Retired union workers facing 'unprecedented' pension cuts
- Thread starter Banjo
- Start date
Feel bad for the people, but they should have known that the greed of the unions would one day come back to bite them in the ass.
Anyone with half a brain could see those pension plans are unsustainable. You can't work for 25 years, then get paid 80% of your salary for the rest of your life with healthcare benefits and inflation increases.
It's impossible now with people living 30-40 years into retirement.
Anyone with half a brain could see those pension plans are unsustainable. You can't work for 25 years, then get paid 80% of your salary for the rest of your life with healthcare benefits and inflation increases.
It's impossible now with people living 30-40 years into retirement.
There was a time many years ago when you simply couldn't get enough people to take many jobs. Teachers and assembly line workers were big ones. Cities couldn't or wouldn't raise taxes to pay more to the former, and business had competition abroad to consider for the latter, so they both started offering other compensation, like pensions.
The BLS overview shows that pension coverage is much higher in the public sector (78 percent) and among unionized workers (67 percent) in the private sector. In contrast, only 13 percent of non-union private-sector workers are covered. The drop in private-sector coverage reflects both a decline in unionization and a decline in coverage among both groups of workers (union and non-union), though the decline was more pronounced among non-union workers. Traditional pensions are the most cost-effective way to provide retirement security to workers but are not an option for many small businesses because they often require employers to take on long-term liabilities. Thus, 48 percent of private-sector establishments with 500 or more workers offered a pension plan, compared to only 8 percent of establishments with 50 or fewer workers. An exception to this pattern is small businesses in unionized industries such as construction and trucking where multi-employer plans are common and pension coverage is relatively high. - See more at: http://www.epi.org/blog/private-sector-pension-coverage-decline/#sthash.6Eg0oMSs.dpuf
There are problems and I agree Union members have no one but themselves to blame. Been a long time since I was a union member as I went to the dark side, management, many years ago. Let me give you some real world examples as to why private sector unions have all but collapsed.
The company I work for today is a union shop. Machinists union to be precise. Average pay on the floor is about 25 bucks an hour. Company picks up 100% of the medical, which is unusual these days. A 401K is available with a 100% match up to 6%. Nice. Company funded pension as well. Sweet. Why would anyone bitch? Well, the young guys are, and here's why.
There was a time when if the company had people on layoff they couldn't work OT for more than 2 weeks straight without calling people back. Doesn't happen anymore. Young guys get laid off while everyone else works 10 hour days. Drives a wedge between the ranks, and been going on for years. So much for the "union brother" idea.
Now the multiplier for the pension is changing so that those that are already retired can maintain there current benefit. The multiplier is currently 1.8. That's a figure used to determine the amount of the monthly benefit. 1.8 x years of service gives you the monthly, 5 years to be vested. example: 10 years x 1.8 is becomes 1800 per month when the decimal gets moved. Not bad. Guy with 30 years gets 5400 a month. Great. It's so f'n great the retired guy makes more than the guy working for 25 bucks an hour. Can't keep that pace. What to do? Change the multiplier. Next year it goes to 1.2 for all those currently working. Retired guy stays on the old plan, which is great for them. Younger guys are pissed. They know this multiplier is going to go down every contract until it just disappears. Now they're saying, fuck the pension, just pay me the money that's being contributed to the fund. I want the money now.They have a point since it's highly probable they'll get little or nothing out of the pension fund they're paying into. This is happening in nearly every private sector union shop that I know of.
Public sector is still holding on, but it's going to end the same way. The money just isn't there, and the younger people aren't happy funding a pension they'll never see. Who can blame them?
In a New York Times article about a drive led by the United Automobile Workers (UAW) to unionize Nissanâs workforce at a factory in Canton, Mississippi, various local businessmen are quoted extolling the value to Mississippi of being a âright-to-work stateâ and maintaining a ânon-union environment.â Given the economic condition of Mississippi, one has to wonder who, exactly, has benefited from Mississippiâs anti-unionism. Mississippi has been a âright-to-workâ state for nearly 60 years, plenty of time to benefit from its non-union environment, but its per capita income in 2012 was the lowest in the United Statesânot just low, but dead last. Mississippi has the highest poverty rate in the nation, as well. 1 out of 5 Mississippi households has income beneath the official poverty line. (âRight-to-workâ seems to be associated with high poverty since 9 of the 10 highest poverty states are âright-to-work.â) Does the future look brighter? Not much. In terms of education, Mississippi is at the bottom again, ranking last in test scores on the gold standard National Assessment of Education Progress. Mississippi is the only state in which fewer than 1 out of 5 eight graders is proficient in math and reading. Mississippiâs low rate of unionization has not led to prosperity. It might be time to try something new. - See more at: http://www.epi.org/blog/benefited-mississippis-anti-unionism-workers/#sthash.C9ZJO96j.dpuf