I don't buy the argument that furloughees are former employees, but they are not active pilots. Just as they were not allowed to vote on the contract, they have no place on the SLI except on the bottom of the list below active pilots.
Originally Posted by
Baron50
Consider a world where the lists were not put together, the furloughees, in time, would return, fly a career and retire at a certain seniority, based on their age, notwithstanding other types of attrition. This is quantifiable, without too much effort a career earnings could be calculated, even for someone that is furloughed today.
Your argument assumes a date of recall based on eveything being frozen, and is like a Detriot auto worker saying "I would have retired from my job making $XXX,000/year if they hadn't outsourced it to Mexico." Even without the UniCal merger the recall date for furloughees was TBD, therefore their career earnings could NOT be calculated. Many variables come into play such as parking of the Busses or DinoSevenFours/Fives, continued economic slowdown, USAir merger, etc.
For all we know, a furloughee might never have returned to UAL.