are not looking forward to the next flight on the "friendly skies." What motivation do these folks have now?

That may sound selfish from those of us who have the choice of flying United or flapping our arms and jumping off a roof, but it goes directly to the logic of being unjust and oppressive to the people everyone depends on to keep things working. Things stop working.

Now that United has gotten away with this so far (we hope it's appealed, all the way up, and let the Supremes tell America what to do with their pensions, before their GOPer brethren get their teeth into Social Security), other troubled airlines won't be far behind. And American workers will find themselves joining the millions of workers in the rest of the world who are hard at work building the pyramids for the Bushfolk of the planet, all for the honor of being bamboozled, lied to, exploited, cheated and scorned.

United workers feel betrayed / Bankruptcy judge relieves airline of pension obligation