http://www.star-telegram.com/2011/04/21/30... Though American Airlines lost money in 2010, that did not stop the company from handing out $5.2 million in cash, stock and other perks to Chief Executive Gerard Arpey. And now, because American Airlines lost money in 2010, it wants to cancel its pension and medical obligations to its retirees. And it is counting upon its existing workers to make it happen.
American Airlines spends $800 million more a year on labor than its main rivals, a major reason that it filed for bankruptcy protection last week. Not coincidentally, it planned to spend $747 million next year on pensions and retiree medical benefits, two expenses that most competitors abandoned long ago.
Snip
They also took some hits on healthcare, and in a big bankruptcy, it's not unusual for current employees and retirees to square off.
At American, as with Delta, United and other legacy carriers, deep reductions have to come from somewhere. Lewis and Nichols said their union protected active pilots in Chapter 11, but not retired ones.
"Most employees will be OK," Nichols said about bankruptcy. "But my advice to retirees is to get a fantastic lawyer, because they're going to need it."
http://www.star-telegram.com/2011/12/02/35... Pilots stand to take the biggest hit, if history is any guide. They could lose two-thirds of their pensions---the money they counted upon for their retirement during those decades when they flew the planes that made AMR money. They could lose their health benefits, too. That will help them die off more quickly, further lessening AMR's pension obligation.
American Airlines is hoping its current employees will help it walk away from its contractual obligations. The company can claim “There will be no more jobs for anyone if we have to continue to support deadbeat retirees.” And then they can sit back and watch as the unions do the dirty work for them.
Retiree versus workers is the favorite form of divide and conquer this year for corporate America. Every time a progressive complains that the payroll tax cut is intended to bankrupt Social Security, America’s seniors panic---and resolve to pull the GOP lever in 2012.
Here is Fox News pushing the workers v. retired meme.
Conrad said he doesn't want to preempt the announcement, but expects Reid to offer a plan that will be paid for -- a bone of contention for some in Washington who say the extension will take more than $120 billion from Social Security without a revenue stream to replenish the account.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/12/04... /
Here is the liberal blog-o-sphere saying the exact same thing:
I am all for helping out working Americans, but continuing or expanding the payroll tax cut is a danger to Social Security.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/12/01/1... What do you call a campaign slogan that gets parroted by the opposition? A Big Lie. Buried somewhere in that last article is the admission that the stimulus tax holiday
could be paid for by raising the amount that the rich pay into the Social Security fund. But it’s not in the first or last paragraph, where most readers form their impression of an article.
Retirees versus workers has been used to force teachers---many of whom are close to being vested in their pensions---out of jobs. The Pentagon is now flirting with the idea.
Under orders to cut the Pentagon budget by more than $450 billion over the next decade, Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta is considering reductions in spending categories once thought sacrosanct, especially in medical and retirement benefits.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/07/world/pa... I know of no other company where you can go to work at age 20, retire at age 40, and collect a pension with cost-of-living adjustments, as well as medical benefits, for the next 40 years or until death. The taxpayers can no longer afford that luxury. Earn a pension? Yes. Collect at age 65 (like everyone else)? Yes. 401(k)? Yes, so all veterans who have served can benefit.
http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2011/nov/0... /
Note that the last letter to the editor was almost certainly written by an investment banker. The bottom line on all this Social Security and pension "reform" is that the Banksters want to get their greedy little hands on your retirement money and squander it away over the course of twenty or thirty years, at which point they will announce (shame faced) "Um...sorry. We don't have it anymore."
All they have to do to make this happen is run a few stories about retirees who draw a pension
and run their own businesses or have paying jobs. “Double dippers” within the civilian workforce, such as teachers, have already become the newest welfare queen.
One is engineer Maury Roos, who retired from the California Department of Water Resources with an annual pension of more than $113,000. He returned part-time within weeks.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/02/g... $113, 000! For shame! That makes him practically a member of the 1%. How dare he allow the state to use his skills? He should hand over that job to a new graduate. That man is
killing the American worker! The employer, who discovered it was cheaper to hire someone skilled to do part time work rather than get a new full time employee who had to be trained on the job----it’s not the employer’s fault. Everyone knows that the 11th Commandment reads “Thou shalt not pay a full wage and benefits if you can get the same work for less.” The fault lies squarely on the backs of retired workers who do not go out behind the garage and shoot themselves in the head in order to save the country money and free up jobs for the next generation.
Repealing the tax cuts for the wealthy would go a long way towards allowing the federal government to honor its pension obligations. Raising social security taxes on the wealthy would enable middle class workers to take home more money that would stimulate the economy and create more jobs. But face it. The RNC does not want to create jobs. It does not want to stimulate the economy. It wants us out in the street, homeless, hopeless, starving, in hopes that we will cast a protest vote against Obama next fall. And so seniors are being encouraged to complain
“That payroll tax holiday is coming straight out of my social security check!”
even though a stronger economy with more jobs will keep Social Security solvent.
And workers are encouraged to complain
“I’d be able to get a decent job if those old farts would just die. Medicare is a waste of money. It supports the competition. I work my fingers to the bone, and I don’t have insurance. Why should some lazy old man have it?”
And meanwhile, the Banksters have their eyes on the nation's public pensions and corporations' privately funded pensions and they see great big flashing neon dollar signs.
