mr. speaker , i yield myself 3 minutes . 
mr. speaker , when united airlines announced it was going to go into bankruptcy , the democratic members of the committee on education and the workforce planned an e-hearing so those people who were most affected by the termination of that plan and the bankruptcy of that company would have an opportunity to talk to their representatives in congress . 
we were not going to have a hearing on this problem , and these people could not come to washington and testify . 
so we opened up the internet to them , and we received thousands of replies from people telling us their life stories . 
the amazing thing about it was how many of these people were using their retirement to care for another member of their family . 
it could be a spouse with an illness , it could be a child , a grandchild , and all of a sudden , half of their pensions were evaporated into the bankruptcy of united airlines . 
mr. kenneth schmidt , a long-time employee of united from goodyear , arizona , wrote , `` dear congressman , i had worked at united for 38 years when i retired in february of 2003 . 
my job as a mechanic was always a source of pride to me . 
i worked midnights for many years , and in doing so , i missed many of my family gatherings and holidays . 
this was what i chose to do in life , and i did it with no complaints . 
but now i am faced with large cuts in my retirement benefits . 
my retirement should be a time for taking it easy , traveling and enjoying my `golden years. ' if this cut happens , both my wife and i will be forced to reenter the work world , probably full time if our medical insurance is also affected . 
this is a sad time in this country for all the workers who are what the problem is is that this legislation does nothing for the kenneth schmidts of the world , he and his family . 
it does nothing to keep companies from simply making a business decision that they can throw the company into bankruptcy , get rid of the retirement and health care obligations to retirees and move along . 
this is not some unusual practice to bring shame upon a company . 
the steel companies did it . 
the airlines have done it . 
there is a question of whether the automobile industry will go this way . 
it is really not completely about their pensions . 
it is about a decision of a business plan . 
it is about competition and a change in the marketplace . 
but the fact of the matter is that , at the end of the day , there is no showing . 
united did not have to show that for these pension plans they would be a solvent company . 
in fact , the people from the pbgc wrote and said that they thought the flight attendant plan could be salvaged , and in fact , maybe the others could . 
but the decision was made and they went into bankruptcy without a hearing on that issue . 
companies should have to exhaust all of their attempts to try to save the retirement plans of these americans , these people who have worked hard . 
remember , these pension plans , they traded pay . 
they traded health care benefits . 
they traded vacation days for this pension plan . 
that was the agreement and the guarantee . 
now , unilaterally , the company gets up and walks away from it . 
and to rub salt into their wounds , there were pilots required by the laws of this nation to retire earlier . 
they take an additional hit on their pension because they are early retirees , not because they wanted to stop flying but because the law says they have to retire . 
so we have pension plans that could have been salvaged and people who are being punished because of the federal law in terms of their early retirements , and this bill does nothing to fix that . 
we do that in our motion to recommit . 
we address the concerns of the flight attendants . 
we address the concerns of the early retirees , and we address the concerns of the airlines , but it does not do that in the majority bill because they want to go off and use those people as trading chips , the retirement nest eggs of these hardworking americans , in the conference committee . 
i urge members to vote against this legislation . 
