The auto worker pension is not the "gold" standard. It is the decent and fair standard.

[NNN0LHI]

http://workinglife.typepad.com/daily_blog/2007/04/the_coming_atta.html

The Coming Attack Against Auto Workers--And You - April 25, 2007

<snip>I want to explain why these attacks, by in large, are ideological, not economic, in nature. If they were economic, then, a whole other set of issues would be on the table beyond cutting rank-and-file workers pay, health care and pensions. Let's see how.

First, the real burden to auto companies is health care costs. If the auto executives and their counterparts actually dealt with the economics of health care--as opposed to ideology--they would wake up and be avid supporters for a single-payer health care plan. Enacted this year, such a plan would immediately lift off auto companies tens of billions of dollars--that's BILLIONS--in health care costs for current and, most notable, retired workers.

This is nothing new. Almost two years ago, I cited General Motors as the prime example of a company that should be arguing that single-payer health care is an economic necessity. Many others have made that point before and since. And, yet...these guys are unwilling to break from their ideological framework, even though the economics are unassailable.

Second, it is not rank-and-file workers pensions that are causing a financial problem for auto companies, or, for that matter, many other big companies. CEO pensions are the problem. I pointed this out last summer by highlighting a terrific article in the Wall Street Journal. Here are two snippets from that article: snip

It's ironic that the ideologues are calling for cuts in auto worker pensions, of all places. After all, it was Henry Ford himself who used to say that he wanted to pay his workers enough money so they could buy Ford cars. Exactly how do the ideologues think retired auto workers, not to mention other workers, will be able to participate as consumers in the fall and winter of their lives if they are asked to live on less even as expenses like health care, rent and gas go up?

And that's where this all comes back to you. We all need to see the coming attack against auto workers as a direct attack on the ability of average people to make a fair wage and retire with dignity and respect. The attack against auto workers will be lead by the same voices who have fashioned a global economy with rules that enrich a few and impoverish the many; the same people who have created, in our country, the chasm between rich and poor and the obscene spectacle of CEO legalized robbery with very little resistance from our elected leaders.

Our response has to be very clear: The auto worker pension is not the "gold" standard. It is the decent and fair standard.

[Cassandra]

1. Sen. Coburn, (Loon-OK)

was on C-Span this morning comparing UAW workers' pay to average pay, not realizing that if auto workers pay went down, so would average pay. We shouldn't be aiming for the paradise that is Wal-Mart.

[sarcasmo]

11. The big problem is the Republicans want the Walmart paradise.

Low pay slaves is what us and our children have become

[AnneD]

2. It's sad when decent and fair

are gold standards:(

[Idealism]

3. Good article

Its sad that people tote Honda opening a new plant in the US and hailing it as the change the US automakers need, when the Honda workers make $14/hour and have nowhere near the health coverage US auto workers get. What a joke

[AzDar]

4. The true 'gold standard' for pay and bennies would be effing CONGRESS, now, wouldn't it??

Makes me :puke:


Support the American Worker!!!

[SammyWinstonJack]

8. !!

:thumbsup:

[dkofos]

9. You got that right

:puke:

[JDPriestly]

5. The purpose of this whole "crisis" is to cheat retirees across the board.

GM's retirees are just an example. Many of us who are about to reach or have just reached retirement age and who had our money in 401(K)s have lost as much as half (for some nearly all) of our retirement money. (Only if you saw the handwriting on the wall and went to cash early are you safe.) It's all been spent on mansions in the Catskills and luxury condos in Manhattan. Too bad for those of us who worked hard and scrimped and saved. Better luck next time, I guess.

This is just the last chapter in the assault on the baby-boomers that started in the baby-boomers' infancy. Remember how Tom Brokaw reminisced so about the "Greatest Generation"? Those were our parents, and some of them resented us from the time we were born. We were born too soon. (The pill had not yet been invented.) There were too many of us. (Not enough housing, too few schoolrooms). We were spoiled. We did not want to fight their dirty war. We were not heroes. We took drugs, wore long hair and no bras. Our parents were shocked. Then, when we grew up and had kids of our own, we were called selfish. And now -- who cares about us? Considering the bad rap we've had all our lives, the smugly wealthy can steal our life savings and pensions with an easy conscience. Good riddance is all we will get.

We were born to parents who had lost their youth and who weren't really ready to be saddled by rug-rats crawling all over them night and day. (Actually, my dad did not fight in WWII, and my parents were very loving, but I saw a lot of anger in the parents of my friends.) We ate a lot. We took up space and cost our parents money. We did not want to fight their dirty war. Some of us took drugs and roamed around pretty aimlessly for a bit (but not most of us if truth were known).

But we were not selfish. We never have been. We have given our children and our parents the best of everything. No generation has lived better than our parents. No generation was given the opportunity our children have been given. Now all we want is to have enough to live on in our old age, and that is to be denied us by the powers that be, by the Paulsons and the Cheneys and their friends on Wall Street, by the Chinese and the Indians and the Colombians who want their share of the pie we put aside for our twilight years.

Between the Paulsons and the Cheneys and the out-sourcers, they haven't even left us any alternatives to pensions and 401(K)s. Just try to get a decent paying job if you are over 55, much less over 60. WalMart greeter, that's about all you are good for.

You see, one of the facts about aging that they don't generally talk about is that many of us get slower -- that is we weaken physically. Some of us find that our hands don't grasp as fast as they used to and are not as strong as they were. That jar that we used to open with one good jerk. Takes two of us to get it open now. Others' can't walk without sharp pain in the knees.

Oh, when it comes to getting jobs, we don't look quite as cute and energetic and enthusiastic as the twenty and thirty somethings. So forget about that fetching first impression. And if you do get a job, don't count on being given the benefit of the doubt as a newbie. Since you look old, you are expected to know everything. The 20-something is cute is she doesn't know what she is doing, but you, you are just stupid.

The theft of our 401(K)s and our pension money. It's the last straw. I don't know if you noticed how many older people were actively campaigning for Obama (and before that Hilary). There's a reason for that. We have a political axe to grind. We want to be given equal opportunity and we are not getting it. We want equal opportunity to grow old in dignity.

Meanwhile in the Third World, the baby boom is raging, producing huge, young, educated populations to work for cheap. That means that the jobs that would have gone to us once our retirement money is gone is being invested in their futures, and the paychecks will be going to them. Never mind that that investment money is the cash we set aside during our working years. It's been laundered via CEO salaries and broker's fees and it's not ours anymore. Wonder what will happen when the baby boomers in the Third World need to retire?

[cap]

10. Pounding the table for you, too !

My MIL who is 88 years lives on a modest pension of $3K. That has been $700K in cash plus health benefits over 20+ years since she retired at age 65. This isn't counting the value of her middle class house. Who in the hell is going to have that kind of money in their pocket when they retire these days?

[lib_wit_it]

6. So then what would they call the CEO pension? nt

[cap]

7. Hear, Hear.... Fist Pounding the Table

Right on, brother.... Right on...