Growing Anger Towards Pensioners

[my2sense]

"Pensioners say they are targets of a backlash"

By Kathleen O'Brien/The Star-Ledger
March 14, 2010, 7:00AM


Thomas Tevlin had worked some solid jobs — salesman for Pabst Blue Ribbon beer, driver for a uniform company — when he and his wife had twins.

As the main breadwinner for a family of seven, Tevlin knew something had to change. So in 1965 he took a 15 percent pay cut to become a Maplewood firefighter.

"I took the job for the benefits, because if you have that many people to look out for, you need your benefits," he said. Tevlin augmented his salary by taking a second job as an encyclopedia salesman. It was enough for him and wife Carolyn to forge a lifestyle she jokingly calls that of "lower-middle-class, working-class slobs."

Tevlin, 74, is long retired, but he now finds the very benefits package that wooed him into firefighting 45 years ago is facing a crescendo of criticism.

On Tuesday Gov. Chris Christie will unveil his plan to close an $11 billion gap in the state budget — a plan likely to include skipping a $3 billion payment to the pension fund.

Angry finger-pointing swirls as Trenton debates a long-term fix for making good on its obligation to not just teachers, firefighters and police officers, but dispatchers, bus drivers, cafeteria workers and custodians.

While very little of that budget debate has to do with today’s pensioners — for the most part, their benefits are locked in by contracts — it has placed their personal finances in the glare of a withering spotlight. Now in their golden years, they find themselves the target of a backlash.

They, in return, are angry and aggrieved.

In internet postings and on talk-radio shows, government workers are being called "greedy" and "bloodsuckers." Commenting on the teachers union, one writer called its members "the worst human beings on the face of the planet." Criticizing the police, another wrote, "The typical criminal could never steal what these cops are walking out the front door with."

As New Jersey’s unemployment hovers at 10 percent and 401(k)s are dented by stock-market losses, retired public workers find themselves on the receiving end of "pension envy."

"I understand that I retired with a good pension and the taxpayer contributed to it," said Tevlin, who kicked in 8.5 percent of his salary toward his pension, which is about $4,000 a month. In his mind it was a fair bargain: In exchange, the public received reliable emergency services. "I don’t apologize to anybody," he said. "I did a dangerous job."

TRAUMATIZED PUBLIC

The high-octane criticism of public employees is a regrettable yet predictable outgrowth of today’s economy, said Joseph Seneca, of the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University. The private sector has taken a disproportionate hit in job losses, which have totaled 8½ million nationwide in just over two years.

"The trauma of that has been enormous, and it has permeated every aspect of life, from workers’ sense of worth to their sense of security," he said. "The anxieties that are occurring in the labor force have many manifestations, and the pension issue is one — a very visceral one. That anxiety spills over into anger."

Nanette Maurath, 64, has heard remarks about the free health insurance she receives for having driven a Woodbridge school bus for 32 years. That long employment means she pays nothing for her health coverage, but she’s quick to point out that insurance was the only reason that, as a 29-year-old mother of three, she took the job. "I worked for what I have. I deserve to have paid insurance," she said. "They shouldn’t knock people who work for it."

Read the entire article here: http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2010/03/pensioners_say_they_are_target.html

[DJ13]

1. First they came for the pensions, and I said nothing

Then they came for Social Security, and.........

[my2sense]

2. This is truly outrageous!

Yep, social security is next. It seems the blame game is in full effect.

[fasttense]

38. This is not so much the result of the blame game as it is the result of "Free" market

economic policy.

For the "Free" market followers all public sector jobs must disappear. Just look in Greece. The country is bankrupt. So, instead of increasing taxes on the uber rich (Onassis and other tycoons) they cut pensioners' benefits, fire government workers and reduce the pay of the remaining handful of middle class. It's the same here in the US. Instead of increasing the Gates' and Waltons' taxes, they cut benefits and social services. It's all planned out by the "Free" market advocates.

Just more of the Shock Doctrine to make our economy a living hell.

[CountAllVotes]

3. sourpuss folks that cannot stand the fact

that some people worked crap jobs for years just for the benefits.

Many of these folks were women. My own mother was one of them.

She was a retired Federal employee and at the end of her "career" she found herself downgraded to a mail room clerk rather than a secretary. She hung on anyway, taking all of the criticisms so she'd have those benefits which covered herself and my father.

After she passed away I received a notice from the Federal government that they had a class action lawsuit in the works to make it up to people like my mother that were downgraded before they retired, thus receiving a smaller pension. That lawsuit finally resolved and they paid her about $2,000.00 after she had died.

Mother also told me to take a job working for "a big outfit" as they at least had decent benefits and that women would never make what a man makes so forget that idea. She was so very right and I did as she advised - took the crappy jobs that paid nothing but had good benefits.

Now such people including myself are condemned for their work. I say fuck you to all of them. Did any of them ever work for $2.88 an hr.? I DID.

:dem: :kick:

[my2sense]

5. As a retired public employee - I totally agree

We took lesser paying jobs for better benefits and now folks have the nerves to be pissed? They didn't have a problem as police, firefighters and teachers provided them with services while barely getting by on local gov't income.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

14. One of the current perceptions is that those jobs today are no longer lower paid

and there is no risk of layoffs.

[CountAllVotes]

33. and that is bullshit

no job is that safe nor ever was.

I've seen people get fired that worked for the State. YES, it does happen albeit not often enough at times.

I worked my ass off as a public employee for over 20 years.

I deserve every little nugget I get.

There weren't many that cared to work in the hospitals in the early-1980s during the AIDS epidemic. However, I was there and doing my job despite the fear. :patriot:

[ProgressiveProfessor]

34. Gov employees are not at any where near the risk of layoff today as private sector

people are and that was comparable in the past. Once past probation, it was a lock in for life barring serious misbehavior. I am in my 3rd major government job (of sorts). I too speak from experience.

[n2doc]

4. First, take away jobs and benefits from current workers...

Then take them away from former workers....Then future workers. And give it all to the rich, in the form of tax breaks.

And the rich let us serfs fight over the crumbs.....

[Blue_Tires]

39. that's been their plan from the start....

[Skink]

6. why do they hate your Pensions.

[dwilso40641]

9. Pensions

should never be controlled by the employer. The earned contribution should be paid to an outside fund such as the Central Pension Fund.
The problem is unfunded liabilities. The money should be paid into the fund as it is earned.

[patrice]

7. It'd be less of a problem if at least some of the gov't/military pensioners I know would just shut

the fuck up about "evil socialist entitlements" like Social Security.

It simply is not rationally logical to say that one's own needs should be met, but not those of others. It's a logical contradiction.

[CountAllVotes]

8. Social Security Disability Insurance is not an "entitlement"

hearing it referred to as such angers me. Is is Social Security Disability INSURANCE. You pay into it and if you don't pay enough into it you don't get a nickel. FACT.

:dem: :kick:

[axollot]

13. Thats very true. I just fought and won after 3yrs. n/t

[Lydia Leftcoast]

31. Oh yeah, my mother had an acquaintance who had THREE pensions,

one of them military, and this person was a rabid Republican who was always railing against "the government."

[raccoon]

42. Seems like to me a lot of Republicans/conservatives don't want to get that.

"It simply is not rationally logical to say that one's own needs should be met, but not those of others. It's a logical contradiction."

They're like, if they have health care, fine, but those who don't can just drop dead. :grr:

[xchrom]

10. The people in control of our institutions fail us --

So what do the amercan masses do?

Cannibalize each other.

[patrice]

11. Bingo~

There are no quick fixes. We MUST commit to one another despite (most of) our differences. We need to prioritize what our responsibilities are to members of our local community and act to meet those responsibilities.

I, for one, think new and better education would help people understand what the USA really and truly ACTUALLY, IN FACT, is. We must start by being grounded in Reality and base our commitments to one another on the facts.

[NC_Nurse]

12. Every time. It's amazing how it keeps happening and the blame never seems to

go where it should belong.

How about all those corporate profiteers that f*cked the pension system for their own personal gain? What about THAT? Why aren't people
picketing Goldman Sacks for robbing us all blind? Because they'd rather rail at their local retired public servants for the tiny amount that they
are getting back for a lifetime of work. Ugh.

[havocmom]

15. Live long enough and you probably notice you have no value to society defined by capitalism

If you are wealthy enough to consume, you have value. Until your money gets low and your consumption slows.

If you are healthy enough, young enough, still strong enough to work, you have value. Until your health or strength falters and your labors can no longer be exploited to make things/provide services to be sold to those who still have money to spend.

If you have slowed down a bit, or become unhealthy, you cannot be as easily exploited and your value plummets.

If you are old enough to have gained perspective from experience and can read the road signs of what lies ahead, you are actually a danger because you might just warn others who might then resist being so easily exploited.

The damaging type of extreme capitalism we have going on (socialize the risks, privatize the benefits/profits) survives by keeping the masses feeling threatened, angry, and at each others' throats. Keeps the masses from clearly seeing who the common enemy is; seeing that society does not have to have an ever-widening gap between the rich and those who work to build them their riches.

So we hate those with different skin colors, languages, histories, religions. Our society has a foundation of fostering those hatreds so we stay too busy with our rage and fear to notice the common enemy. We hate those who do not share our habits, proclivities, natural attractions. We miss seeing the class pulling all our strings, and doing so through all generations. We miss noticing the common enemy.

And while generational squabbles are natural, and probably responsible for a good deal of our invention and exploration as a species, now we see it being directly exploited and used to drive more wedges between us. We are being played, and not for the greater good. We are being manipulated not just to distrust, but to openly hate, those of other groups.

Idle hands may be the devil's workshop, but minds with enough idle time to process what is in front of us, and learn to put it together critically might just be the workshop where the masses build real ladders to better solutions and build on what was built before; build toward a foundation for what is yet to be build. Minds left with time to think become a threat to the few who exploit and hoard.

Why? Because we are a stronger species when we respect, listen to, learn from, lean on, utilize the strengths of each other. My god, how strong, how wise, how inventive could be be in our actions to work to the common goals of solving root problems?

If we could pay attention to, and dare participate in, the naive, but astoundingly brilliant imaginings of youngsters, could we perhaps be like the bumble bee, who flies because it has yet to learn it cannot fly?

Is it possible that we, as a society, or even a species, could achieve great works (as has been done throughout human history) when we appreciate, guide, channel the great energy and passion of youth?

Could our youngsters and youths be less lost and more vitally productive if we really nurtured them, taught them by our lessons and illustrated it with our living work/examples?

Might it be possible for the young, the strong, those coming into their primes to start from a level above that which their parents, grandparents struggled to climb out of if they would listen a bit and consider that age does sometimes provide a different perspective and sometimes, even wisdom?

As a species and as a culture, we used to be able to lift the next generation up just a bit. We used to not be so self absorbed that we could not learn, appreciate, love each other enough to share and build together.

We are many. The class that has built empire on exploiting and hoarding are few. How do they keep us from storming their castles and distributing the grain they have taken from our labors back among the people who are getting hungry? How is it the few keep defeating the many and removing more than they can ever use?

They keep us fighting pretend wars among ourselves. They fuel our baser instincts and encourage the building of walls that keep us separated. They prey on weaker minds and create mobs that grow and spread killing hate like a contagion.

They have been with us always, and it is likely they will remain. But we do not have to allow them to be powerful over us as they use us to distract, divert, destroy each other so we are not a threat to them. Do we have to continue to allow them to prevent us from seeing the gifts each has to offer, the needs each has to have met in order to participate?

The problem is not color, language, gender, gender preference, religious leanings, nor is it age. The problem is the ease at which we let the hoarders manipulate the exploited populations. to rage against one another and never realize the strengths each group brings to the table.

No solutions are possible without social justice. No social (or economic) justice is possible until we look at our differences as assets rather than burdens.

If you are not very very very rich, you are one of the exploited, whether you feel it yet or not. If you are the plant manager who finds ways to get more work out of fewer workers, you are still exploited and will learn you are expendable too. And if you are a clever animal, with political skills and a winning smile, you may enjoy some time comfortable, but you will ALWAYS learn you are expendable to those who hoard and let so many go without basic needs being met.

It does not matter that you live a caring life, are responsible to family, friends, community, when you cannot be further exploited your are expendable and will be discarded. What matters is whether you participate in the discarding of your brothers and sisters for the pittance of a few crumbs and false smiles from hoarders who may pat you on your head, or if you work toward solutions that really solve problems that go beyond what you need and want.

Does it matter that you choose to care for one another, work together for one another? Not for some theory of god and rewards, but because we are better when we work for the common good. Or do you hand over free will and your mind to those who hoard and survive through manipulating masses?

[patrice]

17. Right On. The truth about the U$A is that the fundamental value of each & every person is $$$$$$$$$$

Avoiding and lying about that fact makes it more and more and more powerfully oppressive.

I think the best way to begin to end it is to be genuinely human and immediately (as in un - mediated) present to each and every other human and also to one's self.

[patrice]

19. And the fact that I/mine/you/yours = $$$$$$$$ is THE. ONLY. thing that all of us share. It is, ergo,

THE. ONLY. thing that makes America Amerika.

[patrice]

20. ergo, there is (currently) No America aside from this fact. It does not exist.

[havocmom]

22. And I thought I was a cynic!

:hug:

I choose to believe we have more in common than the dollar amount less humane people would put on our labors or our ability to consume.

But I do get your point. Went through worst depression of my life when it hit me that society does not value people, no matter how good they are. PEOPLE might value us, but the society? It's only kidding its self about the equation. The hoarders know; they keep the ledgers.

[patrice]

23. Oh, I know that we do have our humanity in common. I wasjust referring to the de facto values of the

systems in which we live.

:grouphug:

[Blue_Tires]

40. excellent points

you may want to make that an OP

[havocmom]

41. Thanks, Blue_Tires. I did post it to my journal, but my OPs sink like rocks around here

I am NOT one of the cool kids ;)

[raccoon]

43. You might consider starting a thread with this post. nt

[readmoreoften]

16. Because what America needs right now is a working class that tears itself apart

in a race to the bottom.

But, then again, what else do you expect Their Media to report? On the streets....really? Has anyone ever met someone who resents PENSIONS?

[patrice]

18. No. What I hear is a lot of anger at someone who is trying to "get something for nothing".

Personally, I don't and never have known many people who try to get something for nothing. They often try to get whatever it is on the cheap, but most people, even if they do engage in some cheating, do recognize the dysfunctionality of stealing.

And, while I am committed to the intrinsic value of all humans, I also know that that value is clearly and un-ambiguously manifested in behavior, i.e. what one does.

[havocmom]

24. Yep. Bad enough when GOP does it. When you see it on DU it boggles the mind

Those benefits some people so begrudge are PART OF THE COMPENSATION others got for the work they did. Would DUers insist people have to give up part of every paycheck besides the taxes, SS, Medicare and their own contributions to retirement funds they already pay out of each and every check? Yet some of the same people who would NEVER do that are here and now whining about benefits which were earned through work, and were part of the deal.

It just pains me to see so many people here falling for the GOP/corporate propaganda.

[Joanne98]

21. Larry Kudlow on CNBC is blaming pensions for everything.

People need to get him in check before it starts working.

[havocmom]

26. After corporations releive themselves of the pension burden the damned well owe

they will be turning us against environmental laws next. I see it already starting to surface again.

Outsourcing was NEVER just about wages. It was the whole concept of dual obligations between workers/corporations they wanted out of. They want slaves who do not think anything beyond a crust of bread is due them for their life's blood. They would starve US workers out to the point where we beg to have the environmental protections removed so they can get a few more pennies profit at the cost of our world.

[patrice]

27. Our entire country, present and future, is being held hostage by Wall Street.

Wall Street has made HC Ins Cos some of the biggest institutional investors in derivatives.

[havocmom]

30. And do not EVER forget that the insurance mandate is more $$ to Wall Street

We still haven't come across with the SS deductions from our pay checks they wanted, so they had their paid servants in D.C. do an end run. Insurance execs will take a nice cut for their help laundering the money, but this 'reform' mandate to buy what we cannot afford is really a forced payment to Wall Street. They gotta keep their house of cards afloat and the working class just doesn't have investment money to give them voluntarily any more.

[Peggy Day]

25. Don't forget...

Not all pensions for government workers are totally paid for by taxpayers. Employees are required to contribute (at least in my case-county worker)too. I think they use the retirement benefits for other things, but if they just left it alone they would probably do OK.

If they want to change the rules, it shouldn't be to people that were promised benefits. That's what they are doing everywhere in the private sector-Oh sorry I sold the company to Uncle Charlie, and he doesn't pay benefits.

Decrease the tax cuts to super rich and corporations-something like before Reagan took office-that would help.

Another thing a bit off topic-what is wrong with "protectionism". If our government doesn't protect us who will? Other countries have tariffs, etc., why not us?

[wackywaggin]

28. The fallacy of the greatest generation.

Bullsh*t!! There are millions of Americans in there 30' 40's, and 50'S rthat are now suffering because of the greed of the "greatest generation." Who in there 30's, 40's or 50's wouldn't have been happy today getting all the perks the "Greatest Generation" got back then. This is the same generation that dropped an atomic bomb on thousands of innocent children, assasinated Martin Luther king, JFK, and RFK, propegated the Vietnam War, and elected Richard Nixon to office. Let's set the record straight for once!!

Heretic Wack

[havocmom]

29. I agree that many of that era have a well extended sense of entitlement that ran up some tabs

Many deserved every bit of help they could get after that war, but too many forgot that help as they built upon the benefits they were given.

A psychologist pal of mine insisted the Korean War generation were even worse, because they had a deep seated sense of guilt for not having had to make the grand and necessary sacrifices of the Greatest Generation. He said THEIR sense of entitlement, which was part self doubt and part hopes of hanging onto older brothers' coat tails and getting sweet deals was worse yet.

Now, I have noticed what he said, but I refuse to label/liable whole generations. I have known some really generous humanitarians from both those generations, just like all generations. But boy, I get tired of being attacked for being a spoiled boomer who used everything up and now expects the Gen-X-ers and Millenniums to keep me in my old age. I was born poor, worked hard (and ethically) all my life and will die poor. No matter how little I had, I shared it. And I am not the only one.

[raccoon]

44. Absolutely. Not all Boomers were/are as well off as those brats in THE BIG CHILL. nt

[ShamelessHussy]

32. The real crime is that not all workers have these benifits - the evil corporate overlords and their

minions in gov have been busy since the 70s taking them away to pay for their bonuses and extravagant lifestyles.

and now they will use this issue to try to 'level' the playing field by stripping them from EVERYONE. :argh:

the old, but always effective, divide and conquer routine.

I am working for one of the few private companies that still offer a pension and that is the MAIN reason I target that company to begin with.

My partner and I both work there for that reason, and our 2 big worries is that they will either get rid of us just before we qualify for it, or they will cancel it when we go to collect it.

either way, we both consider it worth the risk since most private companies don't even offer them anymore, and here they also have a 401k plan with a very good supplement to what we contribute.

[TexasObserver]

35. Recommend

[Skittles]

36. got news for you, Nanette

I will have worked much longer than you did, including serving my country, and I'll end up with very little of what you have. Do I blame YOU for it? No. Does it suck? HELL YES.

[thecrow]

37. Someone I know ...

is railing against the injustice of the state because they are "taxing phone service 24%" to provide firefighters and other public servants with death and disability insurance. Well it sounded outrageous the way he put it, but when I checked the story in the newspaper, it turned out that this 24% was an EIGHTEEN CENT increase. EIGHTEEN CENTS !
I guess the way the state figures it, they are nearly bankrupt by the unemployment, (which he also thinks is a govt. handout to people who don't wnat o work) but they want to give benefits to the public servants, and it has to come from somewhere. He said the EIGHTEEN CENTS was not the issue, the 24% was the number that was an issue.

Now, this is someone who is also freaking out because he "has to register for Medicare" but he still has a job. So he's going to keep working, but he says he will use his private insurance and then Medicare to cover what his private insurance deductible won't pay. He thinks this is DC being "unfair to the taxpayer" but HE IS THE TAXPAYER who's been paying into Medicare all his working life.

He's also a veteran.

This is the thinking that we will be up against this week. It's truly bizarre.

[Blue_Tires]

45. ttt

[Mike K]

46. In spite of having a good education -

- I chose to remain in civil service because of the early pension and other benefits.

My parents lived through the depression and were afraid of an economic system which is based on the stock market. My father, a locksmith by trade, often talked about what life was like in the depths of the Great Depression and he always ended by advising us to take civil service jobs and invest only in U.S. Savings Bonds.

I took his advice and I must admit there were times when I regretted it, believing I could have done better working in private industry and building a 401-K. Today I can say his hard-earned wisdom is affirmed and his advice was valuable.

There were many times over the years I'd heard from well-meaning professional friends, "With your education you could have done so much better." I don't hear that anymore. And to those who might resent the benefits deriving from my occupational choice, all I can say is they could have done the same but they wanted more. Please don't blame me for that.