The 10 Biggest Pension Failures

Nobody pays attention because it doesn't impact them - until it impacts them.

Since "De-Regulation" of the airline industry in 1978, executives have been "allowed" by the courts to extract millions of dollars of equity put there by the hard work of thousands of employees.

Those same employees have been rewarded with theft of careers, incomes and EARNED "deferred income" pension benefits as the courts "perception" is that "bankruptcy" and "reorganization" provides for a "company's" survival. The court "imperative" is that the company should survive at the expense of salaries and pensions, yet it is those very employees lifelong dedication which built the respective company - not the executives.

We've seen repetitive executive "control" over revenues (generated by those same "employees") result in a consistent re-division of the pie in their favor - only to move to another company after a short time and, once again, extract as much equity as the law will allow. All of this comes about "legally" since executives have "contracts" while employees have only "working agreements."

A part of those same "employee generated" revenues is applied to lobby against labor interests. As we all know: money talks.

Many employees of the airline industry once looked forward to pensions wherein they might remain contributing citizens of this country. Now those same people will become additional burdens on our society since they will become dependant upon the government for survival - at the taxpayers' (our children?) expense.

All of this comes about through creative utilization of irrational statistics. While we've all heard such characterizations as seat mile cost, available seat miles, etc. and Wall Street loves it when companies reduce headcount, the reality is very simply that "doing more with less" is a common objective, our country's companies cannot "do everything with nothing." Executive salaries, perks, benefits and bonuses are paid with monies from somewhere, yet that portion never seems to be reflected in "cost of operations."

While the only true statistic is "net profit," as long as the courts allow the "owners" (stockholders) of a company to be legaly manipulated into the loss of their ownership via unprincipled, unethical and objectively dishonest executive "ownership-takeover" - the infrastructure of our country is doomed.

What amazes me is how, given all the multi-million dollar bonuses (often not performance-based) - not one of these "executives" has been able to duplicate the success of Southwest Airlines. While I have never worked for that company, I remain jealously happy for those who do. Nothing is perfect - including Southwest. But I wish to thank Herb Kelleher and Gary Kelly for retaining that all-so-elusive quality in an airline executive: integrity.

No more kicks after Jan. 1, 2010! of 9:04PM November 29, 2009