Catherwood LibraryILR School

Despite the acceptance by its employees of major cuts in wages and benefits (see WIT for Aug. 9, 2002), US Airways' bankruptcy filing seems to be turning into a declaration of open season on the retirement plans of thousands of pilots, flight attendants, clerks and mechanics who are being forced to shoulder the burden of the carrier's financial collapse. With pilots at US Airways already facing a seventy-five percent devaluation of their pensions due to the company's $3.1 billion underfunding of the plan (see WIT for Jan. 15, 2003), the company is now asking a federal bankruptcy judge to cancel all of its common stock---a move that would wipe out the 401(k) retirement plans of company employees. Told by form US Airways CEO Stephen M. Wolf not to worry about the value of the stock in their retirement plans in the wake of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack that sent the troubled airline industry into a tailspin, workers at the company are now being told by a bankruptcy judge that their problem is not within his jurisdiction.