Look, I found some money |
by Richard Mellor
Afscme Local 444, retired
The protests against the murders of black men on a daily basis by the police do not seem to be abating. It is clear that the black community in the US has had enough as we watch black youth and their allies and supporters confront the police and the state and demand change. The 1% is in between a rock and a hard place as they have not armed the state security forces to the teeth for nothing; but the ferocity and extent of the protests since the murder of Michael Brown in Ferguson Missouri by a white cop, is forcing the power structure to re-think things and hopefully avert the development of a wider movement against austerity.
The protests against the murders of black men on a daily basis by the police do not seem to be abating. It is clear that the black community in the US has had enough as we watch black youth and their allies and supporters confront the police and the state and demand change. The 1% is in between a rock and a hard place as they have not armed the state security forces to the teeth for nothing; but the ferocity and extent of the protests since the murder of Michael Brown in Ferguson Missouri by a white cop, is forcing the power structure to re-think things and hopefully avert the development of a wider movement against austerity.
As I commented in a previous blog, the situation is not good when
sections of the mass media openly criticize the police as CNBC and the Daily
News did with regards to the death of Eric Garner, choked to death by a
predator cop-----one has to wonder at the logic of resource allocation when
four beefed up cops are sent to arrest a man selling loose cigarettes.
The 1% would like to isolate the participants, contain the
anger and ensure it remains simply a “black” issue. But US society is wracked
with crisis and it is inevitable there will be social explosions ahead as the
1% is driven by the market to savage US workers, the poor and middle class. There is a tendency when workers move in to
struggle to somewhat overcome the social divisions so useful in undermining our
unity and potential power, at least temporarily (racism, sexism, immigrants and
terrorists lurk everywhere) so it is important we recognize the divide and rule
tactic for what it is and keep our eyes on the prize.
As the state security forces continue the offensive against
the black communities in the urban centers, the two parties of Wall Street
continue to dismantle workers living standards through legislation. Contained within the spending bill passed by
the US Senate last week is an assault on private sector pensions, what are
called the multiemployer plans jointly administered by big companies and
unions; these cover about ten million workers.
These plans, like everything else in US society, are in
trouble and the “bi-partisan” plan to solve the problem is to allow the funds
to cut benefits even to existing retirees if needed; “That is an exception to a
long-standing federal rule against scaling back private-pension benefits.”, the
WSJ writes. Karen Friedman, executive vice president of the Pension Rights
Center, warns that, “The bill could encourage similar cutbacks in troubled
state and local pension plans, and possibly even Social Security and Medicare.”
This states the obvious of course as the same crowd in
Congress are also introducing legislation that will make it harder for workers
and the poor to get benefits, including drug testing and other hurdles. A
victory over one section of workers always leads to attacks on others. . I’m sure Dick Cheney wasn’t drug tested after
he shot his hunting partner in the face.
Despite being shook up by the response to the ongoing murder of black men by the police, the 1% can’t let up and as the security forces wage an offensive in the streets and communities, the body politic, the representatives of capital, continue the legislative war, a war in which the very wealthy deprive the rest of us the social fruits of our labor. Alex Pollock of the American Enterprise Institute described as a “scholar” by the WSJ supports this attack on a retired worker’s means of subsistence telling the Journal that “Facing up to the insolvency is healthy,” Pollock admits while its difficult to consider cutting retiree benefits it is often better than “taking money from other people, such as taxpayers.”, according to the WSJ. And retirees aren’t taxpayers? The “other people” for guys like Pollock are never his billionaire friends.
Pollock is a 73 year-old banker and the present chairman of
the Chicago Mercantile
Exchange & Chicago Board of Trade He earned $90,083 in 2013 in fees and
cash payments for his banking advice no doubt and with his stock earnings
brought in 165,088 for the year according to Forbes. He
sits on the board of numerous companies including Allied Capital Corp. before
it was absorbed by Ares Capital. He’s
basically spent his life as a moneylender.
Democrat, George Miller and Republican John Kline who are
backing the legislative assault on pensions are doing this for the people. If they don’t cut the benefits, the plans
will become bankrupt they argue and could hurt people more. It’s the same
approach to wages in labor disputes; the only offers on the table are cuts in
wages and benefits or layoffs. The worker chooses the former and presto,
democracy has worked.
So the new plan works like this: The trustees of the plans
can vote to cut retiree benefits. The retirees can vote to oppose the cuts but
that vote can be overridden if the plan is big enough to pose a “threat to the
federal safety net”. The trustees of
these plans and there are around 1400 such pans, are representatives of the
employers involved or representatives of the employers’ organizations, as well
as union representatives. So you have
the same two forces negotiating your pension plan that are responsible for the
continued decline in our living standards, bosses’ and members of the union
hierarchy or attorneys representing them.
In other words, two forces with the same pro-market worldview.
Miller and Kline claim they are not aiming to influence the
debate about other retirement programs like mine, a public sector pension.
Since the savaging of the autoworkers by the Troika, composed of the auto
bosses, US government and heads of the United Auto Workers union, public sector
workers, our jobs, the services we provide, and particularly our pensions are
on the chopping block. This is what happens when we pay no attention to the
political world around us, to what’s happening in our unions and to other
workers or join the bosses and their media in attacks on the poor and less
fortunate----our turn comes and we wonder why.
No thinking worker believes that an attack like this will
not be extended to others. Of course it will encourage an increased assault on
public sector pensions. Already, since I retired ten years ago, the young
people working at my former public employer have been screwed when it comes to
pensions. They will not receive what myself and others have and will have to
work longer. There is no way around the reality that we are in a war and we
cannot avoid a fight if we want a better life for our children. The hardest
aspect of that fight for those of us in unions is the internal struggle to
change the collaborative polices of the present hierarchy and in a way
supported by local leaderships that refuse to wage an open struggle against
them.
Some Democrats, as they always do, are whining about the
bill and how bad it might be, “This is unprecedented and I worry about the
impact on retirees and the slippery slope we’re about to head down,” said Sen.
Ron Wyden (D., Ore.), the Finance Committee chairman, in a statement. “I am
working hard to protect retirees’ pensions, and jamming this bill through
Congress virtually sight unseen is no way to solve this issue.” WSJ
12-10-14
It’s the same old rhetoric. Some Democrats are “worried”
they are “fighting” etc. etc. It’s not
that one is fighting that is crucial; it’s how they’re fighting. These two
parties of Wall Street play the same game the cops do, one gives you a
cigarette and the other beats you up but they’re both after the same result.
And the union officialdom tails its Democratic allies. They are “worried” too but some of them in
“Affected unions” are supportive. The problem is that “Amid broad economic changes and light government oversight,
some large multiemployer plans have become badly underfunded and could run out
of money within a few years.” Proponents claim, and this could lead to a
federal bailout. The labor leaders in the “affected unions” that are supportive
are supportive because their retirement will not be “affected”. They support
concessions for the same reasons, they don’t have to work under the contracts
they force down their members’ throats.
It
would seem then that “government oversight” and the market is the problem. So
the solution should be directed in these areas. But as always, the crisis is shifted on to the
backs of the working class, in this instance, millions of construction workers,
Teamsters and miners for a start. Both
political parties agree that the working class must be driven back and it is us
that must pay for the crisis of capitalism----they only differ on the degree,
pace and which section is at the front of the queue.
Oh, here's some more money |
Might
I suggest that the more than $32
trillion stashed in foreign bank accounts not paying taxes might be a good
place to start when money needs to be found, and this is not corporate but
individual money. The insane War on
Terror which is really a war to defend corporate profits fought by young
workers who will be denied benefits and pensions in civilian life, is one major
cause of government debt and possible bankruptcy. It is the US workers and
middle class that are being forced in to bankruptcy in order to pay for these
predatory ventures.
Some
tech guy just bought a $70 million home in California, there’s no shortage of
our money, it’s just in the hands of someone else. Lobbying costs us billions of dollars, money
spent to defend increase the power for corporations over the working public..
It’s
hard to say how long the heroic opposition in the streets to police and state
violence will last. As always, the issue of leadership is a problem. In the absence of a conscious leadership with
the strategy and tactics to confront this offensive of capital directly, all
sorts of elements will arise, various anarchists, reformists, nationalists and
others as we have seen. Do Jackson and Sharpton really reflect the mood and
aspirations of the black youth for example? We can discount those whose
philosophy claims that there is no leadership, this is dishonest, there is
always leadership and it should be open and fight for its ideas among the
mass.
One
thing is absolutely certain as far as this writer is concerned is that there is
an explosion waiting to happen in US society, we have just seen skirmishes so
far. The state has beefed up its
security apparatus because it knows that, it cannot avoid driving the US working
class back 100 years and is preparing for the backlash. The passive role of the
Organized labor’s hierarchy in suppressing any movement from below has produced
an element of overconfidence among the ruling class in the US, this can lead to
major mistakes on their part. The recent protests against police violence have
shaken that confidence a bit.
I
always used to tell my co-workers that our best ally in many ways was the
bosses’; they will not let up. That hasn’t
changed.
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