Employee Acceptance of UAL Plan Overrated

UAL Corp. Chief Executive Glenn Tilton boasts that through meetings with employees he’s getting positive feedback, even though for “the guy waiting for the punch line, it must seem tortuous” (“UAL CEO’s Flight Plan: It’s About Customers,” Feb. 18).

I’m one of those guys, and the fact is many of us revile the boss. UAL’s brass already got a 14% wage cut from us, thanks to Bankruptcy Court, and its package of concessions demands an additional 20% cuts in wages, benefits, work rules and pensions.

These come in the context of mounting layoffs and the threat of tens of thousands more, as the employer seeks to extort “voluntary” agreement by pledging to seek nullification of our contract via a sympathetic judge and breaking our union if we do not vote for Tilton’s brand of lethal injection. This, before a possible war against Iraq.

Wages of members of the International Assn. of Machinists were frozen for nearly a decade as Wall Street investors made billions.

When the bubble burst, UAL soon followed. Now it seeks more than twice as much from our hides. The corporate thieves cashed out, and we held the bag, unable to sell, just as at Enron.

Jon Hillson

Inglewood