White House pushes ahead with plan to slash pensions for up to one million retirees

[Mika]

White House pushes ahead with plan to slash pensions for up to one million retirees

{snip}

The hearing, which took place at Wayne State University, drew an overflow crowd at a 500-seat lecture hall, with up to 1,000 people participating in total. With the exception of the World Socialist Web Site, the media ignored the event, with no US video crews present.

Although retirees had initially been told that the cuts to their benefits would average less than 30 percent, nearly all of those who spoke at the hearing said they had been notified over the Christmas holiday that they would lose between 50 and 80 percent of their pension benefits.

During the two-hour hearing, not a single one of some two dozen pre-selected speakers spoke in favor of the plan to slash pensions. Instead, retirees voiced scathing denunciations of the managers of the Central States Pension Fund, who have received six-figure annual payouts even as they have moved to impose massive benefit cuts. Many made pointed criticisms of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters union that jointly administers the fund.

This overwhelming opposition by pensioners does not matter, according to Feinberg. When asked by the World Socialist Web Site after the hearing what would happen if workers voted down the proposed pension cuts, Feinberg said he had the prerogative to impose pension cuts regardless.

Entire article --> here.

[SamKnause]

1. Lowdown and evil.

[roguevalley]

13. AWESOME! BECAUSE NOTHING SAYS GREAT PRESIDENT AND

HUMAN BEING THAN MAKING PEOPLE MORE POOR! Oh, wait ...

[kristopher]

17. The Union leadership signed on to the law?

"The law Feinberg was referring to is the Multiemployer Pension Reform Act of 2014, passed by Congress in December 2014 with virtually no public discussion as part of an omnibus appropriations bill. Acting on this law, in October 2015 the Teamsters Central States Pension Fund unveiled its plans to cut the benefits of workers it covers.

That law is itself the outcome of a February 2013 proposal, entitled “Solutions not Bailouts,” from the National Coordinating Committee for Multiemployer Plans, composed of major corporations and unions. The document lists among its signatories the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT) and the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM), both of which have since sought to publicly distance themselves from the pension-cutting bill."

http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2016/02/09/fein-f09.html

[benfranklin1776]

23. Christ how repulsive-more Orwellian moralizing bullshit titling

"Solutions not bailouts" Wtf???
Where was this supposed morality when the banksters and fraudsters, despite a congressional vote against it, got all the bailout money their black hearts wanted without any solution to get it back or prevent their criminal perfidy from happening again. Yet these Union members who forsook wage increases in exchange for a binding contractual promise by these companies to provide a specific more modest amount of money when they could no longer work are told to "suck it up" just like the banksters who got a bailout told those losing their homes. But those who breached the contract and committed fraud since given their deliberate underfunding of the pension plans indicating there was no intent ever to pay, are let to escape with no penalty. Bullshit. Time for a financial transactions tax on the banksters to recoup the cost of the bailout and corporate crimes like this. Part of the proceeds should be dedicated to making these funds whole.

[99th_Monkey]

2. Is Obama getting America ready for Hillary's "incrementalism"?

Where in hell was the Press? Oh that's right, covering Trump's every foul utterance LIVE 24/7

[Doctor_J]

10. I'm pretty sure that she plans to cut SS benefits

So the same people who got hit by this will be gouged again. I wonder why the party is shrinking...

[99th_Monkey]

11. That's certainly the Goldman Sach agenda, to cut SS.

We can NOT let this happen!!!!!!!!!!

GO BERNIE!!!!

[roguevalley]

14. how are these bankster fuckers still alive?

[Divernan]

24. Goldman/Sach's agenda is to privatize social security

Hill'$ Wall Street/banker BFFs jone$ing to privatize social security

This will be Job One for a Hillary Clinton administration. The penultimate quid for those millions in pro quos they have paid to her as a candidate, paid her as a not-yet declared private citizen for her speeches, and paid the Clinton Family Foundation. Have no doubt in your minds - the necessary legislation has already been drafted and co-sponsors lined up by banking/Wall Street lobbyists, awaiting the possibility of a Clinton administration, i.e., a president who will not veto it.

It's the most lucrative remaining venue for transferring wealth upward. Wall Street goes orgasmic at the prospect of privatizing tens of millions of individual social security accounts!

As one banker explained it to me, every time an adjustment/change would be made to the formula of how funds are invested - say increasing the percentage invested in one kind of bond versus another, a fee would be charged to every single social security recipient. Plus monthly administrative fees.

With over 50 million collecting SS and SSI, not to mention the tens of millions of accounts of those actively contributing to SS, at a dollar each (for the sake of argument) per investment tweak, times several tweaks/adjustments/changes per month? My god how the money rolls upward! It will be the last great tsunami of wealth transfer to the One Percent. And it will profit them as long as social security exists. We've already achieved permanent war status; social security privatization means permanent rip-off of workers status.

Because what do we average folks have? Like so very many, I lost nearly all of my retirement savings in the 2008 debacle. We were left with our mortgages on our homes and our social security accounts.
Along came CDOs and the mortgage bubble, and having been bailed out once, Wall Street is now pushing "bespoke tranch opportunities." (See the film, The Big Short) Now the only low-hanging fruits left are our social security savings.

Social Security updates its statistics every month in the Monthly Statistical Snapshot, although the updated figures are not as precise as the numbers published in the Annual Statistical Supplement. As of December 2012, according to the Snapshot, the retirement rolls had reached approximately 39,613,000, with an average benefit of $1,193.94. Disability beneficiaries had reached approximately 10,889,000, with an average benefit of $1,130.34.

[99th_Monkey]

41. Yes, "privatize"

i.e. vampirize, decimate, destroy, exploit, undermine, etc. <-- that's the plan Diverman.

Thank you for the reminder as to how horrid Wall St.'s agenda is for SS.

[JDPriestly]

30. Vote for Bernie!

[Enthusiast]

42. Seniors can grow a garden. No problem.

[awoke_in_2003]

48. Pretty soon

only the wealthy will be able to retire.

[Nictuku]

3. The News has been Cancelled!

This is disgusting.

[Nictuku]

4. How can we make this information go Viral?

[Faux pas]

5. Kickin'

[bkkyosemite]

6. If my husband's retirement was slashed I could not make it period.

[CrispyQ]

7. It's a big club...

Now, as the official responsible for imposing sweeping benefit cuts on hundreds of thousands of workers, Feinberg is working diligently to ensure that the transfer of social resources from working people to Wall Street continues unimpeded.

In 2009, the Obama administration justified giving multi-million-dollar bonuses to executives at American International Group, which had received a $185 billion bailout from the federal government, on the grounds that contractual obligations were sacrosanct and could not be abridged by the government.

But fuck the contractual obligations to the employees.

[awoke_in_2003]

49. Yep

I had coworkers defend the bonuses because they were in a contract. I fired back with workers contracts and got blank stares. I work for a company that terminated pensions 4 or 5 years ago.

[thereismore]

8. Bill Clinton "reformed" welfare. President Obama, please don't "reform" pension plans. nt

[enough]

9. An appalling development for sure.

further snip from the article>

“The law says that I must impose it over their objections” Feinberg said. “So if I accept the plan and it’s rejected by a vote, the law requires me in that situation to overrule the vote.”

The law Feinberg was referring to is the Multiemployer Pension Reform Act of 2014, passed by Congress in December 2014 with virtually no public discussion as part of an omnibus appropriations bill. Acting on this law, in October 2015 the Teamsters Central States Pension Fund unveiled its plans to cut the benefits of workers it covers.

That law is itself the outcome of a February 2013 proposal, entitled “Solutions not Bailouts,” from the National Coordinating Committee for Multiemployer Plans, composed of major corporations and unions. The document lists among its signatories the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT) and the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM), both of which have since sought to publicly distance themselves from the pension-cutting bill.

snip> much more at link

Thanks for posting this, Mika

[Doctor_J]

12. The most liberal world leader since Lenin! Puts LBJ to shame!

I won't vote for any more DINOs, ever. The feminists, conservadems, and billionaires are going to have to carry Hillary into the WH without me.

[RoccoR5955]

22. me too! n/t

[Springslips]

31. Yeppers.

These are the fights it is all about. Not berndudes, or wtf ever.

[JDPriestly]

32. I will vote for the other Democrats on my ballot, but never for Hillary.

I wonder what low-income women with children and women who are unemployed with children and no second income on the family are doing since Clinton's reform of welfare.

[Enthusiast]

44. No more Dinos no matter how effective their masquerade!

[ellennelle]

15. hm

could this have anything to do with global markets tanking?

and our own?

if these cuts go down, won't it ultimately mean the bottom-line losses to the shareholders of the invested companies will be less? fewer obligations, less payout?

i am supremely ignorant about these things, but i am keenly skeptical about this timing.

[Bubzer]

16. ...

[cantbeserious]

18. Know Thy Enemy - Oligarchs, Corporations, Banks And Their Media Minions And MIC Henchmen

eom

[abelenkpe]

19. This should never be allowed or condoned

Seriously why do we ever allow this to happen to anyone? These people worked their entire lives with the promise that they would be given the pension they earned to support them in their old age. Seem to remember pundits and politicians arguing that CEO contracts were not ever to be broken, that their pay was justified, but ordinary workers? Screw them, huh?

And y'know gen X and millennials don't have pensions at all. Hell, most jobs are moving to benefit-less contract or temporary jobs. What's going to happen when they get close to retirement age?

[magical thyme]

40. they'll just move the "retirement age" to 100

after all, we're all living longer, dontcha know?

[abelenkpe]

47. That will help with so many employers

Looking to hire people over age 50.

[AzDar]

20. Unconscionable. Bring on the Revolution!

[WillyT]

21. K & R !!!

[retrowire]

25. If we let the government remain as it is today...

Then our future and our childrens future will be even more robbed than our own.

We have to elect Bernie Sanders. If he doesn't make it, they'll never allow someone like him to try again.

We HAVE TO.

[Skeeter Barnes]

26. Lots of drivers and dockworkers spent decades earning those pensions. They accepted lower raises,

or in some cases, no raises at all in return for those pensions. If I had stayed on at Roadway, I'd be getting screwed too. Keep in mind UPS continues to rake in billions while the employees that helped them build the company get ready to have their retirement gutted. UPS should never have been allowed to exit the Central States fund and the union deserves it's share of the blame for that. The Teamsters at the national level are in the back pocket of UPS management and have been for years. What a disgrace.

[SHRED]

27. This fucking shit is why we need Bernie

[LiberalFighter]

28. I sure as hell wouldn't be using anything from wsws.

This has better information. [link:http://www.labornotes.org/2015/12/teamster-retirees-demand-trustees-stop-rush-slash-pensions-half|

Based on that article some of the blame should be on Jimmy Hoffa that led to this.

[bbgrunt]

29. what a travesty! Big k and r!

[Hoyt]

33. Let's be honest, rather than Obama it's Teamsters Central States Pension Fund that's cutting benefit

I'm very sorry this happened, can't imagine what it feels like. But blaming Obama is pretty close to something that should have ended centuries ago.

[elleng]

36. Quite right.

I pointed out, by quoting from the article in my post below, this debacle is largely caused by failures of the unions to uphold their obligations to their members, which were sanctioned by 'recent' legislation.

[elleng]

34. Facts:

'The Obama administration is pushing ahead with its plans to slash pension benefits for up to one million participants in “underfunded” multiemployer pension funds as part of its drive to make defined-benefit pensions a thing of the past for all US workers.

The White House campaign, carried out in a conspiracy with the major trade unions and multinational corporations, takes place in the wake of the 2013–2014 bankruptcy of Detroit, which set a precedent for slashing the legally protected pension benefits of retirees.

Kenneth Feinberg, the Obama administration’s appointee to oversee the pension cuts, held a hearing on behalf of the Treasury Department in Detroit Monday to hear objections to the plan to slash the pension benefits of some 270,000 retired truck drivers, package handlers and other members of the Teamsters Central States Pension Fund. . .

During the two-hour hearing, not a single one of some two dozen pre-selected speakers spoke in favor of the plan to slash pensions. Instead, retirees voiced scathing denunciations of the managers of the Central States Pension Fund, who have received six-figure annual payouts even as they have moved to impose massive benefit cuts. Many made pointed criticisms of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters union that jointly administers the fund. . .

When asked by the World Socialist Web Site after the hearing what would happen if workers voted down the proposed pension cuts, Feinberg said he had the prerogative to impose pension cuts regardless.

“The law says that I must impose it over their objections” Feinberg said. “So if I accept the plan and it’s rejected by a vote, the law requires me in that situation to overrule the vote.”

The law Feinberg was referring to is the Multiemployer Pension Reform Act of 2014, passed by Congress in December 2014 with virtually no public discussion as part of an omnibus appropriations bill. Acting on this law, in October 2015 the Teamsters Central States Pension Fund unveiled its plans to cut the benefits of workers it covers.

That law is itself the outcome of a February 2013 proposal, entitled “Solutions not Bailouts,” from the National Coordinating Committee for Multiemployer Plans, composed of major corporations and unions. The document lists among its signatories the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT) and the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM), both of which have since sought to publicly distance themselves from the pension-cutting bill.

Workers denounced the Teamsters’ lobbying on behalf of the bill, as well as the decision by the union to allow shipping company United Parcel Service (UPS) to exit the fund in 2007. This removed the largest base of active employees in the fund in exchange for allowing the Teamsters to extract union dues from the company's freight division workers. As a result, UPS retirees said at the meeting that they are facing pension cuts of more than 50 percent, despite the fact that UPS earned record profits in the fourth quarter of 2015.'>>>

http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2016/02/09/fein-f09.html

[lark]

35. This is why we NEED Bernie.

Clinton would probably go along with this, just like Obama is. Bernie would not approve and would fight it. Can't wait to have Bernie fighting for us from the White House!

[Hoyt]

37. Isn't Sanders paid by the same unions that allowed this fund to dry up?

[lark]

38. I hope not.

Truly don't know??

[jeff47]

50. Nope. Remember how all the national unions were endorsing Clinton? (nt)

[Helen Borg]

39. Well, you know...

We cannot afford them. Need the money to cut taxes for the 1%.

[Delmette]

43. WTF!

I hear myself saying that several time a day when I read how management positions take their "fair" share first and let the 99% sink in to oblivion.

[doc03]

45. I brought this up several months ago when this BS was passed. There was very little interest

in it then, now we see the results and we are outraged. The unions that sponsored these pensions mishandled the money and
lobbied to get this rip off passed. These multi employer pension funds are only guaranteed about 35% of their benefits by the PBGC.
So instead of dumping the pension on the PBGC and losing 65% of their benefits they can now cut the pensions to prevent
an even bigger loss. In my opinion it is the union leaders fault for mismanaging and underfunding the pensions. We are going to see a lot of this. I think we will see a push to do the same with the Defined Benefit Plans that are fully covered by the PBGC since
they don't have the funds to back up their promises either.

[jtuck004]

46. U.S. Bank Profits Near Record Levels

Industry Posts Second-Highest Profit in 23 Years in Quarter Ended June 30; Improved Credit Quality Helps
By ROBIN SIDEL And SAABIRA CHAUDHURI
Updated Aug. 11, 2014 7:55 p.m. ET
Banks are lending to companies and individuals at the fastest pace since the financial crisis, helping propel profits to near-record levels..
http://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-banking-industry-profits-racing-to-near-record-levels-1407773976
---------------------


11. Kill off Retirement...

It's just the next thing on the bucket list. Everyone else's bucket, that is.

[bravenak]

51. I used to do the payouts to CPF for my old job

I put so much money in there for those people. Fuck. Most were in their 40 or 50s six seven years ago. It was written into the CBA. This is fucked.

[colsohlibgal]

52. Totally Evil And Repulsive

I am sure WalMart loves it, a new reservoir of greeters.

There should be a special place in Hell, if their is indeed such a thing, for anyone making this happen.

Trillions were available for fraud committing Wall Street firms, but not everyday people.