The International
Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers cited “44 million reasons” to
defend America’s pensions in a new full-page ad published in USA Today. The ad
ran from Friday August 30 to Labor Day, Monday, September 2, 2013.
“More than 44 million American workers
faithfully contributed part of their paychecks every week into U.S. pension
funds based on the promise that they would have a measure of financial security
at the end of long, hard and often dangerous careers,” the ad reads. “Those
pension funds are now being targeted by the same interest groups whose actions
ravaged the nation’s economy and drained trillions from home equity and 401(k)
savings accounts while using massive taxpayer bailout funds to pad executive
bonuses.
“The latest attempt
by bankers, bondholders and lawmakers to break into American workers’ pension
funds represents an attempted robbery of epic proportions.
“This nation’s
pension system is not broken, busted or in need of a radical overhaul that
shifts ever more wealth from the nation’s middle class to the top one percent,”
the ad continues. “Responsible lawmakers and citizens must demand that America
keep its pension promises to workers who expect and deserve nothing less.
“The IAM opposes any
proposal that breaks America’s promise of a pension to those who have
sacrificed wages in order to ensure a secure retirement for themselves and
their families,” IAM International President Tom Buffenbarger said.
“We want the American
people to realize that the issue of pensions is not a union issue – it’s an
American issue,” IAM General Secretary-Treasurer Robert Roach, Jr. said. “There
are 44 million pension holders in the U.S., not all of those are union members.
The IAM will continue to lead the fight in shedding light on this important
issue and in defending workers’ pensions.”
A copy of the
full-page IAM ad is available here.
This was originally posted on Fred Klonsky’s blog.
Until people realize there is a systematic deconstruction of the middle class in Illinois (and across America), corrupt politicians will continue to decimate middle-class citizens in exchange for corporate bankrolling and for other self-interests.
ReplyDeleteMembers of IEA, IFT and AFSCME must tell their union leadership they will support them, but only if their rights and benefits are protected. Indeed, IAM is a strong union that defends its membership and both Constitutions.
As we have witnessed, making any concessions will demoralize the membership, weaken the unions, and embolden politicians. Enfeebled unions invite further attacks on public employees and will make unions and their membership irrelevant.
We cannot trust the Illinois General Assembly: we have 60 years of proof that supports this opinion. Unions must continue to demand pension debt restructuring and structural revenue reform. Concessions are not an option.
We know the state’s deficits are not the result of state employees' pensions. They are the result of corrupt, incompetent politicians and business leaders in Illinois.
“[Most] Unions, organizations formerly steeped in the doctrine of class struggle and filled with those who sought broad social and political rights for the working class, have been transformed into domesticated partners of the capitalist class. They have been reduced to simple bartering tools. The social demands of unions early in the twentieth century that gave the working class weekends off, the right to strike, the eight-hour day, and Social Security have been abandoned” (Hedges, Chris. The World As It Is: Dispatches on the Myth of Human Progress. New York: Nation Books, 2010).
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