Maybe if you actually worked here instead of sitting in the cheering section you'd have a different perspective.
If I worked there I don't think I'd play the "poor me - I'm the victim - AA's out to get me" card every time AA complied with the Securities Act of 1934 by filing its 10-K.
When we see something like that release which contains statements like this...
the parent of the world's largest airline said it may require more cash to manage its debt and pension obligations in the next several years.
We contrast that with the self congratulatory crap on JetNet about how the company has contributed XXX millions of dollars, far above the required minimum to the defined benefit pension plans.
Funny you should mention JetNet, the employee intranet site. Its target audience consists of employees, not investors, so its material isn't perpetually doom and gloom, like the statements in Item 1A,
Risk Factors, of the 10-K. You sound angry that AMR contributed more to the plans than the legal minimum - what I find odd about that is that so many others who post here are angry that the plans aren't fully funded. Yet another example of AMR being damned if it does, damned if it doesn't. Could you employees make up your mind on this one?
The 10-K's Risk Factors language (picked up by the Reuters story in the OP as if it were a new thing) reads a lot like the warning stickers found on new ladders or the warning stencils painted on your ground equipment (eg "PINCH POINT" in huge letters on the belt loaders). The OP misinterprets/falls for the news story and you end being played. Show a little skepticism of the media, why don'tcha?
What I find funniest about your pavlovian response to the 10-K's language is that the entire premise of this thread rests upon an assumption that Arpey and the others wanted to print all of that doom and gloom in an effort to condition the employees for more givebacks.
If you'd ever counseled the executives in writing the 10-K (as I have at other companies as outside securities counsel), you'd know that these Risk Factors are about the last thing management wants to say; if it weren't for the damned lawyers, executives would trim this item to a sentence or two. Far from proudly trying to scare the beleagured employees like you, these Risk Factors are usually included over the objections of the kicking and screaming senior executives.
But go ahead and fall for it every time if you must.
As to your last sentence, I fully agree with you. Lots of stupid decisions by management.
