Boeing workers rejected a contract offer this week and refused to end their six-week strike, digging in their heels over a demand the embattled planemaker calls a non-starter: bringing back traditional pensions.

The company discontinued guaranteed retirement payments starting in 2014, when workers agreed to forego the benefit in exchange for other concessions. Today, as unionized Boeingers negotiate for the restoration of pension benefits, the employee perk is about as common in the private sector as adequate legroom on planes.

Though pensions are still offered in many government jobs (even ex-presidents get $246,400 annually), only 15% of private sector employees are covered by them, compared to 46% in 1980.

The retirement of pensions

Pensions were a touchstone of stable mid-20th-century employment, at a time when unions were strong and employers were eager to incentivize workers to stick around long enough to receive a company watch engraved with “for 30 years of service.”

But starting in the 1970s, the government began tightening regulations around pensions to ensure that companies wouldn’t default on their obligations to retired employees. Meanwhile, businesses realized the costliness of guaranteeing lifetime retirement payments.

In response, companies ditched pensions for 401(k)s, which rely on employee contributions often matched by the employer. This shifted the responsibilities and risks of retirement planning from employer to employee, but gave workers more flexibility as job hopping became the norm.

401(k) vs. pension

There’s pros and cons to both. While pensions guarantee a steady income stream, payments sometimes aren’t indexed by inflation, which can erode their value over time. On the flip side, 401(k)s are subject to market fluctuations and require financial literacy. Plus, the plans are often unavailable to non-white collar employees, leading to more inequality.

Is the status quo sustainable? BlackRock CEO and economist Larry Fink says no. He wrote to investors earlier this year, advocating for an overhaul of the retirement system to adapt to an aging America with longer life expectancies. He proposed bolstering retirement savings programs and floated the politically fraught idea of raising the retirement age.—SK

The Washington Post won’t endorse a candidate for president. For the first time since the 1980s, the national newspaper—known for its politics coverage and whose slogan is famously “Democracy Dies in Darkness”—will leave readers in the dark about democracy. Publisher and CEO Will Lewis, who was brought in by Post owner Jeff Bezos earlier this year, wrote about the decision in an op-ed yesterday, arguing that it’s a return to the paper’s roots. According to NPR, employees were “shocked,” while former top editor Marty Barton called it “cowardice.” WaPo reporters, in their own story about the decision, reported that an endorsement of Kamala Harris had been drafted but Bezos made the call not to publish it. The decision follows a similar one made this week by Los Angeles Times owner Patrick Soon-Shiong, which led several editors to resign in protest.

US attorneys are reportedly investigating OceanGate. More than a year after the Titan submersible imploded on the way to the wreck of the Titanic, killing all five people on board, federal prosecutors have launched a probe into the company behind the incident, Wired reported. It’s unclear who, if anyone, will be criminally charged: OceanGate founder and CEO Stockton Rush died in the implosion, while the company is said to be nearing bankruptcy. OceanGate also faces a civil lawsuit from the family of explorer Paul-Henri Nargeolet, who is seeking $50 million for his death.

Waymo raised $5.6 billion to expand robotaxi service. The company, owned by Alphabet and currently available for driverless rides in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Phoenix, plans to use the funds to build out operations in Austin and Atlanta, where it’s launching next year via a partnership with Uber. The funding is another arrow in Waymo’s quiver amid its competition with Tesla, which has long promised a self-driving car but has yet to deliver, and GM-owned Cruise, which was forced to pause robotaxi service last year to “rebuild public trust” after it was involved in a series of pedestrian incidents. The series C round was led by parent company Alphabet, alongside venture capital and private equity firms like Andreessen Horowitz and Silver Lake.—AE

Microsoft has big dreams for its video game business, and it’s willing to sacrifice some short-term sales to achieve them. The company launched the next installment in the popular Call of Duty first-person shooter franchise yesterday and opted to make it free for Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscribers in an effort to boost sign-ups.

The release of Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 is full of milestones:

• It’s the first new release in the COD series since Microsoft completed its purchase of Activision Blizzard, the franchise’s developer, for $76 billion last year (the largest-ever acquisition for Microsoft and for the gaming industry).
• Black Ops 6 is the first game of its size to be available upon release via Microsoft’s cloud gaming service, Game Pass, which provides access via Xbox and PC to a plethora of games. It costs $19.99/month for the Ultimate tier.

The new game’s release model could cost Microsoft up to six million lost sales from Game Pass subscribers who likely would’ve bought Black Ops 6 anyway, analysts told GamesIndustry.biz. (Gamers can still make a one-time $70 purchase to play the game instead of subscribing to Game Pass.)

So why do it? The new COD could pull in 2.5–4 million more Game Pass sign-ups and tier upgrades, which would help Microsoft narrow the gap: It had 34 million cloud-gaming subscribers as of 2022, while Sony’s PlayStation Plus has 47 million.—ML

As if there weren’t enough ways to be humiliated during air travel. American Airlines is testing a new technology that audibly alerts passengers if someone tries to board before their group is allowed.

American brings out the medicated shampoo. The term “gate lice” refers to passengers who try to sneak aboard with an earlier group despite the very obvious “5” on their boarding pass (often to secure overhead bag space). Complaints about line jumping from other passengers and gate agents have grown over the last decade.

• The new system makes a loud alert sound when an out-of-order boarding pass is recognized, taking the pressure off the gate agent to confront the passenger.
• American Airlines said the system is testing well at its trial airports in Albuquerque, Tucson, and Washington, DC.

Big picture: The term “gate lice” was popularized in the early 2010s, shortly after airlines first started charging to check bags. The ever-climbing bag fees make up a good chunk of revenue, bringing in $6.8 billion for US airlines in 2022 and allowing them to push customers to airline credit cards for perks like free bags and priority boarding.—MM

The floppy disk with your fourth grade essay on dinosaurs that your mom found deep in the closet of your childhood bedroom last year is probably not worth anything beyond sentimental value. But try telling that to the city of San Francisco, which is paying $212 million just to get rid of the floppy disks that are still somehow powering the Muni Metro light rail. Ars Technica reported that the city, which since 1998 has used 5 ¼-inch floppies to load the software that controls the light rail’s central servers, is finally switching to a state-of-the-art system that’s “five generations ahead” of the technology you used to save your Oregon Trail progress before your character died of dysentery. Believe it or not, the floppy disk system still works fine, but SF transportation officials are finding it difficult to remain experts on the ancient tech.—AE