Douglas Jr. Leads Retiree Health Benefit Fight : Aviation: Son of aircraft firm’s founder says organization of 1,600 he has formed is suing to block termination of their coverage.

An unlikely figure has emerged to champion the cause of thousands of McDonnell Douglas retirees angry at the company for terminating their health care benefits.

Donald Douglas Jr., the son of the founder of Douglas Aircraft Co., said Thursday that he has formed an organization of McDonnell Douglas retirees and has sued the company in an attempt to stop it from cutting their health insurance.

The aerospace manufacturer announced in October that it was terminating its lifetime health care plan for 20,000 non-union retirees and their spouses across the country, although it agreed to a pension fund distribution allowing retirees to buy four years of health coverage.

Douglas, who served as president of Long Beach-based Douglas Aircraft until its merger with McDonnell Aircraft in 1967, has remained silent about the company since he retired from the board in the late 1980s.

Industry sources, however, have long said that Douglas staunchly opposed many of the abrupt management changes made by company Chairman John McDonnell, son of McDonnell Aircraft founder James S. (Mac) McDonnell.

In an interview Thursday, Douglas railed against McDonnell executives for breaking a promise that his father and McDonnell’s father made to workers during the 1960s and reiterated for decades after that.

“Our point, dammit, is that my father and I and John’s father promised these people these benefits, and I don’t think it is right to take them away,” he said.

“I am doing this for all the employees who are retired, because it is a real crappy, serious thing to do to these people. If you had to listen to the calls I get from widows, it would turn your stomach,” he said.

McDonnell Douglas spokeswoman Barbara Anderson said, “We can’t make any comment because of the fact that there is a lawsuit involved.”

In the past, McDonnell officials have asserted that the financially ailing company would be forced to take up to $1.8 billion in write-offs for retiree health care, required by new accounting standards. It said it could not afford such a financial hit.

Douglas, 75, said he believes the company could afford to restore benefits, despite its problems in recent years. He lambasted the ill-fated management reorganization undertaken in 1989. The firm stripped 5,000 managers of their titles, forcing them to reapply for new jobs. It caused months of disruption and seriously wounded employee morale.

“I pleaded with them not to do it,” said Douglas, who now owns an energy company in Orange County. “It was the last thing I did as a director. You can see I had a lot of influence. Hopefully, the scars have healed and things are getting better, but it cost a lot of time and money.”

But Douglas also said he does not want to hurt the company and launched into a lengthy speech promoting Douglas airplanes, saying the C-17 cargo jet is a “pretty damn good airplane” that the Air Force badly needs. He also said he is a director of Reno Air, a regional airline that recently bought MD-80 jetliners.

“I think they are a hell of a lot better than the Boeing 737,” he said.

Douglas said he formed his group, called the McDonnell Douglas Retirees Benefits Assn., in November and that a suit was quietly filed in Los Angeles several months ago.

The suit has not been previously disclosed.

Douglas said he is planning to hold a mass meeting of retirees at Cerritos College next Friday, in part because his organization needs financial support. He said he has collected $100 from each of the 1,600 members, but his efforts to recruit others has encountered some obstacles.

“John (McDonnell) promised me the entire list of retirees, and then his lawyers said no,” Douglas said by phone from his pickup truck.

Noting that the company has a strike looming against it by the machinists union, Douglas said the original reason he persuaded Mac to create health care benefits was to battle union organizing.

“By doing something like this, all they do is invite more unionization,” he said. “If I were a present employee, I would be very worried about what I was going to get.”

The suit filed by Douglas’ organization is the second suit against McDonnell. A federal class-action suit was filed in December, which seeks punitive damages.

On Thursday, those allegations were expanded in a related suit filed in Orange County Superior Court to include workers not covered by federal retirement laws.

Douglas said he opposes those suits, because of the demand for penalties. “All we want is our health benefits back,” he said.

Douglas and his father are revered among older Douglas Aircraft employees, who say their personnel policies were paternalistic.

Asked about the changes since then, Douglas said only, “I don’t happen to think that is the way to run a railroad.”