Letter from Roger Hall, URPBPA

July 3, 2005

Dear Fellow URPBPA Member,

There are several bills being worked on in Congress that have the
potential to help preserve our pensions.  Senate bill S 1158 and House
bill H.R. 2327 would provide for a six months moratorium on defined
benefit plan terminations by the PBGC effective May 1, 2005.  Senate
bill S 861 would ease and spread out funding requirements of defined
benefit pension plans.  Additional pension legislation is being
considered in both the Senate and the House and their various
subcommittees.  URPBPA urges you to continue to write to your Senators
and your House Representative requesting that they support these bills
and the others that are being considered.

URPBPA suggests that the information below be used in communications
with your Congressional representatives.  A consistent flow of
communications to your representatives stressing the "important points"
below will be helpful in getting Congress to pass legislation that will
protect our pensions.  These points should be included in any
communications you send to members of Congress or the Administration.

1. Your pension is deferred compensation for work you performed for
United over a __ years of employment.  On numerous occasions throughout
your career, your union, ALPA, negotiated for better pension benefits in
lieu of additional current salary.

2. Don't talk about how much you earned as a pilot.  No sympathy is
gained from the majority of people who earn less than $50,000 a year.

3. Refer to the percentage of your pension that will be lost in the
event of termination of the Pilots Defined Benefit Pension Plan. Do not
raise the dollar amount you expect to lose, since even a $30,000 or
$35,000 pension may seem generous. 

4. Point out how the loss of a major portion of your retirement income
will affect your life.  If you will have a real hardship, such as
pulling children out of college, health expenses you can't meet, family
members who are dependent on you for financial support, etc, explain the
impact on your and your family.  Bemoaning that you may have to sell
your boat, airplane, or second home will destroy any good will already
gained and turn the communication into a negative one.

5. Point out that there are alternatives to outright termination of
United's pension plans.  United, in spite of saying they will consider
alternatives, has to date dismissed any ideas by saying "we can't do
that because it is too expensive." frequently without even looking at
the actual cost, or, "We cannot emerge from bankruptcy with that
continued liability." even if the future liability is minimal.

6. URPBPA has a proposal to retain the retired pilots' pension. This
proposal will save the PBGC $750 million, and the cost to United is far
less that what they are paying others to allow termination of United's
Defined Benefit Plans.  The URPBPA proposal would avoid the massive
losses in pension income that will happen if the PBGC or United
terminate the pilots plan.  Congress should be promoting proposals such
as URPBPA's due to the savings the PBGC would receive.

7. If you are comfortable discussing some of the more technical issues*

a) The PBGC is mandated to protect workers' pensions.  In the United
case, the PBGC is ignoring that mandate and rushing to terminate
United's Defined Benefit Pension Plans.  The PBGC's own court filings,
as recently as April, indicate that they do not think that all of
United's pension plans need to be terminated.  These terminations will
cause great losses for United retirees and workers.  The PBGC's actions
will also increase their liabilities by billions of dollars.

b) If United is allowed to terminate their plans, other airlines will
shortly do the same.  This could set a pattern for other major
industries in the US such as the auto industry.  Even the PBGC has
expressed concern about this possibility.

c) The cost to the PBGC for all of these terminations will be far more
that the PBGC can ever hope to pay

d) Will the PBGC become the next taxpayer bailout, or will it just be
allowed to declare bankruptcy, stop paying retirees, and leave millions
of elderly citizens to exist in poverty?

e) Clearly from what has happened at USAir and is pending at United, the
legal requirements for funding pensions are totally deficient.  Strict
laws mandating funding at adequate levels must be enacted.

f) Reporting requirements for pension funding are inadequate.  Employees
are informed about their pension funding once a year and that
information is almost a year old before it becomes available.  Even
then, the reported numbers may not reflect the actual health of a
particular pension plan.  These trust funds are the employees' funds. 
They have worked for them and they should be given current and accurate
information on the plans health on a quarterly basis.

Passage of these bills will be helpful in our efforts to retain you
pension.  I urge you to write again, today, even if you have written
letters on these subjects before.

Fraternally,

Roger Hall
President
United Retired Pilots Benefit Protection Association
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