United Pension Battle

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May 20, 2005
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Atlanta, GA
aogdesk.org
Stewardesses Stripped Of Their Pension?

While some United Airlines employees are using placards and pamphlets to protest the loss of their pensions, a group of flight attendants is taking a more risque tack — showing some skin to publicize their plight.

The five women, ranging in age from 55 to 64, posed for a 2006 calendar that depicts them in various states of undress in front of a vintage plane, on a park bench and on a plane’s wing, among other locations. Reflecting a mix of humor and anger, it was released to coincide with a bankruptcy court’s approval this week of United’s plan to terminate $9.8 billion in employee pension obligations.

While United is never named nor its airplanes shown, every photograph in Stewardesses Stripped (Of Their Pension?) is accompanied by a zinger related to the record pension default by the Elk Grove Village, Ill.-based airline.

“Coffee, tea, or me without a pension?†reads one. “Marry me, fly free — but don’t expect anything from my pension,†says another. And the cover shot: “Are your butts covered? We thought ours were too.â€

Retired flight attendant Connie Baker who started working for United in 1967 when flight attendants were called stewardesses, now is bracing for her $2,800-a-month pension to be cut roughly in half.

“You can’t really live on that,†she said. “How am I going to live on 50% of it?â€

But Baker wants it known that this isn’t all about being bitter. She hopes some good can come from it, and not just the percentage of calendar and T-shirt sales that the women will donate to charity.

Full Story @ USA Today

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