Bob: Once again, you’re talking with no concern for the truth regarding the prefunding plan but that’s not unusual. You imply we will never see the company match, but we got the contract required prefunding + interest while waiting for the Bankruptcy Judge to rule on American’s obvious attempt to circumvent it’s responsibility to those already retired. Apparently you didn’t read or chose to ignore the Videtich Letter that clearly stated the decision to use the company match for continuation of the retiree medical plan was entirely up to the individual plan participants. As I read the Prefunding Plan Agreement, in the event of a Bankruptcy or Plan Termination the intent (when the Prefunding Trust was negotiated in 1992) was to continue funding a retiree medical plan should the participants decide to do so. As explained in the Videtich letter, nowhere does it say it would be done without the approval of the TWU’s Prefunding Plan participants. What exactly don’t you understand?
The simple fact is that no one on the Retiree Committee is asking for a nickel of any active employee’s prefunding or prefunding match or to interfere with the distribution of the Company match to employees as required by the contract. What the Retiree Committee is asking for is that the Court not allow the Company to simply jettison its obligations to retirees leaving them with nothing. It is not asking any active employee to meet this obligation; it is asking the Company to do so.
I suppose its not surprising that you don’t understand the 1114 process or that you have not read the material before the Court. What is unforgivable though is your attempt to pit retirees against active employees when every moral and union principle dictates that we should work together and support one another.
