Pensions

France Records 391-Mile Traffic Jam As Public Transport Brought To Halt By Third Week Of Strikes Over Pension Changes

December 19, 2019 Staff, Itv.com Resist! Class Struggle, France, Pensions, Strikes, Workers Rights and Jobs

A traffic jam of 391 miles was recorded on the outskirts of Paris on Monday morning as fresh strikes over pension changes brought public transport to a standstill in France for a third week. President Emmanuel Macron’s government appeared determined to push ahead with its plans despite the French transport strikes causing widespread disruption as they enter their twelfth day. In the Paris region only two Metro automated trains with no drivers were fully running as the other 14 metro lines remained closed or only very partially running.

France: Strikes Urging The Withdrawal Of The Pension ‘Reform’ Draft Law Continue

December 10, 2019 Staff, Socialistorganizer.org Resist! Class Struggle, France, Pensions, Reform, Strikes

This morning, 9 December, the record for traffic jams on the Île-de-France [1] road network was broken. The images of those 600-plus kilometres of roads blocked with traffic, and of travellers crammed together on train platforms or not even able to push their way into Metro stations demonstrate the depth of the rejection, the depth of the strike action that began on 5 December. The governing power is destabilised. [Prime Minister] Edouard Philippe’s speech last Friday evening can be summarised as follows: reconsidering a points-based pension system is out of the question...

Thousands Of Retired Workers In Spain Demand ‘Decent Pensions’

December 18, 2018 Staff, Telesurenglish.net Resist! Pensions, Retirement, Spain, Workers

Thousands of retired people and supporters took over the streets in several cities in Spain on Saturday to demand “decent” pensions of at least 1,080 Euros a month, and yearly updates according, to the Consumer Price Index (CPI). The protests started in Bilbao, capital of the Basque country, in January as a weekly demonstration and spread to over 200 cities and towns across the Spanish State, supporting other movements along the way. They were organized by the State Coordinator for the Defense of the Public Pension System under the slogans “whoever is ruling, pensions must be defended,” and “Our future: there’s no solution without mobilization!”

Brazil Paralyzed By Nationwide Strike Against Corruption & Impunity

April 30, 2017 Glenn Greenwald, www.theintercept.com Resist! Anti-Austerity, Austerity, Brazil, Pensions, Retirement, Strike, Workers Rights and Jobs

By Glenn Greenwald for the Intercept. It’s almost impossible to imagine a presidency imploding more completely and rapidly than the unelected one imposed by elites on the Brazilian population in the wake of Dilma’s impeachment. The disgust validly generated by all of these failures finally exploded this week. A nationwide strike, and tumultuous protests in numerous cities, today has paralyzed much of the country, shutting roads, airports and schools. It is the largest strike to hit Brazil in at least two decades. The protests were largely peaceful, but some random violence emerged. The proximate cause of the anger is a set of “reforms” that the Temer government is ushering in that will limit the rights of workers, raise their retirement age by several years, and cut various pension and social security benefits. These austerity measures are being imposed at a time of great suffering, with the unemployment rate rising dramatically and social improvements of the last decade, which raised millions of people out of poverty, unravelling. As the New York Times put it today: “The strike revealed deep fissures in Brazilian society over Mr. Temer’s government and its policies.”

Wall Street Firms Make Money From Teachers’ Pensions

October 31, 2016 David Sirota, Avi Asher-Schapiro And Andrew Pere, www.ibtimes.com Educate! Charter Schools, Pensions, Teachers, Wall Street

BY David Sirota, Avi Asher-Schapiro And Andrew Perez for IBT - When Massachusetts public school teachers pay into their pension fund each month, they may not realize where the money goes. Wall Street titans are using some of the profits from managing that money to finance an education ballot initiative that many teachers say will harm traditional public schools. An International Business Times/MapLight investigation has found that executives at eight financial firms with contracts to manage Massachusetts state pension assets have bypassed anti-corruption rules and funneled at least $778,000 to groups backing Question 2, which would expand the number of charter schools in the state.

Protests Against ‘Colonial’ PROMESA Debt Plan Rock Puerto Rico

September 4, 2016 Staff, www.telesurtv.net Resist! Austerity, Debt, Pensions, Puerto Rico, Wages

By Staff for Telesur. Hundreds of protesters took to the streets in San Juan Wednesday to block the first scheduled conference on the installation of a financial control board to remedy Puerto Rico’s crippling debt crisis but slammed by critics as an anti-democratic, neo-colonial policy that will redistribute wealth from the island nation to Wall Street. Demonstrators formed protests lines and blocked roads with rocks and bricks to disrupt the conference at San Juan’s Condado Plaza Hilton. They carried signs and shouted slogans against the federal control board, whose authority will supercede that of Puerto Rico’s democratically-elected governor, effectively handing budgetary decision-making over to unelected appointees, many of them bankers. The U.S. law creating the control board, known by its acronym PROMESA, grants the oversight panel the power to cut pensions, labor contracts with civil servants, and social services, to restructure its US$73 billion debt load. Despite lines of riot police and occasional use of pepper spray, the protests managed to block conference-goers on their way to the venue and forced organizers to re-arrange the meeting agenda, local media reported.

Retirees Win Round One

June 2, 2016 Alexandra Bradbury, www.labornotes.org Resist! Pensions, Retirement

By Alexandra Bradbury for Labor Notes - Who could have predicted a year ago, as Congress-sanctioned pension cutsgathered momentum, that thousands of retired truckers self-organizing in diners and union halls across Middle America would manage to apply the brakes? “We’ve taken just normal, everyday grandmothers and grandfathers, and we’ve made citizen lobbyists out of them,” said Wes Epperson, a retired member of Teamsters Local 41 in Kansas City, “and it’s been because of necessity.”

Teamsters Protest Slashing Of Hundreds Of Thousands Of Pensions

April 27, 2016 Bruce Vail , www.inthesetimes.com Resist! Pensions, Protests

By Bruce Vail for In These TImes - With a key deadline looming early next month, pension activists in the Teamsters union are turning up the heat to head off government action that will slash the incomes of hundreds of thousands of union retirees who receive benefits from the Central States Pension Fund, and set a dangerous precedent for millions more. The retired union members are concentrated on pressuring congressman and senators in Washington, D.C., to use their influence over the Department of the Treasury to prevent any immediate cuts.

Pensions In Trouble Across The Country

February 20, 2016 Tyler Durden, www.zerohedge.com Educate! Pensions, United States

By Tyler Durden for Zero Hedge - After working 33 years, he’s facing a 55% cut to his pension benefits, a blow which he says will “cripple” his family and imperil the livelihood of his two children, one of whom is in the fourth grade and one of whom is just entering high school. Dorsey attended a town hall meeting in Kansas City on Tuesday where retirees turned out for a discussion on “massive” pension cuts proposed by the Central States Pension Fund, which covers 400,000 participants, and which will almost certainly go broke within the next decade.

Coal Country Trouble: Health Risks Of Retired Miners & Their Families

November 2, 2015 Alec MacGillis, www.propublica.org Educate! Coal, Kentucky, Pensions

By Alec MacGillis for Pro Publica - John R. Leach worked for Peabody Energy Corp. in western Kentucky for 23 years. When he retired, he and his wife Rhonda relied on his pension and health benefits not only for themselves but to care for two severely disabled adult children. So when Peabody notified them in 2007 that their benefits were now the responsibility of a spinoff called Patriot Coal, they had a worrisome premonition. “We said, ‘There’s something going on here that’s not right,’” Rhonda Leach said. The family’s worries were justified. When Patriot filed for bankruptcy two years ago, retiree benefits for thousands of mining families were put at risk.

Central States Pension Fund Cuts Pensions For Thousands

October 13, 2015 David Moberg, www.inthesetimes.com Educate! Pensions

By David Moberg for In These Times - For several months, many current and retired truck drivers have feared receiving a letter in the mail that could be “devastating,” in the words of Teamsters union vice-president John Murphy. Finally, last Friday, the Central States Pension Fund sent those dreaded letters to 407,000 workers and retirees, mainly Teamsters employed by hundreds of trucking-related companies with roots in the Midwest, South and East. Each individualized letter told them in detail whether the fund will now cut their promised pension payments—and, if so, by how much.

Landslide Votes: Detroit Workers/Retirees Approve Pension Cuts

July 22, 2014 Ed White, www.AP.org Organize! Detroit, Pensions, Retirement, Worker Rights and Jobs

Pension cuts were approved in a landslide, according to results filed shortly before midnight Monday. The tally from 60 days of voting gives the city a boost as Judge Steven Rhodes determines whether Detroit's overall strategy to eliminate or reduce $18 billion in long-term debt is fair and feasible to all creditors. General retirees would get a 4.5 percent pension cut and lose annual inflation adjustments. They accepted the changes with 73 percent of ballots in favor. Retired police officers and firefighters would lose only a portion of their annual cost-of-living raise. Eighty-two percent in that class voted "yes."

Detroit Pensioners Face Vote On Budget Cuts

June 9, 2014 Matt Helms and Susan Tompor, www.freep.com Resist! Budget, Detroit, Elections, Pensions

Among the many questions facing retirees and pension beneficiaries as they vote on Detroit’s bankruptcy grand bargain is one often asked: Aren’t retirees better off rejecting the deal they don’t like and betting on a court appeal to force the city or the state to pay full benefits? It’s a risk Yvonne Jones, 63, says she’s willing to take — although it’s a risk that emergency manager Kevyn Orr and many experts say is a long shot and fraught with the danger of even deeper cuts. Jones says that she’s definitely going to reject the plan because she doesn’t believe that city pensions should be cut at all in the bankruptcy process. “To accept it says we give up all rights to litigate,” Jones said last week. She retired as a manager in the city’s old employment and training department in 2001. “The court cases go away.” Jones said she has lived in Detroit all her life, raised four kids and agrees that Detroit has issues. But she doesn’t believe it’s right for retirees to see more cuts on top of higher health care costs that have already taken place. “This intimidation is wrong,” she said. “I’m not ready to take any cut. I’m fighting to take no cuts.”

Wall Street’s Looting Of Pension Funds

April 23, 2014 Matt Taibbi, www.rollingstone.com Educate! Corruption, Finance and Economy, Pensions

Today, the same Wall Street crowd that caused the crash is not merely rolling in money again but aggressively counterattacking on the public-relations front. The battle increasingly centers around public funds like state and municipal pensions. This war isn't just about money. Crucially, in ways invisible to most Americans, it's also about blame. In state after state, politicians are following the Rhode Island playbook, using scare tactics and lavishly funded PR campaigns to cast teachers, firefighters and cops – not bankers – as the budget-devouring boogeymen responsible for the mounting fiscal problems of America's states and cities. Not only did these middle-class workers already lose huge chunks of retirement money to huckster financiers in the crash, and not only are they now being asked to take the long-term hit for those years of greed and speculative excess, but in many cases they're also being forced to sit by and watch helplessly as Gordon Gekko wanna-be's like Loeb or scorched-earth takeover artists like Bain Capital are put in charge of their retirement savings. It's a scam of almost unmatchable balls and cruelty, accomplished with the aid of some singularly spineless politicians. And it hasn't happened overnight. This has been in the works for decades, and the fighting has been dirty all the way.

Update: PBS Backs Down On Anti-Pension Program, Returns Millions

February 15, 2014 Staff, www.rt.com Educate! Corporatism, Media, Pensions

A member station within the Public Broadcasting Service announced Friday that it would return a $3.5 million grant to a former Enron executive who first provided the money to fund an anti-pension series. WNET, the New York City affiliate of PBS, said production on the planned series, dubbed “Pension Peril,” would be suspended indefinitely after journalist David Sirota of PandoDaily revealed the money was coming from the Laura and John Arnold Foundation. John Arnold, a former executive at the disgraced Enron before who became one of the youngest billionaires in the US, was once the leading financial backer of a political movement to slash retirement benefits for firefighters, teacher, police officers, and other public-sector workers.

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