NYC Transit Strike Hailed As Battle For Nation-Wide Labor Movement By Pens

[BrklynLiberal]

NYC Transit Strike Hailed As Battle For Nation-Wide Labor Movement By Pension Reform Advocates

As the NYC transit workers continue to strike into day three, they continue to push for demands including reform of a pension plan, which labor movement activists view as important to the nation-wide movement. We speak with Frank Emspak, director of Workers Independent News, and Juan Gonzalez.

* Frank Emspak, Director of Workers Independent News, a national labor news service, and a professor at the School for Workers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison

# Juan Gonzalez, Democracy Now! co-host RUSH TRANSCRIPT

AMY GOODMAN: Juan Gonzalez, on the line with us, Democracy Now! co-host, columnist for the New York Daily News, has been covering the transit strike, longtime labor reporter. And in Wisconsin, Frank Emspak is with us in studio, Executive Director of the Workers Independent News, national labor news service, and professor of the School for Workers -- I think that’s an unusual school in this country -- at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. We welcome you, Frank, as well. Can you talk about the New York transit strike? The last one was a quarter of a century ago. It’s the largest public transportation system in this country. And in the context of the pension crisis today? Welcome, Frank.

FRANK EMSPAK: First of all, thank you, Amy, and nice to be with you. It’s the School for Workers, 80 years old. Yes, this strike is actually, as Juan pointed out, extraordinarily important, because it comes in the context of basically the collapse of the employer-based pension system. Sometimes people think that pensions are some kind of favor, but they are really an obligation. They are deferred wages. They are a social obligation. They are a political obligation in the case of the public sector. And, of course, they are a financial obligation.

What has happened is that our system, which is based on the employer paying and the employees taking often wage cuts or deferring wages to put into a pension plan, has had it. Other countries have a universal system, where the pension is like Social Security, which is actually in this country doing okay. In this country, we don't do that. And the net result is that individual plans become overtaxed or become under-funded, and then the employer comes back and says, ‘Well, we can't do this anymore. Too bad about the people who’ve worked for 30 or 40 years, or you guys who have been working, we are going to try to reduce the pension.’ So it doesn't work.

And what has happened is, both in the public sector and the private sector, the notion of a defined benefit -- that is, after you work x-number of years you will get something for life -- has been eroded consistently over the last ten years, and here in New York, I think as sort of a beacon to the nation, the transit union is saying, ‘We are not going to do this any more. We’ve worked. We deserve what we get. We made sacrifices to get it, and we are going to stand up for this.’

I think there’s other things happening here, too, and Juan alluded to them, that there’s maybe a political agenda going on here. It’s very, very rare, in fact, impossible and usually designed to defeat a settlement in a collective bargaining relationship when you have made compromises on three or four major things, as the press has reported, and then at 1:00 in the morning the employer comes in with a major new structural demand that completely changes the framework of the negotiations. First of all, it’s usually impossible for the union to respond. And secondly, it means that you have thrown a whole new wrench into the procedure. So, if you’re looking for settlement, you generally do not bring whole new ideas to the table, particularly ones that result in effectively wage cuts for some people, a restructuring of the wage and benefit system, at the last minute. Usually that means you are not looking for a settlement.
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http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/12/22/1521250

[alarimer]

1. An editorial in the Albany Times-Union today

I unfortunately can't find it on their website but it basically said that state workers are going to have to start accepting cuts in benefits like other workers already have. To this, I say, bullshit because state workers (and I am one, though in Texas, not in New York) don't usually get paid as much as they would in similar private sector jobs. So it is the benefits that keep good employees in place when they could leave for private sector jobs that may be better paying. I know that in my own job, which pays relatively little (after 8 years, I make about 30K. EIGHT years). The state picks up the tab for an individuals health insurance (such as it is- but it is better than many other employer-paid plans I have heard of).

Also why should we just accept benefit cuts in the first place, public employees or not? Why are the corporations ALWAYS allowed to set the terms? They hold all the bargaining power. This is why I supported the strike, though it was against the law. Without the power to strike, unions have fery little leverage. Unions are what has given us the 40 hour work week, overtime, health insurance and vacation. Now all though things are being eroded, in part because of declining participation in unions.

[BrklynLiberal]

2. kick

[pberq]

3. "the collapse of the employer-based pension system"

Thanks for posting this, BrklynLiberal

". . .at 1:00 in the morning the employer comes in with a major new structural demand that completely changes the framework of the negotiations."

The above fact in this case went completely unreported by the corporate media. The story in USA Today was incredibly biased toward management.