While some United Airlines employees are using placards and pamphlets to protest the loss of their pensions, a group of flight attendants is taking a more risque tack -- showing some skin to publicize their plight.
The five women, ranging in age from 55 to 64, posed for a 2006 calendar that depicts them in various states of undress in front of a vintage plane, on a park bench and on a plane's wing, among other locations. Reflecting a mix of humor and anger, it was released to coincide with a bankruptcy court's approval this week of United's plan to terminate US$9.8 billion in employee pension obligations.
While United is never named nor its airplanes shown, every photograph in "Stewardesses Stripped (Of Their Pension?)" is accompanied by a zinger related to the record pension default by the Elk Grove Village, Illinois-based airline.
"Coffee, tea, or me without a pension?" reads one. "Marry me, fly free -- but don't expect anything from my pension," says another. And the cover shot: "Are your butts covered? We thought ours were too."
Retired flight attendant Connie Baker, the project's creator and one of its photo subjects, says it was inspired by the 2003 film Calendar Girls about the real-life story of a group of older British women who posed naked for a calendar to raise charity money.
"I thought if these English women can do this, we flight attendants can definitely do it," said Baker, 59, who lives outside Phoenix.
The real driving force, though, was United's announcement last summer that it intended to stop funding its pensions and dump them on the government's pension agency, which by law can guarantee just US$6.6 billion of the total.
Baker, who started working for United in 1967 when flight attendants were called stewardesses, now is bracing for her US$2,800-a-month pension to be cut in half.
"You can't really live on that," she said. "How am I going to live on 50 percent of it?"
But Baker wants it known that this isn't all about being bitter. She hopes some good can come from it, and not just the percentage of calendar and T-shirt sales that the women will donate to charity.
"We wanted to create a little humor in people's lives, make it fun, while at the same time getting our message across," she said.
Her husband, Bruce Baker, took the photos. The other retirees photographed are Linda Andrews, 59, and Rosemary Esparza, 64. Baker did not want to name the other two since they are active flight attendants for United.
ELECTRONICS BOOST: A predicted surge in exports would likely be driven by ICT products, exports of which have soared 84.7 percent from a year earlier, DBS said DBS Bank Ltd (星展銀行) yesterday raised its GDP growth forecast for Taiwan this year to 4 percent from 3 percent, citing robust demand for artificial intelligence (AI)-related exports and accelerated shipment activity, which are expected to offset potential headwinds from US tariffs. “Our GDP growth forecast for 2025 is revised up to 4 percent from 3 percent to reflect front-loaded exports and strong AI demand,” Singapore-based DBS senior economist Ma Tieying (馬鐵英) said in an online briefing. Taiwan’s second-quarter performance beat expectations, with GDP growth likely surpassing 5 percent, driven by a 34.1 percent year-on-year increase in exports, Ma said, citing government
UNIFYING OPPOSITION: Numerous companies have registered complaints over the potential levies, bringing together rival automakers in voicing their reservations US President Donald Trump is readying plans for industry-specific tariffs to kick in alongside his country-by-country duties in two weeks, ramping up his push to reshape the US’ standing in the global trading system by penalizing purchases from abroad. Administration officials could release details of Trump’s planned 50 percent duty on copper in the days before they are set to take effect on Friday next week, a person familiar with the matter said. That is the same date Trump’s “reciprocal” levies on products from more than 100 nations are slated to begin. Trump on Tuesday said that he is likely to impose tariffs
HELPING HAND: Approving the sale of H20s could give China the edge it needs to capture market share and become the global standard, a US representative said The US President Donald Trump administration’s decision allowing Nvidia Corp to resume shipments of its H20 artificial intelligence (AI) chips to China risks bolstering Beijing’s military capabilities and expanding its capacity to compete with the US, the head of the US House Select Committee on Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party said. “The H20, which is a cost-effective and powerful AI inference chip, far surpasses China’s indigenous capability and would therefore provide a substantial increase to China’s AI development,” committee chairman John Moolenaar, a Michigan Republican, said on Friday in a letter to US Secretary of
‘REMARKABLE SHOWING’: The economy likely grew 5 percent in the first half of the year, although it would likely taper off significantly, TIER economist Gordon Sun said The Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (TIER) yesterday raised Taiwan’s GDP growth forecast for this year to 3.02 percent, citing robust export-driven expansion in the first half that is likely to give way to a notable slowdown later in the year as the front-loading of global shipments fades. The revised projection marks an upward adjustment of 0.11 percentage points from April’s estimate, driven by a surge in exports and corporate inventory buildup ahead of possible US tariff hikes, TIER economist Gordon Sun (孫明德) told a news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s economy likely grew more than 5 percent in the first six months