First, you have to accept that Arpey and troupe are not interested in an equitable settlement, nor have they ever been since this cluster was sold to us in 2003. I said at that time it would be undone by the management and sure enough, guess what happened? "Pull Together, We Win, You Lose" is more on the order of the company belief. The concessions were sold on the basis of "we'll do better when the company makes a comeback".
Only after the 2003 contract was ratified by Little did we begin to see the word "permanent" being used in reference to our ceded wages and benefits, never before when the sales pitch was hot and heavy. The company had no intent of ever going back to the "old ways", indeed, they began to use the term "market rates" much more often with respect to our compensation and benefits than ever before - this was less than 3 months after the contract had been ratifiedby Little that the new terminology was being regularly used by management. This is all with the blessing of the TWU.
As far as bankruptcy is concerned, what we all saw (UAL, NWA, USA, DAL, CAL) were pre-October 2005 BK filings. No major airline has filed under the new rules which seem to be a bit friendlier towards workers than before - the corporations don't have quite the blank check in court they had previously, according to some opions, but ... as I said, no major airline has filed for Chapter 11 relief under the new laws, the closest thing to a major being Frontier and that was only because their credit card processor wanted to withhold 30 days of their c/c sales. Aloha (after being hosed by Mesa) and another did Chapter 7 filings - they're history.
That being said, I'm with you - I really don't care to be a test case for the new bk laws but I'm rather tired of being lied to by both the company (expected) and my union representation (intolerable).