Public sector pensions a thing of the past if the bosses have their way. Wisconsin could be the starting point for an offensive if the obstacle of the trade Union leadership can be overcome

In the years before my retirement the employers were whittling away at the benefits and pensions of the public sector.  I remember giving a report in my local Labor council about the language the bosses were using, terms like "culture" and "teamwork". The old culture of the workplace that the Unions had to deal with, the "us and them" culture didn't exist anymore.  We are all on the same team now.  We have to work together to ensure that they don;t contract our work out, that private sector workers don't outperform us.


The hierarchy that sits atop the trade Union movement, not having much experience in a regular workplace and having a pension and job security that a head of a some private company could envy, embraced the Team Concept with vigor.  In the private sector, particularly in auto, the bosses were savaging wages, conditions and benefits that were won through decades of heroic struggle since the 1930's and the great 44-day occupation in Flint in 1936-37.  With the help of the leadership of the UAW and AFL-CIO nationally, the autoworkers, once the benchmark for what they called the American Dream, were beaten down.  Where locals and and local leadership's fought back like in the Accuride strike in Henderson Kentucky or at the Freightliner plant in Cleveland North Carolina, the UAW leadership collaborated with the employers to defeat the rebels.; this is the natural by-product of the Team Concept idea.

The employers have not been shy about announcing their intentions.  The Union hierarchy has been as forthright in theirs.  There will be no offensive; capitalism will be saved as will profits, all at the workers expense.  Defeat after defeat has been orchestrated by the Union hierarchy despite heroic resistance and sacrifice on the part of the rank and file members of the trade Union movement.   But many of us in the public sector have failed to rise to the occasion, have watched from the sidelines as this destruction occurred.

Now it is our turn. The Wall Street Journal points out today that the politicians of both capitalist parties are stepping up their efforts to "scrap" defined benefit retirement plans for 401k plans or hybrid plans a combination of the two.   The goal, the WSJ admits, is to "...shift more responsibility and risk----as well as potential reward---to employees."  In other words, how you will live in retirement, what you will eat, where you will reside, what leisure you will be able to afford, will be determined by the market.  You are free now.  Isn't freedom swell?

Receiving a set retirement at the end of your life, and one that  you can actually live on only makes you lazy you see.  You can become real gamblers now on the stock market.  How you invest you money will determine your retirement conditions.  It will mean more money for brokers, hedge fund managers and all the wasters who earn a living managing money and people. Like the privatization of education, there is a lot of money they have their eyes on there. So it is a good thing for capitalists.

By forcing us to rely on private investment rather than receiving a guaranteed retirement, states will save money, the WSJ says.  By switching to a hybrid plan, Michigan could save two to four million a year for a total of between $200 and $400 million a year over ten years. Utah officials claim they could save "$5 million a year for every 1000 new employees" bringing in "$180 million in savings by 2018".  And that's another thing.  They will introduce this for new hires as they always do which divides older workers from new.  The Union chiefs will go along with it further discrediting the Union among the younger workers making further concessions an easy mark for the boss.  The Union leaders are accepting that the future generations will have a much lower standard of living.

Firstly, everyone should have a retirement  they can live on.  Society can afford it. But if you look at those figures above; even if the figures are accurate, the savings are paltry when you think of the money that the super rich have accumulated.  The $400 million Michigan claims it will save over a ten year period denying a guaranteed secure retirement to workers is a mere 8% of the $5 billion that John  Paulson, the speculator and hedge fund manager made last year.  Paulson, a parasite on the backs of the working class also made $5 billion or so in 2007, betting that poor people wouldn't be able to pay their mortgages and get kicked out of the their homes.

Here's what Business Insider says about Paulson's windfall:
Investing in his own fund -- he put his own money in and it churned out $4 billion, according to the WSJ. So $4 billion of it wasn't really compensation, it was capital gains income. Which is even better! But still an important distinction. He made $5 billion two different ways.

"Proponents say the public sector should follow the corporate world and move away from pensions" the WSJ adds. The "corporate world" is the world that recently almost fell off a cliff and we, the public that work for a living as opposed to those like Paulson who live off of those of us that work, did not follow them then.  In fact, we saved them. We saved their rotten system from total collapse.  This is unfortunate but the reason for that error is another issue.

We have no alternative but to fight. Making concessions only makes sense if we think that they will increase our standard of living in the future but they will not.  (and by standard of living I don't mean bigger houses and more gadgets) We can make gains, look what they have done in the Middle East and North Africa, against dictatorships.  In the Unions, where we are saddled with a stifling pro market bureaucracy, we are faced with having to dislodge them also.  The top Union officials have pensions that ensure them a secure and decent retirement.  What they negotiate for their members does not apply to them. 

Wisconsin should be the start of a turnaround for Unionized workers and workers and the middle class as a whole.  The Leaders of the movement refuse to go on the offensive and appeal to all sections of the working class by raising and fighting for demands that meet people's needs. Make the rich pay.  Instead they have 100,000 people on the streets in order to maintain the right to give away their members' wages, benefits and working  conditions.

We shouldn't let another opportunity to build a mass movement for change pass us by.