President Obama has sold out unions’ pensions when he signed a must pass omnibus bill, which has the Kline-Miller Multiemployer Pension Reform Act of 2014. The bill strikes down an enshrined American ideal that money earned for a pension can’t be pulled out from under our feet like a rug once we retire. That promise, once codified in law, was upended by the passage of this reform act.
This act will effect some 400,000 participants by cutting benefits for some retirees now, some up to 60 percent. This is the central state pension funds, which is predicted to be insolvent in 10 years and this fund is the canary in the mineshaft as similar multiemployer pension funds are now at risk.
If these funds go bust, mortgages won’t be paid, prescriptions won’t be filled, utility bills and groceries will be a regular hardship. Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell hates unions so there will be no hope there, and Hillary Clinton is no fan of unions either. This just leaves Bernie Sanders and no one is talking about this, which could affect millions of retirees.
This could take down the multiemployer arms of the pension benefit guaranty corporation, the federal government, which is the pension insurance program and that fund is also in trouble. So, does this mean people on pensions will lose all their supportive means? This very well could be and they should hope their children have a good job and room for their parents to move in. If their children are living in their parents’ home, then the whole family is in for a life in the streets. Is this the way we are going to reward our workers?
Last year, Sanders introduced legislation to repeal the Kline-Miller Multiemployer Pension Reform Act of 2014, along with Rep. Marcy Kaptur, D-Ohio. They brought forth the Keep Our Pension Promises Act of 2015, which would prohibit trustees of multiemployer pension plans from reducing retirees’ monthly benefits.
It is anti-worker legislation like this that makes voting so very important.
To change the abundance of labor in the world is to put more money in the pockets of the laborer to buy the products their fellow workers are making. Otherwise, when there are more products than money, there is slump in the economy. Austerity policies, low wages and automation (robots) were also of concern in the 1950s when Henry Ford II, CEO of Ford, took Walter Reuther, head of the United Auto Workers Union, on a tour of a new engine plant.
Ford gestured to a fleet of new machines and said, “Walter, how are you going to get these robots to pay union dues?” The union leader turned to Ford and said, “Henry, how are you going to get robots to buy your cars?”
This type of change in the labor has created a new type of working class that swings from task to task in order to make ends meet while enduring the loss of labor rights and bargaining rights. They are called “precariat” workers, a group of workers who live on the verge of collapse due to the instability of the nature of their job…