French workers cherish their welfare state. That’s why they’re striking. Macron’s proposed retirement reforms are latest attempt to erode the safety net. The people are fighting back. First anniversary of Yellow Vest uprising marks an historic moment
The government-promoted plans let employers completely off the hook and put the entire burden of retirement savings and investment management on workers. They put another nail in the coffin of traditional plans in which employers share the expense.
More than 120 multiemployer pension funds—plans that cover workers who regularly work for different employers, largely in trucking, mining, construction, and entertainment—are considered in danger of insolvency. They cover about 1.3 million workers.
By Jim Tankersley and Alan Rappeport
New York Times
Congress must decide whether to rescue these funds with low-cost loans, force them to cut benefit payments or let the funds go bankrupt and wipe out retirees’ entire pensions.
The way major U.S. companies provide for retiring workers has been shifting for about three decades, with more dropping traditional pensions every year. The first full generation of workers to retire since this turn offers a sobering preview of a labor force more and more dependent on their own savings for retirement.
Rather than making the government a model employer, the labor proposals would unite Uncle Sam with employee-regressive business practices designed to maximize profits. But Sam is in the business of service, not propelling profits.
As recently as 2015, Donald Trump was still collecting a $168,000
pension — and maybe more — from the Screen Actors Guild
for playing himself in The Apprentice. Now that Trump is about to be president, the most
important question is: What is Trump's plan to save the
system that is designed to protect millions of union pensions like his own?
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