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?
And there’s also CEO David Cote of Honeywell―a company that has locked out its workers from its factories in Green Island, NY and South Bend Indiana for seven months for rejecting a contract that eliminated workers’ pensions―who receives a monthly retirement check from the company for $908,712.
100 corporate CEOs possess company retirement funds totaling $4.7 billion - an amount equivalent to the entire retirement savings of 41 percent of U.S. families. Things were not always like this. From 1946 to 1980, a combination of union action and government policy led to the expansion of pension benefits for American workers. Now, Donald Trump's pick to direct the Office of Management and Budget says: We have to end Medicare as we know it.
Hiring freezes, an end to automatic raises, a green light to fire poor performers, a ban on union business on the government’s dime and less generous pensions — these are the contours of the blueprint emerging under Republican control of Washington in January.
these are the contours of the blueprint emerging under Republican control of Washington in January.
The major issues are health coverage, pensions and work rules.
Pensions rankle TWU members because theirs don't increase if a worker makes more than $50,000 a year, meaning a union member will receive no more than $30,000 a year in pension payments after retirement even if they earned more than $50,000 when they retired. By contrast, managers with Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority] have no pension caps.
AARP, the non-profit seniors organization that exists to promote the financial security, pensions and healthcare of those over 50, is secretly funding the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), an organization whose bills have acted against the interests of ordinary Americans, including retirees and their families. What can you do? -- sign the petition below.
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“Teamster pensions are in trouble because of greed, incompetence and corruption,” Rita Lewis told In These Times. Excessive pay to plan administrators and outlandish fees to financial advisors have drained the fund, she says, echoing Warren’s emphasis on Wall Street malfeasance, and a first step should be to clean house at the offices of Central States Pension Fund, the organization that collects and distributes pension monies for some 400,000 union members and retirees.
Three years after their nine-day strike that humiliated Emanuel and won national headlines for the idea of teachers fighting for students, the new attack on pay and pensions is angering teachers, paraprofessionals, and clinicians.
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