MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell explains how the bankruptcy of American Airlines shows us why voting for president is even more important than you think. Watch the video.
Rewriting American Airlines' bankruptcy
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Thu Feb 2, 2012 12:15 AM EST
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This segment left me inspired about the true role of government: service of the people. Thank you!
I have been waiting for someone to connect the dots between leverage buy-out companies and what I call theft of employee pensions left to be cleaned up by the PBGC. There was an insidious practice after implementation of ERISA which required all under funded companies to acknowledge under funded pension programs. This ultimately became a liability of the owners of these underfunded companies. Then came the leverage buy-out boys who purchased the companies, not just by purchasing their assets through bank credit, but by promising to assume the owners unfunded liabilities for under funded pensions. After the leverage buyers take over, they changed the "assumption" of the pension plan by increasing the amount the plans were projected to make on their assets in the future. This increase then created an accounting surplus. The new owners then took the position that the surplus belonged to them, they take it out of the pension plan, pay themselves a healthy dividend, and then take the company into bankruptcy. The employees loose their pensions, the PBGC has to assume certain liabilities, and the new owners walk with fortunes. I am not saying Bain or Romney participated in this practice. I am saying there needs to be disclosure or investigation. Thanks for your reporting to date.
Thanks to Mr Lawrence&U-Rsand I have learned about another insidious practice of the "in the know class of 1%"!Kudos to U both.
Most Excellent Rewrite, Lawrence.
love love love you.
PBGC is an acronym that I won't forget...
A great job of pointing out the absolute representation of the super wealthy 1%. Party does not matter folks. Money talks and your vote is not money. Campaign finance Reform. Remove lobbyist from the process entirely, in other words make the legislators that you put in office actually write the bills they rubber stamp for multinational corporations. WAKE UP AMERICA! Your Dream is turning into a nightmare. Oh I forgot this doesn't effect you, your not an employee of American Airlines. go ahead let them kick them in the knees. Let me ask one simple question. Who are you going to complain to when they come for your benefits, when they reduce your salary? Who are you going to complain to when it's your job and your house they take? Look around my friends, America no longer exists.
Amen, and Amen. Thank you for saying this.
Thank You so much for what you had to say about AA. We are a very proud work force. I sat and cried while you spoke. I am a Flight Attendant who loves her job. Thank You for speaking the truth.
Just one more reason for me to vote for our President as if I needed one. PBGC awesome rewrite.
Dear Lawrence - THANK YOU for highlighting this! I watch your show (and MSNBC) every night that I'm not flying a trip (for 47% less pay than before our bankruptcy). People don't believe that our pension was terminated, they think it was frozen. As you said, the lawyers did everything they could to make the company less valuable in bankruptcy - at UAL they claimed that our Mileage Plus frequent flyer program was a $400 million liability, then later claim it is a $7 billion asset - unbelieveable! Please urge your viewers to help by visiting this webpage:
Thanks to you and your staff for the great research!
Sorry, but "Easy Mode" did not allow a web link, here it is:
Still can't get a link to post. Well, please just google "Restore United Airlines Pension Plans" - Thanks!
Brilliant Chris and all that are responsible for this segment!!! Brilliant!
I am a regular viewer of your program as well as that of your colleagues at MSNBC, to the dismay of my two young daughters. I had planned on writing in hope you could maybe enlighten the general public of what American Airlines was about to do to their employee pensions as well as the gutting of their contracts. You beat me to the punch and I am greatful of your strong words in regard the subject. As we speak your piece is going viral on our facebook group page. Please keep us in future reportings. Today every work group received AA's contract proposals or is it Bain's, 13,000 jobs will be lost. Thank you again, AA flight attendant.
Thank You so much for doing this report. I am a Flight Attendant at American Airlines, for 11 years. This is a great way to educate everyone about voting, the PBGC, and what could happen to them if their companies file bankruptcy. You did a great job describing our duties. That was awesome! Thank You and the PBGC for watching what our Company is doing.
Thanks Lawrence--this segment should be mandatory viewing for all voters. You knocked it out of the park!
Thank you Lawrence -- terrific!
Damn, Lawrence! You were all aces tonight. I'm passionate about Rachel. I think Ed is big medicine, but you kicked their butts tonight. High praise indeed. Next to Billy Bulger, you are my favorite Boston Irishman. God bless you. Beannacht De leat.
WOW Lawrence you did it last night. When I got up this morning I said I have to comment on this story. What a great piece on PBGC? I admit I did not know what it was but is great you open my eyes. I am still saying WOW. Just think of those companies Romney closed and the PBGC had to step in and save employees pensions only enforces what I think of Romney. Exactly who is this guy Romney? All you hear is the President is not an American but look at Romney. I for one want to know more about Romney. What kind of name is Romney anyway. I know I am sounding like the birthers but what Romney did and is doing just makes a person wonder. Venture Capital; are we sure that is what really happened and then used the government to make his millions. On the back of the taxpayers. WOW.
Thank you for your rewrite regarding AA. It was like hearing about UA all over again. Many of us took an early retirement in 2003 to help save jobs at UA. We left with a benefit package of travel benefits and insurance, no money. The new management at CO, who is now running UA, has drastically changed the travel benefits which we will probably have to fight in court. The jury is still out on the medical benefits. We thought a contract was a contract. It's shameful what corporations do to hard working Americans. We appreciate support from those of you at MSNBC.
Thank you, thank you and thank you for understanding. So many people just don't get it and it was so refreshing to listen to your comments. As a Flight Attendant with AA who has 43 years of senority I am more than concerned about this bankruptcy. 9 years ago we gave back a third of our salary to AA to "save" the company and here we are...I am way past retirement, but do to the give backs I have been forced to work a few more years now to make ends meet and now AA wants to take more back from us. God help us all. Thank you for watching our backs and keep up the good work!! And to the PBGC I say without you we would surely loose, with you, we may have a chance and thank goodness for that!!
PRICELESS !!!!!
Wake up America - sharpen your Guillotines !!!!
Please do a story on the Continental/UAL merger where Continental's CEO and upper management are taking away promised earned benefits from UAL retirees. They are using the merger as an excuse to steal away flight benefits that UAL retirees worked for more than 25 years to earn. They've shut us out of meetings where we wanted to be heard and we now have nowhere to turn, it seems like no one will listen to us. Also we're learning that the PBGC has been underpaying many UAL retirees who lost their defined pensions in the bankruptcy. There's supposed to be an audit to help correct the shortfalls. But we've also learned that UAL hid assets and of other improprieties and possible shady dealings during the bankruptcy.
This is not the first time that American Airlines has hurt workers--when it bought TWA it kicked all the pilots to the bottom of the list and then laid them off. I'm glad Lawrence O'Donnell exposed them this time for the shameful methods. So Bain Capital is helping them get workers now...Thanks LD for your excellent telling of the truth. We don't fly American!
As an employee of AA, I would like to personally thank you and many other people for seeing this for what it truly is, a corporate raid against their own employees. We have given them $1.62 Billion dollars per year since 2003, the last time they threatened bankruptcy. Financials and assets have been found to be hidden are often difficult to be forthcoming, they take performance bonuses while it's clear they are not performing on their end. I applaud your candor and greatly appreciate your commentary in support of all of our employees. I am one of the 2300 flight attendants that stands to lose my job yet again as I was furloughed in 2003. This has got to stop. Please continue to follow this story, we will not go down without a fight against the corporate greed at American Airlines.
Folks, that's the way it's done. That is argument: articulate, structured, informed, precise. An irrefutable contrast so appealing to the American sense of fairness that any attempt to even try to defend/spin the leverage-buyout cannibalism of vulture capitalism will fall as flat as Rommney's singing. No disrespect to Ed and Rachel, love em' both, but I think taking away O'Donnell's 8:00 spot was undeserved. Wield that pen Sir Lawrence. You're my Irishman!
Thank you so much for this editorial. I must send a profound thank you note to Joshua Gottbaum immediately. I was not aware that he had been appointed by President Obama. I was startled by how quickly he put liens on AA's property in other countries.. Until now I did not realize that that property was not involved in the bankruptcy proceedings. Thank you, Lawrence.
Lawrence, Great show last night as always, and thank you for the PBGC piece. I am a US Airways flight attendant (27years) as was my wife (laid-off). It hurts every time to re-visit this topic but today I must. In the aftermath of 9/11 virtually the entire airline industry was thrown under the bankruptcy bus, with our company being the first. Ten's of thousands of layoffs, horrific pay and benefit cuts, and pensions terminated. The public sentiment at the time was "let them go bankrupt", perhaps as some sort of payback for running out of chicken on their flight, because it was irrational thinking. However, it was a notion quickly embraced by former President George W. Bush who had no interest in the long-term survival of the airlines and their "unionized" jobs. In fact he publicly declared the domino-like collapse of other airlines as a "marketplace shakeout" as if 300,000 layoffs and the termination of half a million (maybe more?) hard-earned pensions were mere shrub and brush in the path of American capitalism. As we saw with President Obama and the auto industry, the right choice was to offer financial support and a plan to prosper again, with conditions to protect the taxpayers too. Under this approach (opposed by Romney and others), the auto industry and their workers proved to the country that with time and re-structuring, properity for all is attainable. Nevertheless, the damage and carnage imposed on the airline insustry was unprecedented, and in the opinion of many, unneccessary.
In the days we were losing our jobs and pensions the flying public showed little knowledge or concern, other than the occasional grumble about "no peanuts?" Once in a blue moon I would speak with a passenger who did understand our situation and offered support but they were the exception. What you did last night with the platform you have is exactly what no one did from 2002-2008. Thank you.
Today I am flying 6-7 extra days a month (about 22-23 total) just to stay in our home. 23 days a month on the road can suck the life out of anyone. My wife has had to scramble from part-time job to part-time job. We have 2 in high school with college looming. We have no savings and our pensions were terminated. Meanwhile, my airline is making record profits again.
My counter-parts at American Airlines need to study what happened to us. If they and this brave gentleman at the PBGC can get the public's ear, perhaps the American dream can be restored for some of us. I pray that President Obama fully comprehends what is at stake.
Thanks Lawrence & crew,
Ownie's Dad
Thanks Lawence and MSNBC!!
As an employee of an airline and most importantly a taxpayer. This makes me sick. At United we lost our pension and the pbgc took it over. United hid assets just like AA. And the big wigs---the Bain Corp --the top managers ---the people at the top --- who scrambled aware once they got their millions, left the line people to go without. To go on food stamps. To be forced to ask for mortgage assistance to kerp their homes ...... To give up even more of their pay and work in a deplorable environment.....But these people kept working. Kept serving the public. Even when the public didn't care about their plight!, And they want good service!
Shame on these airlines. The president and the government should be doing something to help people like us. Instead of complaining that they are government officials --- and why don't they have an upgrade! Maybe they need to do their jobs and make sure taxpayers who are airline employees are protected. Shame on you .... All of you in the administrations. Past and present who allow this to happen. Make these airlines. Both AA and United pay their employees what was promised!
Happy Groundhog Day! And today Donald Trump came out of his penthouse and saw Newt Gingrich! Now we will have four more years or Barack Obama!
Lawrence bravo for last nights reason # 279! This was such a great explanation of what corporations do to disenfranchise the people who do the actual work. I proudly worked for UAL for 36 years and not only did they dump our pensions many of our jobs were sent overseas when they emerged from bankruptcy in 2005. It breaks my heart every day to see what is happening to the American workers at the expense of the few. Thanks for telling it like it really is!