A bit of easy activism for you on a weekend—if you needed more evidence of the corruption of corporate America, just check out United Airlines. Here’s an airline in bankruptcy, it reaches a deal to jettison its pension plans and dumps those liabilities on the government, which means a lot of workers will not get the pensions they thought they would get—and, yet, the executive have, once again, enriched themselves…in secret.

In a March 17th letter sent by Greg Davidowitch, president of the airline’s flight attendants, to United CEO Glenn Tilton, Davidowitch slams, rightly so, the “clandestine” salary increase and apparently still-planned bonuses Tilton gave to himself and three other top executives. I suppose it’s naive, these days, to be stunned at the outright immoral behavior of these modern-day Robber Barons. But, when these flight attendants are working, because of wage and benefit concessions, at 1991 pay rates and paying more for health care, it is obscene for these execs to be essentially looting the company.

I use the word looting explicitly—it’s only a fine legal distinction between the people who were convicted of breaking the law when they looted companies like WorldCom and people like the United pirates who certainly break any semblance of moral probity. Now, let me tell you how I really feel…

So, anyway, get out there and sign the petition being circulated by the Communications Workers of America (the flight attendants belong to CWA) to demand that the United gang give back the money.