Yahoo! News - US Airways asks to scrap union accords, terminate costly pensions

"US Airways, taking punishing losses, asked a bankruptcy judge to let it scrap deals with three unions, terminate pensions with set payouts, and slash health benefits.

US Airways filed the request with the US Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.

It asked the court to reject existing agreements with the Association of Flight Attendants, the Communications Workers of America and the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers.

The airline said it was still in talks with those three unions to cut pay and costs, and it would prefer to reach a deal with them rather than impose a court-approved resolution."

Yeah, right, Bubba. On the one hand, you ask the Judge to impose pay cuts, benefits cuts, pension cuts, the whole shebang. On the other hand, you say "we're still negotiating with the unions". But it's obvious that there will be no real negotiation -- not when the Judge can impose pay cuts unilateraly.

Did anyone ask the executives how much they were willing to cut their pay? This is often an important part of the salary pool.