ZOOMIE,
What you are missing is that the reason United furloughed 1400 guys a second time was to "right-size" the airline for CAL. UAL and CAL could have just merged and then figured out who to furlough, which would then undeniably have been the CAL guys who would have got furloughed because they were less senior. The United furloughees have paid the price for this merger to happen and should get something back for it. This isn't the case of an airline going down the tubes being saved by another airline.