[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 75 (Wednesday, June 8, 2005)]
[House]
[Pages H4281-H4285]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




             HUMAN SUFFERING AS A RESULT OF CORPORATE THEFT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Mack). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 7, 2003, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Owens) is 
recognized for the remainder of the designee of the Minority Leader's 
time.
  Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, may I ask how much time I have left?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Approximately 30 minutes.
  Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, I want to begin by thanking and 
congratulating my colleagues on the Committee on Education and the 
Workforce, the ranking member, the gentleman from California (Mr. 
Miller), the gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. Schakowsky), and the 
gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Tierney), I want to thank them for 
their invention of the congressional e-hearing. This is not a small 
thing. We now have a device, one more productive milestone for 
communication, that can allow us to reach out into the entire Nation, 
beyond the Beltway, beyond the partisan arguments of the Congress.
  This is a very important new instrument for freedom of speech and for 
freedom of the minority party. We are, as Democrats, a minority party, 
and we are an oppressed minority party in that we are not given the 
right to call hearings or we are not allowed to recommend hearings and 
have the majority party follow through on those hearings. That was not 
the case when the Democrats were in the majority, but that is the way 
it has developed with the present Republican majority.
  So we have a device now whereby any citizen can participate. They do 
not have to pay the fare to come to Washington, but you can participate 
in a hearing, and I think this is a device that we should look forward 
to using more often.
  We should understand that in street language what my colleagues have 
been talking about is a legal swindling, legal theft. How can there be 
legal theft? Well, whatever the Congress approves is legal. They 
sometimes approve things that are immoral and illegal, really. They 
sometimes approve things that are devastating for people.

[[Page H4282]]

But legality means we made it legal, because it is a law.
  By law, we are allowing corporations to run rampant over the rights 
of individuals in a most profound and basic way, and that is they are 
taking their money. They are taking the money of people who have put 
their money aside in a pension plan and who entrusted the corporation 
to be the guardian for the money that they have saved over the years.
  I am going to begin with one letter, because I think it is very 
important to keep this on a plane where we understand that the people 
of America are speaking. I think the e-hearing solicited at least 1,000 
responses, and I think that some of those responses need to be 
amplified, and we need to hear them and the rest of America.
  I want to begin with one which does not come from New York State. I 
am going to read a few from New York State, but this one happens to 
come from a lady who lives in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, Carolyn A. 
Rosenberg. I give her name, I give her location, because I think she 
wanted to participate in a hearing, and she wants to be heard. She 
wants it to be public, what she is about to say. I must say that what 
is in this letter is very intimate, very painful, it shows a great deal 
of human suffering, and I congratulate her, I thank her, for being 
willing to share it with the rest of America.
  ``Representative George,'' she says, ``my vivid recall of 9/11 is 
lying on the kitchen floor in a fetal position crying uncontrollably, 
feeling like I am going to vomit, praying to God to keep my husband 
safe, and wondering where my husband is, what he is experiencing, and 
what the hell is going on. My next thought, rational or not, was to 
jump in the car and go pick up my son from his Jewish preschool, 
figuring these lunatics would want to kill him because of how we choose 
to worship God, yet my body wouldn't let me get up off the cold floor. 
I desperately hoped for someone to call me, anyone, and tell me my 
husband was safe.
  ``Presently, as I write this, my body is shaking. It is difficult to 
keep my emotions in check and to focus on what I want to say. My 
husband recently retired from United Airlines after a 24-year pilot 
career with them and a 40-year career as a professional aviator. What 
is happening at United to all its employees, present and past, is 
appalling. The people with the power of this company belong to the 
group that boasts Ken Lay, Bernie Ebbers and Dennis Kozlowski as some 
of its members. The Executive Council for the Pilots Union is also 
right there with them.
  ``The effects of the United Airlines bankruptcy has been staggering 
to my family. The stress on my husband and myself individually is 
enormous, not to mention the strain on our marriage. We have lost a 
significant portion of our savings due to United's collapse. At mid-
life I am forced to go back to school to switch careers, and wondering 
how I will pay for it. I have to find a job that will pay me what I was 
making, plus the 61 percent retirement loss my husband is going to 
suffer. Yes, that percentage is accurate. My husband used the Pension 
Benefits Guarantee Corporation formula. My kids want to know why we 
won't buy them Game Boys, why we never eat out anymore, why the house 
was freezing in the winter, why we are canceling the cable, why we 
might sell the house, and why we won't buy a replacement vehicle to our 
13-year-old minivan with the loud noises.
  ``I'm not a rocket scientist, but I know that United's employee 
pension funds don't have to be turned over to the PBGC to allow UAL to 
emerge from bankruptcy. I expect, no, I demand, that these smart people 
at the top actually formulate a plan to preserve what all the employees 
have worked so hard to earn.
  ``I feel pretty darned (not the word I want to use) mad, betrayed, 
and depressed. I feel that my husband and I have no control over our 
financial future and also feel, unfortunately, that this won't be 
resolved for years. Congress, it's your turn to step up to the plate 
and do something since United Airlines' management isn't, nor this 
administration (and I'm a Republican). Carolyn A. Rosenberg, 
Doylestown, Pennsylvania.''
  I want to thank Mrs. Rosenberg for sharing that with us. I want to 
thank her for participating in the e-hearing. I hope that we will be 
able in the future to have many more e-mail hearings since we are not 
allowed to have hearings of people in person.
  Mr. Speaker, I will enter the entire letter of Ms. Rosenberg into the 
Record.

       Representative George. My vivid recall of 9/11 is lying on 
     the kitchen floor in a fetal position; crying uncontrollably; 
     feeling like I'm going to vomit; praying to G_d to keep my 
     husband safe; and wondering where my husband is, what he's 
     experiencing, and what the hell is going on! My next thought, 
     rational or not, was to jump in the car and go pick up my son 
     from his Jewish preschool, figuring these lunatics will want 
     to kill him because of how we choose to worship G_d, yet my 
     body wouldn't let me get up off the cold floor. I desperately 
     kept hoping for someone to call me--anyone--and tell me my 
     husband was safe.
       Presently, as I write this, my body is shaking; it's 
     difficult to keep my emotions in check and focus on what I 
     want to say. My husband recently retired from United Airlines 
     after a 24-year pilot career with them and a 40-year career 
     as a professional aviator. What's happening at United to all 
     its employees, present and past, is appalling. The people 
     with the power at this company belong to the group that 
     boasts Ken Lay, Bernie Ebbers, and Dennis Kozlowski as some 
     of its members. The executive council for the pilots' union 
     is also right there with them.
       The effects of the United Airlines bankruptcy has been 
     staggering to my family. The stress on my husband and myself 
     individually is enormous, not to mention the strain on our 
     marriage. We've lost a SIGNIFICANT portion of our savings due 
     to United's collapse. At mid-life I'm forced to go back to 
     school to switch careers (and wondering how I'll pay for it). 
     I have to find a job that will pay me what I was making plus 
     the 61% retirement loss my husband is going to suffer--yes, 
     that percentage is accurate; my husband used the PBGC 
     formula. My kids want to know why we won't buy them Game 
     Boys, why we never eat out anymore, why the house was 
     freezing in the winter, why we're canceling the cable, why we 
     might sell the house, and why we won't buy a replacement 
     vehicle to our 13-year old minivan with the ``loud noises.''
       I'm not a rocket scientist, but I know that United's 
     employee pension funds don't have to be turned over to the 
     PBGC to allow UAL to emerge from bankruptcy! I expect--no, I 
     demand that these smart people at the top actually formulate 
     a plan to preserve what all the employees have worked so hard 
     to earn.
       I feel pretty darned (not the word I want to use) mad, 
     betrayed, and depressed. I feel that my husband and I have no 
     control over our financial future and also feel, 
     unfortunately, that this won't be resolved for years. 
     Congress, it's your turn to step up the plate and do 
     something since UAL's management isn't, nor this 
     Administration (and I'm a Republican).
                                             Carolyn A. Rosenberg,
                                                   Doylestown, PA.

  I want to just take one moment to reminisce about the early days, my 
early days in Congress. Within a few years after I came to Congress, 
more than 23 years ago, we had what is called the savings and loan 
bailout scandal.

                              {time}  2115

  Savings and loans bailout scandal. I call it scandal. It was another 
one of those swindles, legal swindles, legal stealing, sanctified by 
the Congress. We have spent more than half a trillion dollars of the 
taxpayers' money paying for the swindling and the crookedness that went 
on in the savings and loans banks.
  I said more than half a trillion, because whenever I try to get the 
final figure, and really how much taxpayers were charged for that 
swindle, nobody ever can come up with a hard figure. So I recommend 
that there are some sophomores out there listening, high school 
sophomores, and bright students, you might want to go and check out and 
see if you can research and search out the amount of money that the 
United States Government, the taxpayers, had to put up to pay for the 
transgressions of the savings and loans failures.
  Legal swindling. That is what it was. Stealing. Legal stealing. 
Systematic swindling. Sanctioned and guaranteed by the government. And 
I use those harsh words because we are about to enter another one of 
those fantastic bailouts. It has already begun. The airlines now are 
going to have what the savings and loan banks had, a bailout by the 
taxpayers.
  Now, there are two things at work here. I want the fullest possible 
sympathy for the people who are suffering, like Mrs. Rosenberg, and 
some of the other people's whose letters I will read in a few minutes. 
But we must sympathize fully. We must understand that

[[Page H4283]]

those are human beings, families that need somehow to be justly 
compensated.
  They need the full amount that they have invested returned to them. 
And that is our first priority. It must be our first priority. If in 
the end the only way they can get that is through the Federal 
Government, taxpayers, then I guess we will have to do that. But what a 
shame.
  These are individuals who never expected, never wanted to be the 
beneficiaries of taxpayer welfare. That is what it is going to be, a 
subsidy given to them from the government to make up for something that 
they should have gotten as a result of their own individual 
responsibility.
  We stress a great deal, and certainly this administration and this 
White House and the present domineering majority party in the Senate 
and in the House of Representatives, they stress personal 
responsibility. But the personal responsibility does not seem to extend 
to the corporate executives who take the money of the people, the 
investors, and the money of the employees and illegally use it and end 
up empty handed, expecting a bailout again from the taxpayers. That is 
what we are dealing with here.
  We must sympathize. We must try to get ways to get more than 60 
percent. Now, once as you heard from the letter, in this case the pilot 
says, I will only get 60 percent. Now, I face a 60 percent loss. That 
means I will only get 40 percent of what I should have gotten. The loss 
is 61 percent. You know, we would like to see them get a hundred 
percent of what they should get.
  And I do not want anything I say now to let us lose sight of that 
important consideration. But we must understand the job of Congress now 
is to stop further thievery. Stop further swindling. Let it by known 
right now that this whole acquiescence, surrender to rule by 
corporations, which has gotten completely out of control under the 
present administration, this has got to stop. You cannot let 
corporations continue to plunder the economy and plunder its citizens.
  Yes, we have had other plunders. We know the military industrial 
complex, which President Eisenhower, as he was going out of office, 
said, beware. Beware of the military industrial complex. They will rob 
America blind. They had taxpayer's money in this amount, and they are 
doing that. They are still doing that. It is an open bottomless pit 
that we are dropping money into, military expenditures.
  Above and beyond Iraq. Iraq had to have a special appropriation. But 
we are spending more than a half trillion dollars on the military 
already. Today the New York Times had on its front page a story of how 
the program for the procurement and the development of weapons has 
gotten completely out of control; and it cited as an example, in the 
early part of the story, a naval weapon that has been under 
consideration for some time. And when it was tested, the missile blew 
up, melted and was no good.
  But, yet, it was reported to have been a success, and additional 
money was given to keep the development going. Thus far, that 
development process has cost $400 million; $400 million to develop a 
weapon which blew up and obviously is not workable. But, also, they 
pointed out that we do not need to be in a weapons race. Who are we 
racing against? Who is it that has better weapons already than the 
United States of America? Why do we need to madly pour money down the 
drain after building more weapons?
  The military industrial complex continues to rip off the taxpayers of 
America. The banking and credit card complex is what the savings and 
loan people were all about. The savings and loan scandal started with 
the failure of a few big banks, a few big banks after being mismanaged. 
Can you imagine banks with billions of dollars being mismanaged, on the 
verge of bankruptcy, and the United States Federal Reserve Board, the 
guy who was there at the time, who was in the particular banking 
regulation agency, recommended that we not allow them to fail?
  The phrase was, they are too big to fail. If they fail, they will 
drag down many other industries with them. Well, first it was one bank, 
then in a few months it was four banks. And then it came out that the 
savings and loans, all of the hundreds of savings and loans banks 
across the country many of them were in serious difficulty because of 
the fact that the savings and loans program, the Federal Government 
guaranteed $100,000. If any individual put their money in the bank, up 
to $100,000 was guaranteed by the Federal Government; therefore they 
were abusing that, and in some places they were offering tremendous 
interest to get people to deposit up to $100,000, and it ran away from 
them.

  They did not have the money to cover when people came to collect 
their money. And this happened in large amounts across the whole 
country. Everybody got in on the swindle who was in the savings and 
loan industry, not everybody became crooked, but a large percentage. So 
in the end it cost us more than a half a trillion dollars.
  And I wager that we probably have gotten close to a trillion dollars, 
but you cannot go find that figure. It was all so cleverly done, with 
the approval of so many very important and powerful people, and so you 
cannot get the full story.
  We are on our way now to a bailout of the airline industry. Phase 1: 
shortly after 9/11, we all agreed that the airlines had been 
unfavorably, unjustly penalized economically, that because they were 
grounded as a result of trying to ensure the safety of the American 
people from the air they had lost a tremendous amount of revenue. So we 
did an unprecedented thing. We gave a single industry money to make up 
for their losses.
  The airlines got billions of dollars, appropriated by Congress, 
taxpayers' money, to help cover their losses. Step 1: but, evidently, 
you know, their business practices are such that they did not look at 
the situation and say, well, you know, like a farmer has to worry about 
the drought, and manufacturing has to worry about a declining interest 
of consumers, you have to make your adjustments, you have to do things 
differently. No, the airlines did not adjust, so they continued to lose 
money, because they did not make adjustments in terms of their 
commitment of volume and employees, et cetera; and they are still 
losing tremendous amounts of money.
  And now they wade into the pension funds of the employees. And we are 
expected, we taxpayers are expected to cover that cost. Where will it 
go? How many billions will it be? Do you know? There is no way to know, 
because we are so compliant in our obedience to corporations, we bow 
down in America. The America of the last 20 or 25 years has been more 
and more bowing down to the power of the corporations. We do not demand 
that corporations act responsibly.
  We do not demand that corporations, which are part of the Pension 
Benefit Guarantee Fund Corporation, that they disclose the situation 
with respect to their pension funds. It seems to me that that is a 
reasonable demand; it ought to be an automatic demand. Any common sense 
will tell you if you are going to take the responsibility of bailing 
out someone in the future if they get into trouble, the least that you 
should be able to do is to be able to demand that they show us how they 
are proceeding in their business, what is the likelihood that they may 
get into trouble, and what is the trend, what may be the place in which 
the crisis occurs.
  We have every right to demand that corporations disclose the basic 
information about their pension funds. And yet we are not getting that 
information. The transparency is not there. The regular reporting is 
not there. Why does Congress allow the taxpayers to take on 
responsibility of insuring these people, while at the same time making 
no demands? That is what the new legislation is all about. It is old 
legislation. We Democrats on the committee, as the gentleman from 
California (Mr. George Miller), the ranking member of the committee, 
pointed out before, we have been saying for years, we need to 
strengthen our pension laws. We need to deal with this in a different 
way. We need to be more responsible as a government. We have been 
saying it, but in the last 8 years we did not have control; the 
Republican majority did. And they seem to believe that there is nothing 
corporations can do that is wrong.
  You know, we had the great theory that persists even until today, 
laissez

[[Page H4284]]

faire is better, laissez faire, fancy French means ``leave it alone.''
  Businesses say laissez faire, leave us alone. Government is best by 
following a laissez faire policy, leave business alone. And that has 
been the story of American capitalism. We have left business alone. But 
it has not worked the other way. Business has not been willing to leave 
government alone. And here is our dilemma.
  Business has taken over government. Business has taken over 
government, and business demands that laws be made in ways which 
guarantee that their profits will be maximized, that whatever damage 
occurs in their case that they will be bailed out. You know, we just 
finished an agricultural appropriation bill today. The agricultural 
industry is one of those industrial complexes, the agricultural 
industrial complex feeds off the taxpayers enormously.
  The agricultural industry is still giving subsidies to farmers. In 
most cases they are not going to individual farmers; they go to farm 
corporations, because when Roosevelt started the program for the dirt 
farmers of the country, small amounts of money went to them to help 
them grow crops, participate in the program, use experimental 
information from the various county agents, et cetera.
  Small amounts went to individuals farmers. But the individual farmers 
had the right to sell their so-called quota allotment to someone else. 
So corporations have, over the years, bought up all of those 
allotments, and you have corporations now that get tremendous amounts 
of subsidies as a result of that original program to bail out poor 
farmers. The poor are not benefiting from the agricultural industrial 
complex at this point. The agracorporations, the big agricultural 
industry, benefits now.
  We struggled more than a year ago to bring down the amount of money 
that each agricultural corporation can get. Taxpayers should not give 
them any more than $275,000 per year. We should not give away any more 
than $275,000 a year. I think the House passed that. I was surprised to 
learn a few months ago that it was overridden by the Senate, and then 
at a conference, we all agreed, and the number is not now $275,000.
  Agricultural corporations can get from the taxpayers of America up to 
$340,000 a year; $340,000 in welfare. That is what it is, a subsidy 
from the government, money from the government. If you are going to 
call one subsidy welfare, any subsidy from the government is a welfare 
payment.
  I do not think welfare is a dirty word. But let us call it what it 
is. The only difference is that a family of four in America right now 
can only get about $7,000 a year, family of four on welfare, you know, 
children and one adult, really, because it is for mothers. Aid to 
Families With Dependent Children, and that means it has to be a single-
family home, in most cases there is no father, because one adult and 
three kids, 6 or $7,000 per family per year, versus $340,000 for a 
farm, an agricultural corporation farm program.

                              {time}  2130

  That is what we are doing in America. The farm bill that we passed 
today has billions of dollars in there to give away to farm subsidies, 
sometimes for not growing grain, et cetera, but it is a giveaway of 
American taxpayers' money.
  The farmers now constitute less than 2 percent of the population. 
Less than 2 percent of the population is walking off with a tremendous 
percentage that is available for needy groups. $340,000 for each 
corporation, that is the maximum amount they can get. Is it not 
wonderful we set a maximum, that they cannot go to a million?
  This is a nature of a corpaucracy, the corpaucracy that we have 
allowed ourselves to get entangled in. The old terminology for economic 
systems and political systems is obsolete, to talk about communism or 
fascism or any other ``ism.'' I think in terms of it being a system 
that is set and being run a certain way, and you can talk about it in 
term of certain theoretical principles that will follow, there is 
always a pattern. Not the case.
  We have a situation now where in America we have social for the rich. 
Socialism bailed out the savings and loan banks. Socialism meant the 
government, the people distributed their wealth into the banks to make 
up for what they had lost. Socialism means the government, the people 
will bail out the airlines. The government, the people will distribute 
money to the farmers to keep the market healthy and to see to it they 
do not overflow with certain commodities and see to it our exports.
  For whatever reason, it is a government action, and I do not condemn 
all government action. I think the complexities of our civilization are 
such that we need a mixture, but let us recognize and admit that it is 
a mixture. Sometimes socialist principles need to be applied.
  Socialist principles involve central planning. Central planning is 
necessary in order for the agriculture bills to work. Central planning 
is necessary in order to bail out the savings and loans. Central 
planning is necessary to have a Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation. 
There is some central planning that societies in this day and age need. 
But let us not fool ourselves. That is government coming to the aid of 
business, the private sector being helped greatly by the public sector, 
by the ordinary taxpayers.
  It is very interesting now, we have a great deal to worry about 
China. China is an economic giant coming on so fast until it is 
beginning to worry even the capitalists who are making the most money 
as a result of their relationship with China. We get cheap goods from 
China. We sell it at high prices here, big profits. Our relationship 
with China was too good to pass up. You can get things too cheap. You 
can get them so cheap manufactured and you can come back here and sell 
them in a market which has a different standard of living and you make 
tremendous profits. That is how we have caved in to China.
  China is a Communist government politically. China is as totalitarian 
as a government can get in the final analysis. They do not hesitate and 
they do not pretend to be democratic. They will not hesitate to step in 
and change the rules if they want to change the rules in terms of any 
one of the industries in China. They put a great deal of conditions on 
our businesses when they go there. It is a planned economy. It is a 
totalitarian economy which still restricts people a great deal.
  They are finding trouble restricting people because of the Internet 
and they cannot keep information from flowing. There are a number of 
things that a modern world is going to undue the Chinese totalitarian 
approach. But they at this point are a Communist totalitarian state 
with a mixed economy, and where capitalism suits them and they can make 
profits off of capitalism they are doing that.
  We are a mixed economy here, but we do not admit it. We now need 
socialism to bail out the airline industries. You need socialistic 
actions, just as we had socialism to bail out the savings and loan 
industry.
  Mr. Speaker, in the last few minutes I want to read a couple more of 
these letters, because I think it is very important to get it down to 
what this e-mail hearing was trying to get to, ordinary Americans 
suffering in this situation, not the Beltway theoretician or 
politicians but ordinary Americans who deserve better.
  ``Dear Congressman, I am a 49-year-old flight attendant based in the 
JFK New York area and a 28-year veteran with United Airlines. If United 
Airlines is allowed to terminate our defined pension plan and the 
Public Benefits Guarantee Corporation takes over, I will be losing over 
50 percent, half, of my promised benefits. The elimination of our 
retirement plan will result in my inability to maintain my family's 
basic necessities in retirement.
  ``The employees at United Airlines have already lost their savings 
from the ESOP program, 401(k) UAL stock Stock Investments, UAL Employee 
Stock Purchase Program, and wages and benefit cuts that average between 
30 percent and 50 percent. Currently, we are barely making ends meet 
and have lost much of our savings. Ironically, our CEO, chief executive 
officer, of the corporation, Mr. Glenn Tilton, of 2 years will retire 
with a $4.5 million package. Please, please help stop this assault on 
our lives, our families, and our airline. Help save our pensions and 
what is left of our dignity. Frank Annunziata, East Meadow, New York.''

[[Page H4285]]

  Here is another statement from Arthur Mount, a retiree living in 
Stony Brook, New York.
  ``In 2003, I retired from this once great company after almost 38 
years of continuous service. I started with United in June of 1965 as a 
ramp serviceman at JFK airport, and in April in 1967 became a pilot, 
finishing my career in April, 2003, as a captain. There are many things 
that I am concerned about regarding a loss of my pension, but my 
biggest apprehension is in regards to my wife. With the termination of 
my pension as proposed by the management of United Airlines, what sort 
of life can she expect? Who will take care of her? Where will the money 
be for the things she will need? Is she to end up as a financial burden 
to our children? It has been said that a true leader leads by example. 
Apparently the senior management of United Airlines does not hold to 
such a high standard. Their pensions are secure. Somehow or another I 
cannot help but believe that if the pensions of this company's senior 
management were to be treated exactly as they proposed mine to be, that 
another solution, other than termination, would have been proposed. 
Arthur Mounts, retiree, Stony Brook, New York.''
  Mr. Speaker, I will also include in the Record a letter from Leola 
Robinson from the Bronx, New York and a letter from James P. Lattimer 
from Bronxville, New York.
  Mr. Speaker, I would like to close by saying it is the business of 
the Congress to protect the American people from these kinds of legal 
swindles and legal thefts. This is suffering that should not take place 
in the United States of America in the year 2005. We can do better.
  We have bills that are being proposed which will make certain that no 
future employees of other large corporations will have to suffer what 
the United Airline people have suffered. We urge you to participate if 
you have the opportunity to participate in any future e-hearings and 
that we have your participation fully.

       Dear Congressman Miller: As a result of the termination of 
     my pension with UAL I will be the only one, and the first in 
     my family, to not have a pension. I have been in the airline 
     industry for 32 years working for Saturn Airline in the 70's, 
     then Trans America, enduring with Seaboard and finally with 
     Capital (dollar sign on the tail). With each airline I've had 
     to support my daughter and myself on a ``Flight Attendant 
     salary'' which was never enough living in New York City. I 
     have survived under great duress.
       I finally came to UAL hoping to get some decent benefits 
     and a retirement plan which is the very least an employee 
     should expect after devoting time and giving loyalty to this 
     company.
       Needless to say I am extremely disappointed at recent 
     events in which UAL sought to dissolve the defined pension 
     benefits. Now my future looks bleak. At my encouragement, my 
     daughter became a UAL Flight Attendant as well as her husband 
     and they now cannot support their family of five and they 
     have no hope of future benefits and retirement. How cruel.
           Sincerely,
                                                   Leola Robinson,
     Bronx, New York.
                                  ____

       Dear Congressman Miller: I know you have been inundated by 
     communications from UAL employees and retirees concerning the 
     termination of our pension funds. I would like to add my 
     voice to protest this termination of my pension. I flew for 
     UAL for thirty two plus years (retiring at 60 in August of 
     2002). My loyalty, labor and perseverance could not be 
     questioned. Now, in return for my labors, I find that the 
     company is attempting to greatly diminish the pension that 
     was promised by contracts and that I worked hard to obtain. 
     Since there are alternatives (e.g. freezing the pension) to 
     termination that would be a better solution, these avenues 
     should be given time to explore.
       Personally, should the plan be terminated, I could see a 
     reduction of 60-75 percent in my retirement income, with no 
     potential to replace this income. This would necessitate sale 
     of our house and a drastic change in our lifestyle. I am also 
     aware that thousands of my fellow employees and retirees 
     would suffer similar situations, many of them very drastic 
     changes. But I also see further beyond that and foresee a 
     domino effect where other airlines (e.g. Delta, Northwest, 
     American) could seek the same relief; along with some of the 
     larger national companies (Ford, GM). This would put an undue 
     burden on the PBGC, necessitating a government bailout, and a 
     possible depression and recession. I don't feel this is a 
     house of cards, but a real and viable outcome. I strongly 
     feel that our burdens should not be passed along to our 
     children and grandchildren.
       I fully support you in your efforts and the efforts of Rep. 
     Janice Schakowsky to sponsor HR 2327 and my appreciation of 
     your actions cannot be measured.
           Thank You.
                                                James P. Lattimer,
     Bronxville, New York.

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