>I can also look at the record of corporate bankruptcy proceedings, and note how the obligations towards pensions are handled in comparison with those towards other types of debtors. TLDR: not well.
Well, yes, that's a reason to require the pensions to be funded (at present discounted value), as the benefits are accrued -- why are you bringing this up to oppose that requirement on the USPS, except to condemn those workers to that possible fate?
>Finally, there is no specific committment by corporations to pay into a pension fund, only to pay out. They are at liberty to play whatever games they want regarding paying in.
This is false; among other places, see the Forbes overview. Many reforms have been enacted and the PBGC has requirements. This isn't the 50s anymore.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/ebauer/2020/04/14/post-office-p...
But there are bunch of games corporations can play to reduce or avoid minimum contributions. Principle among them is to fund too much of the plan via contributions of the company's own stock (limited in scope but large enough to underfund the plan). If the underfunding is limited to 90% of the fund's liabilities, it can take 3 years before an increase in funding is required.
But rather than focus on the rules, I prefer to look at the actual on-the-ground situation. Many corporate DB plans are underfunded. It's not enough to say "the rules say they must fund liabilities as they are accrued" when many corporations demonstrably fail to do this.
Anyway, most people recognize that corporate DB plans are more or less over, so the comparison between corporate pension provisioning and public versions is going to get less and less relevant (probably).
I can't know the state of mind of any CFO. What can I do is look at the record and find companies that have failed allocate money for that. There's no shortage of them in the USA.
This is from 2003, but is fairly indicative of the games played:
https://www.abi.org/abi-journal/underfunded-pension-plans-a-...
Here's a 2017 summary of state public pension funds
https://taxfoundation.org/state-public-pension-plan-funding-...
Here's some 2019 reporting on corporate pension shortfall and congressional efforts (!) to help mitigate the damage to individual pensioners:
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/12/these-pension-plans-are-at-r...
So regardless of whether or not it is "absolutely standard for corporations to be required to fund their pensions" (and I don't believe that it is anywhere near as standard or required as you portray it), the facts on the ground are that there are many, many pension funds that are underfunded by many different metrics.
I can also look at the record of corporate bankruptcy proceedings, and note how the obligations towards pensions are handled in comparison with those towards other types of debtors. TLDR: not well.
Finally, there is no specific committment by corporations to pay into a pension fund, only to pay out. They are at liberty to play whatever games they want regarding paying in. The simplest is to declare assumptions about future revenue, and pay in less (or nothing) in the present.