The number of DB plans have decreased since the legislation, as employers have unilaterally eliminated them. Workers without collective bargaining rights were/are powerless to oppose these changes. All the legacy airlines had it jammed down their throat in BK. Not sure how the subsidize/tax question is relevant or germane to DB plans.

GOP opposition is delineated in a letter that I archived.

Kind of a long read, but here is a report by an ALPA PAC supporter (politically active retired ual pilot from SFO) who worked with his congressman (Miller) in 2005 in crafting pension reform legislation leading to what ended up as Boehners bill. In it you will find the GOP opposition to the initial acts.

Furthermore- at the end some feedback from the congressmen on the effectiveness of action.


This was written in 2005:
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December 16, 2005
To All My Fellow Retirees and Friends of this List,
Yesterday, December 15, the House of Representatives debated and voted on their version of pension reform legislation in the form of HR 2830.

I believe the majority of you watched the proceedings broadcast on C-Span-H in disbelief. I know from the email I am receiving not all of you had an opportunity to watch the proceeding and have many unanswered questions. I will attempt here to explain what happened to the best of my ability. Please keep in mind that these are my observations and recollections only.

The House began session at 10 AM EST on December 15 and it did not take them long to get into a very heated debate about rule changes the Republicans made to prevent the Miller-Rangel Substitute bill from being introduced, debated and voted on.

Let me back up for a moment. The Miller-Rangel bill has been under development for quite some time now, I have been in close contact with the staff member that created this bill. I was not allowed to disclose its
contents or even the fact that it was being developed. The reason for this was twofold: 1) They did not want to tip off the Republicans on what they were doing or their plans as the Democrat minority, was afraid from the beginning that if the Republicans got wind of their plans they would change the rules such that they would not be able to present their substitute; 2) They did not want United Airlines to find out about it because they knew United would unleash their attack dog lobbyist in Washington and their influence would be very hard to overcome.

I found it very hard to motivate people to take part in our writing campaign
when many felt it was “over” and there were no more options for us, yet knowing there was a plan that had the potential of restoring our pensions. It was very frustrating to me and I did mention this plan to several that were becoming hopeless. I was hoping that I could show that there was in fact hope and we needed their help. We were, nonetheless, successful in keeping this quiet. Tuesday night the decision was made by the staff of Congressman Miller to release this information to our group in the hopes there was enough time left that we could do a letter writing and phone blitz that would alert the House members that they were going to have an opportunity to vote on a bill that would save the pensions at United Airlines. If you recall, our message before that point was very general, “Please support ANY pension reform legislation that will save the pensions at United Airlines.” I now hope you can see the reasons for
this and the emphasis on the word ANY.

Evidently the House DID get our message, so powerfully so, that the Republicans scheduled a late night rules committee meeting and changed the rules so the Miller-Rangel bill could not even be presented, debated or voted on. When Congressman Miller’s staff quit working Wednesday night very late, I received a series of messages indicating that they were ready and that they had a quiet confidence that they would be successful in the next day’s session.

However, the Republicans were busy mounting their defense.
The first thing that happened in Thursday’s session, was the debate and vote on the rule change. When that came up I knew we were in
trouble and almost simultaneously I received a call from Congressman Miller’s staff asking me to put out a plea for everyone to immediately call their Congressman and voice your opinion on the rule change and also the Democrat counter measure of a Motion to Recommit. I quickly got that message out, but we only had one hour in which to work and most of that time was used up composing and sending that message out.

The debate on the rule change was heated. The Democrats were outraged that they would not even be able to present a bill that they felt would solve the pension problems in the airline industry and very specifically at United Airlines. One Democrat Congressman said loosely quoted, “We have men dying in Iraq so these people will have the right to vote in a democracy and yet you will not allow the representatives of your own people to be heard.”

If the Republicans truly believed they had a top notch bill, why did they have to change the rules? The Republicans are in the majority and can pass anything they want, IF they are in agreement. This leads me to believe they didn’t have the support in their own party to pass HR 2830 if there was any kind of alternative available to vote on, specifically a bill as good as the Miller-Rangel bill. We were simply outgunned by the Republican majority leaders. We lost the rule change by a vote right along party lines.

The debate on HR 2830 began and Congressman Miller put forth a Motion to Recommit with instructions. A Motion to Recommit if passed would have sent HR 2830 back to committee where it would be re-written with instructions to include the provisions of the Miller-Rangel substitute bill.

Outgunned again, this motion failed by a vote right along party lines.
HR 2830 was debated and voted on and it passed by a vote of 294-132 because as the Republicans successfully schemed there was no alternative.
There is continuing controversy over this bill because many know it is not a
great bill, but feel that the Senate provisions already passed will help turn it into a better bill. Neither the Senate bill nor the House bill has ANY
provisions that will help save the pensions at United Airlines. The Senate bill does have the Akaka amendment that is expected to survive committee that will remove the PBGC penalty for pilots being forced to retire at age 60 rather than the PBGC normal age 65.

Here are some interesting points about HR 2830 and why it passed:
HR 2830 was Congressman Boehner’s baby; he personally herded this bill from its inception to its vote yesterday because he wanted this victory badly. It is no secret in Washington that Congressman Boehner wants to be Speaker of the House and he could not take a defeat on this major bill and still be in contention for that seat. He felt a failure here would be a reflection on his leadership capabilities.

If it was such a bad bill, why did it pass?
It passed because Congressman Boehner did a good job in splitting labor so there was no united front against the bill.

For example, the first version was devastating to the UAW’s pension
plans; the funding rules would have changed which would have lowered the funding levels of their plans so dramatically they risked distress terminations of their plans. When the UAW went against Boehner, Boehner took those provisions out in exchange for the UAW not opposing his bill.

Sound familiar? This was done much
like United offering the MEC their $550 million in exchange for not opposing the termination of our pension plan in bankruptcy court. Boehner used a similar strategy.

Why did ALPA endorse HR 2830? There was nothing in HR2830 that helped ALPA or the other airlines. They simply wanted to see a bill passed quickly so that they could get the House bill into Conference Committee, knowing that the 20 year amortization and the Akaka amendment had a very good chance of surviving since the Senate vote was 98–2.

President Bush is on record as of December 16 as opposing this bill. The White House said, “President Bush would veto the bill unless it went further in shoring up the creaky pension system. The administration is seeking legislation that would require companies to put more money behind their pension promises than current law requires.” (Thus making it easier to abandon, terminate, or freeze for insufficient funding levels) The President’s advisors will recommend a veto if the House and Senate end up with a bill no stronger than the laws they have been trying to amend. The President has also indicated that he does not want industry specific rules.

What is next? As I mentioned earlier the next step is the Conference Committee. The conferees have not been selected to the best of my knowledge. We will have our strongest supporter, Congressman George Miller on that committee; however, he does hold a minority position and his power is limited. When the members are determined, I believe that our list should express our views to this committee. This committee has the power to add anything they want to this legislation. I also believe a fax and phone campaign to the White House will be warranted in the future.

Compliments given. I made the comment to Congressman Miller’s staff that I thought our list should write thank you letters to Congressman Miller and
Congressman Rangel for the supreme effort in attempting to save our pensions at United Airlines. This comment was received by a chuckle, and the comment, “Jim, it should be the other way around.” I was surprised at this response and asked what he meant by that and he said, “If it wasn’t for your group, the Miller-Rangel bill would have never got to the point it did.” I was shocked at this comment and he explained that if we had not bombarded the Congressman’s offices with the 100’s of phone calls and faxes, they never would have had the support to put this bill together. Congressman Miller’s committee office was flooded with calls from other Congressmen saying they were being deluged with phone calls and faxes and something had to be done. Each of you that took part in this campaign needs to be really proud of yourselves because of your effort the Miller-Rangel bill came into being and we almost won.

I was also told by Congressman Miller’s staff, “DO NOT LET YOUR LIST DIE. It is a very powerful and effective tool and we may need them in the very near future.”
Jim Hosking
Retired Pilots Network