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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TH who wrote (113093)	12/12/2000 7:31:58 PM
From: Mr. Whist	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

This was a slick, tricky thing that management did in '97. The alternative pension plan the suits offered was somewhat comparable to our present plan ... but there were two key differences: (1) we would have given up all of our pension plan overfunding (which goes 100% to vested employees past and present if the company goes out of business down the road); (2)we would have signed off on joint union-management control of the plan. The second factor is the most important. In other words, if management in '98 would have wanted to convert the defined benefits plan into a cash-balance plan (as is happening now with IBM), we would have been powerless to halt this. Or, for that matter, if management wanted in '98 to freeze the pension plan, or even terminate it in favor of a 401(k) plan, we would have been powerless to avoid this. I have other, similar stories. This is just one. Similar goes on all over the country. All these public companies ... all these mid-level managers ... all the VPs telling 'em to hit this target or that target. Few corporate types give a rat's ass about ethics anymore. Only thing that matters is the bottom line.