The Pain Felt Isn't Shared By All

Red Harvest posts an important point I've kept meaning to cite. Namely:

A federal bankruptcy court has authorized United Airlines to default on pension benefits for some 120,000 employees. Instead of receiving the benefits for which they bargained, these workers will receive mere cents on the dollar from the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC). And United is hardly through balancing its books on the backs of its workers. The company is seeking to extract some $725 million in further cost savings out of wages and benefits, on top of labor concessions already totaling $2.5 billion a year.

The pain is not exactly being shared all around. United CEO Glenn Tilton, for example, won't lose one penny of his $4.5 million pension, which is protected by a trust established shortly before the company filed for bankruptcy. Likewise, United's attorneys, from the powerful Chicago-based firm Kirkland & Ellis, will not have to sacrifice their exorbitant fees. As of March, the firm had billed some $54 million. One attorney, who billed at an hourly rate of $540, claims to have worked a staggering 3500 hours on the United bankruptcy in 2004 (the equivalent of 9.5 hours every day including weekends and holidays), for a total of nearly $2 million.

Even in bankruptcy, it seems, the rich get richer and the poor get screwed.