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...
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