United Wins Approval to Dump Term Paper

In terms of the unions' pensions, however, there is a further area of consideration. Given the high potentiality of a negative outcome, what ethical obligation did the unions have to then protect their most vulnerable members from bearing the brunt of this outcome? Those retired and near retirement are in the poorest position to recover from losses to their pension plans. They have no time to make up the loss, whereas younger workers would still have decades to restructure their retirement plans. The unions themselves failed in their obligation to protect the older and retired workers from a devastating blow to their retirements. However, even taking this into consideration, there was still a duty on the part of United and especially the PBGC to attempt to mitigate the damage done to these more vulnerable employees, and they too failed in this regard.

Conclusion

Prior to the deal between PBGC and United, the parties had negotiated in good faith. The unions made some tactical errors, however, and failed in their ethical obligation to steer the financial losses away from their members who could least afford to bear those costs.With the PBGC/United deal, however, they failed in their ethical obligation to account for the interests of all major stakeholders by holding the negotiations in secret without the knowledge of the unions. As a result of these ethical failures, the costs of the inevitable restructuring were borne by the stakeholders in the poorest position to recover from such losses.

Sources:

Marks, Alexandra (2004) United's Pension Woes: Sign of a Bigger Issue Christian Science Monitor Retrieved March 27, 2008 at http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/1004/p02s01-usec.html

2005) Responsibility, Please. Pittsburg Tribune-Review Retrieved March 27, 2008 at http://uspolitics.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?zi=1/XJ&sdn=uspolitics&cdn=newsissues&tm=4&f=00&tt=2&bt=0&bts=1&zu=http%3A//pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review/opinion/archive/s_335671.html

2005) the Lessons of United Sacramento Bee Retrieved March 27, 2008 at http://uspolitics.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?zi=1/XJ&sdn=uspolitics&cdn=newsissues&tm=14&f=00&tt=2&bt=1&bts=1&zu=http%3A//www.sacbee.com/content/opinion/story/12905923p-13754445c.html.....