[Educationforall] spam con huevos labor news, views and concerns, 4.20.12‏‏‏‏-I‏‏‏

[Carlos Pelayo]

Student Loan Interest Rates Loom as Political Battle How Mississippi's black/brown strategy beat the south's anti-immigrant wave‏  Locking Down an American Workforce: Prison Labor as the Past and Future of American "Free-Market" Capitalism  Getting Paid 93 Cents a Day in America? Corporations Bring Back the 19th Century  Central Obrera Boliviana calls for 48 hour general strike, indigenous march to be blocked‏ Workers at San Joaquin Tomato Growers have been fighting for a UFW contract for 23 years. Help make it happen!‏ Video:Public workers join hunger strike in Bolivia‏ Stalled Safety Rules Cost Lives  Two Attacks on Pensions‏
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http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/20/education/student-loan-interest-rates-loom-as-political-battle.html?nl=us&emc=edit_cn_20120420
Student Loan Interest Rates Loom as Political BattleBy TAMAR LEWINPresident Obama is pushing to retain a low interest rate for student loans, but Republicans counter that such a move is a fiscally irresponsible attempt to buy the youth vote.
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David Bacon Lecture at Global Goes Local ConferencePlay videoSt. Cloud Public Library, April 10, 2012, Topic: The Political Economy of Criminalizing Immigrants". Global Goes Local Conference co-sponsored by: • St. Cloud State University Faculty Research Group…00:50:18Added on 4/14/12124 viewsHow Mississippi's Black/Brown Strategy Beat the South's Anti-Immigrant WaveBy David Bacon, for The Nation, web editionhttp://www.thenation.com/article/167465/how-mississippis-blackbrown-strategy-beat-souths-anti-immigrant-waveJackson, Mississippi,  April 20, 2012 
In early April, an anti-immigrant bill like those that swept through legislatures in Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina was stopped cold in Mississippi. That wasn't supposed to happen. Tea Party Republicans were confident they'd roll over any opposition. They'd brought Kris Kobach, the Kansas Secretary of State who co-authored Arizona's SB 1070, into Jackson, to push for the Mississippi bill. He was seen huddled with the state representative from Brookhaven, Becky Currie, who introduced it.  The American Legislative Exchange Council, which designs and introduces similar bills into legislatures across the country, had its agents on the scene.Their timing seemed unbeatable. Last November Republicans took control of the state House of Representatives for the first time since Reconstruction. Mississippi was one of the last Southern states in which Democrats controlled the legislature, and the turnover was a final triumph for Reagan and Nixon's Southern Strategy. And the Republicans who took power weren't just any Republicans. Haley Barbour, now ironically considered a "moderate Republican," had stepped down as governor. Voters replaced him with an anti-immigrant successor, Phil Bryant, whose venom toward the foreign-born rivals Lou Dobbs.Yet the seemingly inevitable didn't happen.Instead, from the opening of the legislative session just after New Years, the state's Legislative Black Caucus fought a dogged rearguard war in the House. Over the last decade the caucus acquired a hard-won expertise on immigration, defeating over two hundred anti-immigrant measures. After New Year's, though, they lost the crucial committee chairmanships that made it possible for them to kill those earlier bills. But they did not lose their voice."We forced a great debate in the House, until 1:30 in the morning," says state Representative Jim Evans, caucus leader and AFL-CIO staff member in Mississippi. "When you have a prolonged debate like that, it shows the widespread concern and disagreement. People began to see the ugliness in this measure."Like all of Kobach's and ALEC's bills, HB 488 stated its intent in its first section: "to make attrition through enforcement the public policy of all state agencies and local governments." In other words, to make life so difficult and unpleasant for undocumented people that they'd leave the state. And to that end, it said people without papers wouldn't be able to get as much as a bicycle license or library card, and that schools had to inform on the immigration status of their students. It mandated that police verify the immigration status of anyone they arrest, an open invitation to racial profiling."The night HB 488 came to the floor, many black legislators spoke against it," reports Bill Chandler, director of the Mississippi Immigrants Rights Alliance, "including some who'd never spoken out on immigration before. One objected to the use of the term 'illegal alien' in its language, while others said it justified breaking up families and ethnic cleansing." Even many white legislators were inspired to speak against it.Nevertheless, the bill was rammed through the House. Then it reached the Senate, controlled by Republicans for some years, and presided over by a more moderate Republican, Lieutenant Governor Tate Reeves. Reeves could see the widespread opposition to the bill, even among employers, and was less in lock step with the Tea Party's anti-immigrant agenda than other Republicans. Although Democrats had just lost all their committee chairmanships in the house, Reeves appointed a rural Democrat to chair one of the Senate's two judiciary committees. He then sent that bill to that committee, chaired by Hob Bryan. And Bryan killed it.On the surface, it appears that fissures inside the Republican Party facilitated the bill's defeat. But they were not that defeat's cause. As the debate and maneuvering played out in the capitol building, its halls were filled with angry protests, while noisy demonstrations went on for days until the bill's final hour. That grassroots upsurge produced political alliances that cut deeply into the bill's support, including calls for rejection by the state's sheriffs' and county supervisors associations, the Mississippi Economic Council (its chamber of commerce), and employer groups from farms to poultry packers.That upsurge was not spontaneous, nor the last minute product of emergency mobilizations. "We wouldn't have had a chance against this without twelve years of organizing work," Evans explains. "We worked on the conscience of people night and day, and built coalition after coalition. Over time, people have come around. The way people think about immigration in Mississippi today is nothing like the way they thought when we started."Evans, Chandler, attorney Patricia Ice, Father Jerry Tobin, activist Kathy Sykes, union organizer Frank Curiel and other veterans of Mississippi's social movements came together at the end of the 1990s not to stop a bill twelve years later but to build political power. Their vehicle was the Mississippi Immigrants Rights Alliance, and a partnership with the Legislative Black Caucus and other coalitions fighting on most of the progressive issues facing the state.Their strategy has been based on the state's changing demographics. Over the last two decades, the percentage of African-Americans in Mississippi's population has been rising. Black families driven from jobs by factory closings and unemployment in the north have been moving back south, reversing the movement of the decades of the Great Migration. Today at least 37 percent of Mississippi's people are African-Americans, the highest percentage of any state in the country.Then, starting with the boom in casino construction in the early 1990s, immigrants from Mexico and Central America, displaced by NAFTA and CAFTA, began migrating into the state as well. Poultry plants, farms and factories hired them. Guest workers were brought to work in Gulf Coast reconstruction and shipyards. "Today we have established Latino communities," Chandler explains. "The children of the first immigrants are now arriving at voting age."In MIRA's political calculation, blacks and immigrants, plus unions, are the potential pillars of a powerful political coalition. HB 488's intent to drive immigrants from Mississippi is an effort to make that coalition impossible.MIRA is not just focused on defeating bad bills, however. It built a grassroots base by fighting immigration raids at the Howard Industries plant in Laurel in 2008, and in other worksites as well. Its activist staff helped families survive sweeps in apartment houses and trailer parks. They brought together black workers suspicious of the Latino influx, and immigrant families worried about settling in a hostile community. Political unity, based in neighborhoods, protects both groups, they said.For unions organizing poultry plants, factories and casinos MIRA became a resource helping to win over immigrant workers. It brought labor violation cases against Gulf employers in the wake of Katrina. Yet despite being on opposing sides, employers and MIRA recognized they had a mutual interest in fighting HB 488. Both opposed workplace immigration raids and enforcement, which are based on the same "attrition through enforcement" idea. Since 1986 US immigration law has forbidden undocumented people from working by making it illegal for employers to hire them. Called "employer sanctions," the enforcement of this law (part of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986), especially under the Bush and Obama administrations, has caused the firing of thousands of workers.Yet over the last decade, Congressional proposals for comprehensive immigration reform have called for strengthening sanctions, and increasing raids and firings. "That's why we didn't support those bills," Chandler says. "They violate the human rights of working people to feed their families. For employers, that opposition was a meeting point. They didn't like workplace enforcement either. All their associations claimed they didn't hire undocumented workers, but we all know who's working in the plants. We want people to stay as much as the employers do. Forcing people from their jobs forces them to leave-an ethnic cleansing tactic." During the protests Ice, Sykes and others underlined the point by handing legislators sweet potatoes with labels saying, "I was picked by immigrant workers who together contribute $82 million to the state's economy."MIRA, however, also fought guest worker programs used by Mississippi casinos and shipyards to recruit workers with few labor rights. "When it came to HB 488 employers were tactical allies," Chandler cautions. Unions, on the other hand, are members of the MIRA coalition. While MIRA and employers saw a mutual interest in opposing the bill, MIRA helps unions when they try to organize the workers of those same employers, and helps workers defend themselves when employers violate their rights. MIRA, in fact, was started by activists like Chandler, Evans and Curiel, who all have a long history of labor activity in Mississippi. When HB 488 hit, busses brought in members of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1529 from poultry plants in Scott County, Laborers from Laurel, Retail, Wholesale union members from Carthage. Black catfish workers from Indianola, and electrical union members from Crystal Spring. The black labor mobilization was largely organized by new pro-immigrant leadership of the state chapter of the A. Philip Randolph Institute, the AFL-CIO constituency group for black union members.Catholic congregations, Methodists, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Evangelical Lutherans, Muslims and Jews also brought people to protest HB 488, as did the Mississippi Human Services Coalition - a result of a long history working on immigrant issues. And groups around MIRA and the Black Caucus not only fought that bill, but others introduced by Tea Party Republicans as well. One would ban abortions if a fetal heartbeat is detected. Another promotes charter schools. A third would restrict access to workers compensation benefits, while another would strip civil service protection from state employees.Dr. Ivory Phillips, a MIRA director and a member of the Board of Trustees of the Jackson Public Schools, explains that charter school proposals, voter ID bills and anti-immigrant measures are all linked. "Because white supremacists fear losing their status as the dominant group in this country, there is a war against brown people today, just as there has long been a war against black people," he says. "In all three cases-charter schools, 'immigration reform' and voter ID-what we are witnessing is an anti-democratic surge, a rise in overt racism, and a refusal to provide opportunities to all."Tea Party supporters also saw these issues linked together. In the wake of the charter school debate during the same period the immigration bill was defeated, a crowd gathered around Representative Reecy Dickson, a leading Black Caucus member, in which she was shoved and called racist epithets."Because of our history we had a relationship with our allies," Chandler concludes. "We need political alliances that mean something in the long term - permanent alliances, and a strategy for winning political power. That includes targeted voter registration that focuses on specific towns, neighborhoods and precincts." Despite the national importance of stopping the Southern march of the anti-immigrant bills, however, the resources for the effort were almost all local. MIRA emptied its bank account fighting HB 488. Additional money came mostly from local units of organizations like the UAW, UNITE HERE and the Muslim Association. "The resources of the national immigrant rights movement should prioritize preventing bills from passing as much as fighting them after the fact," Chandler warns.On the surface, the fight in Jackson was a defensive battle waged in the wake of the Republican legislative takeover of the legislature. And the Tea Party still threatens to bring HB 488 back until it passes. Yet Evans, who also chairs MIRA's board, believes that time is on the side of social change. "These Republicans still have tricks up their sleeves," he cautions. "We're worried about redistricting, and a Texas-style stacking of the deck. But in the end, we still believe our same strategy will build power in Mississippi. We don't see last November as a defeat but as the last stand of the Confederacy."

Two lectures on the political economy of migration by David Baconhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GgDWf9eefE&feature=youtu.behttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pd4OLdaoxvg&feature=related
For more articles and images, see  http://dbacon.igc.orgSee also Illegal People -- How Globalization Creates Migration and Criminalizes Immigrants  (Beacon Press, 2008)Recipient: C.L.R. James Award, best book of 2007-2008http://www.beacon.org/productdetails.cfm?PC=2002See also the photodocumentary on indigenous migration to the USCommunities Without Borders (Cornell University/ILR Press, 2006)http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/cup_detail.taf?ti_id=4575See also The Children of NAFTA, Labor Wars on the U.S./Mexico Border (University of California, 2004)http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/9989.html
-- 
__________________________________

David Bacon, Photographs and Stories
http://dbacon.igc.org
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http://truth-out.org/news/item/8637-locking-down-an-american-workforce-prison-labor-as-the-past-and-future-of-american-capitalism
Locking Down an American Workforce: Prison Labor as the Past and Future of American "Free-Market" CapitalismJoshua B. Freeman and Steve Fraser, TomDispatch: "'Now,' means our second Gilded Age and its aftermath. In these years, the system of leasing out convicts to private enterprise was reborn. This was a perverse triumph for the law of supply and demand in an era infatuated with the charms of the free market. On the supply side, the U.S. holds captive 25% of all the prisoners on the planet: 2.3 million people. It has the highest incarceration rate in the world as well, a figure that began skyrocketing in 1980 as Ronald Reagan became president. As for the demand for labor, since the 1970s American industrial corporations have found it increasingly unprofitable to invest in domestic production." Read the Article 
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-Getting Paid 93 Cents a Day in America? Corporations Bring Back the 19th CenturyNearly a million prisoners are working in call centers, working in slaughterhouses, or manufacturing textiles while getting paid somewhere between 93 cents and $4.73. READ MOREBy Steve Fraser, Joshua B. Freeman / TomDispatch.com
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>From many news services:The COB rejects pay offer and announces 48 hour general strikeThe expanded third national Bolivian Workers Central (COB) meeting met last night and rejected the Government's wage offer and announced a national strike  to be mobilized for 48 hours next week, but has not yet determined the exact date. April 20th 2012 The third National COB expanded meeting was held and strengthened the unity of workers and they ratified a resolution  for a second general strike within the last month according to the Executive of the COB, Juan Carlos Trujillo. On April 11, the COB helded  a 24-hour strike demanding a wage  increase  and against the decree of the eight hours.He announced "a 48-hour strike mobilization for next week" to enforce their rights. "We will respond to all executive intimidation." The date will be defined in the following days.Daniel Sanchez, president of the Confederation of Private Businessmen of Bolivia (CEPB)  announced he was meeting with the government today over the wages of the workers.When asked if workers would meet with private entrepreneurs, Trujillo said that the workers have nothing to discuss with "capitalism."CIDOB #indigenous march may face opposing blockades in San Ignacio de Moxos, Chaparina, Caranavi http://t.co/VxTynxOz #TIPNIS3 hours agoBolivian govt seeking delay after-the-fact consultation for #TIPNIS highway, following UN advice http://t.co/VxTynxOz #indigenous 3 hours agoEvo Morales continues give-away campaign in #TIPNIS as road consultation approaches http://t.co/QhGYNEgl #bribery #indigenous 1 day agoLa Paz, Bolivia minibus drivers mobilize against new law that authorizes mass transit in gridlocked city http://t.co/58aXgxO0 1 day ago El Alto Public Transport Fares Up 50% In One DayPosted: admin on Mar 20 | TransportationYesterday, The May 1st Drivers’ Federation of El Alto surprised the population by announcing a 50% increase in public transportation fares. This caused all the neighborhood associations (FEJUVE) to go into emergency meetings and denounce the increase as “abusive.” The drivers explained that they needed to increase the fares by this amount because now they will be forcing their drivers to follow their assigned routes- even to remote parts of the city, and therefore need more compensation. Previously, many drivers simply stopped and turn around rather than go into remote suburbs.  Drivers Federation leaders said that they will have inspectors check to make sure drivers go to the end of their routes. FEJUVE will hold an emergency meeting today where they are expected to reject the fair increases and take action that may include blocking all roads and travel. To learn more in Spanish see: http://www.erbol.com.bo/noticia.php?identificador=2147483956737
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Workers at San Joaquin Tomato Growers have been fighting for a UFW contract for 23 years.Help make it happen!Workers from San Joaquin Tomato Growers, Inc , located near Madera CA, chose to be represented by the United Farm Workers back in 1989, but this company has used almost every means possible to delay and obstruct the process of obtaining a union contract for their workers.And up until now they have succeeded. For 23 years or 8,289 days since the election! Unbelievable, right?Help change this. Today, Friday, April 20, legal briefs are due regarding how much money San Joaquin Tomato must pay these hundreds of workers since it refused to negotiate in good faith for a union contract. Under the state Agricultural Labor Relations Board's "make whole" remedy, growers like San Joaquin Tomato Growers, who broke the law, can be ordered to pay their workers the difference between what they did earn and what they could have received under a UFW contract.The ALRB has the ability to issue a decision on the "make whole" remedy for these workers anytime after today. Tomato workers will be holding a vigil in front of the ALRB's officestarting on Monday, April 23 - the 19th anniversary of Cesar Chavez' death - through Thursday April 27. If you are going to be in the area, please attend.Join the workers in urging the ALRB to take immediate action to finally get these workers their lost wages by e-mailing the ALRB TODAY. Workers have waited long enough!
http://action.ufw.org/sjtomato
After you take action please share this campaign with your friends and family. You can send them an e-mail, post this campaign on your Facebook and/or Twitter page by clicking here or going tohttps://secure.ufw.org/page/share/sjtomatoJustice for
Tomato Worker VigilKickoff Rally for Daily Vigil
Monday, April 23rd, 2012
10am  - 12pm

Daily Vigil
Mon April 23-Fri April 27
9 am -5 pm
Outside of ALRB office building
915 Capitol Mall
Sacramento, CA

For more information, please contact our office at:
(661) 725-9730 or email aelenes at ufw.org.Be a part of history! Inscribe your name as a "Companero" in the UFW's 50th anniversary convention commemorative book 
Check out our website at: www.ufw.org and keep up with the latest news.Check out the UFW's Social Networking pages. Click to visit our Facebook Fan Page, Facebook Cause,YouTube, Flickr, and MySpace, Care2 pages. Please link to us and become our "Friend" and follow us on Twittertoo!If you received this message from a friend, you can sign up for the UFW List Serve.Please add us to your safelist: Please add ufwofamer at aol.com to your address book so that our messages don’t get trapped in your spam filter. If you have questions about how to do this, drop us an e-mail.Privacy PolicyTo unsubscribe, go to: http://action.ufw.org/unsubscribeThis email was sent to cgpelayo at hotmail.com.United Farm Workers,  P.O. Box 62, Keene, CA 93531, http://www.ufw.org
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Public workers join hunger strike in Bolivia20/04 09:19 CETPlay/Pause VideoFor several weeks, over 500 public workers in Bolivia have been taking part in a nationwide hunger strike to protest against government plans to increase the working day without putting up salaries.To view video click on the url below: http://www.euronews.com/nocomment/2012/04/20/public-workers-join-hunger-strike-in-bolivia/  In other Bolivia News: Evo Morales, president of Bolivia, has intensified his campaign against a new march to La Paz that begins on March 25th against the government project to build a road into indigenous lands and the nature reserve of  Bolivian Indigenous Territory Isiboro Secure National Park (Tipnis) a road they was supposedly canceled.The president led to foreign media and journalists this week to fly in helicopters over the project to tell his version of the story and related that what environmentalists say is "all nonsense" and  they "distort "reality.----------------------------------------------------- RESPOL has contracts in Bolivia also and they along with other countries and companies wish to open up the TIPNIS to exploitation. http://en.mercopress.com/2012/04/18/bolivia-s-morales-takes-distance-from-ypf-argentina-conflict-and-praises-repsol
Bolivia’s Morales takes distance from YPF/Argentina conflict and praises RepsolBolivian president Evo Morales clearly took distance from Argentina’s expropriation of YPF, the Argentine affiliate of Spain’s Repsol which was announced on Monday and caused a major rift between Argentina and Spain and the European Commission. Bolivian president said “the issue Argentina/Repsol is an issue between Argentina and Spain”“The issue Argentina-Repsol is an issue between Argentina and Spain, of Repsol as a company and Argentina. It won’t cause any problem to us because we have a relation of great trust with Repsol”, said Morales on Tuesday during a brief press conference in La Paz.Morales who announced the nationalization of hydrocarbons in Bolivia not long after taking office in 2006 but then negotiated new contracts with the foreign oil and gas corporations said that “Repsol respects all Bolivian rules and investments promised are going ahead in good manner”.The Bolivian president admitted “a moment of tension” with Repsol when the Constitutional assembly was drafting the country’s new constitution in 2009 and “the rules were not clearly defined” and then there was a bit of a stall in the investments, but once “the new constitution was approved, and the new contracts, investment accelerated and rapidly picked up”.“This incident between Repsol and Argentina, I’m convinced that it won’t influence at all in Bolivia because our agreements signed with those corporations and because of the trust existent between the governments of Spain and Bolivia”.
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April 20, 2012
Ai-jen Poo, director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance, and Dulce Matuz, president of the Arizona DREAM Act Coalition, are on Time’s 2012 most influential list.More than two dozen family members carrying images of their loved ones killed on the job packed a Senate hearing yesterday. The hearing, held in conjunction with Workers Memorial Day, April 28, focused on the innumerable delays in implementing new safety standards and the role corporations and anti-labor groups play in roadblocking vital workplace protections. Read more and comment.  Domestic Worker Activist, DREAMer Named to Time’s 100 Check out CEO Pay and the 99% on ABC News Online House Action Boosts Chance for Long-Term Highway Bill Arizona Bills on Hold While Governor and GOP Legislators SquabbleRead more important news of the day on the issues working families care about.Follow the AFL-CIO:
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Two Attacks on Pensions


Rhode Island Pension Cuts Set Chilling Precedents 

Brian Chidester | April 19, 2012

: http://labornotes.org/2012/04/rhode-island-pension-cuts-set-chilling-precedents

Labor Notes

If you thought retiring would help you avoid the
ruination of living standards brought on by the
economic crisis, Rhode Island's pension overhaul just
proved you wrong. 

The changes to the pension system passed last November
affect every public employee--current, retired, or
prospective. The retirement age rose from 62 to 67 for
new hires, and somewhere in between for current
employees.

The overhaul moves all public employees into a "hybrid"
system, combining a defined benefit plan with a
401k-style plan, thus shifting risk for bad investments
onto workers. And it freezes cost-of-living adjustments
for all retirees and retirees-to-be for 19 years,
sending their standard of living tumbling.

The drama began in spring 2011, when newly elected
state Treasurer Gina Raimondo, a Democrat, and Governor
Lincoln Chafee, an independent, began focusing on the
state's unfunded pension liability and the looming
crisis it represented.

Both politicians had been enthusiastically supported by
the labor movement, partially on the basis that they
would not touch pensions. But now they argued that the
state had on hand only about half the money it would
need to pay pensions for state workers and teachers
over the coming decades.

The amount that the state owed but didn't have was the
"unfunded liability," and to make the fund stable,
Raimondo and Chafee argued, it had to be funded at a
level closer to 80 percent. That's the "green" level
that private sector pensions need to reach under the
federal Pension Protection Act.

But that rule doesn't have to apply to governments.
When a corporation is bankrupt, retirees run the risk
that pension funds will disappear with the company.
Thus workers seek to have much lower unfunded
liabilities.

But when a government goes bankrupt, it does not
disappear. Even if its pension fund shrinks, it can
still be raised again during better times or through
increased revenues. The concern around the "unfunded
liability" in this instance was used to cut benefits
and hurt workers. WHERE TO TURN?

In the media, free-market conventional wisdom pushed
along an argument for bolstering the fund while
avoiding increases to Rhode Island taxpayers. As the
market was not likely to perform well enough to make up
the shortfall, the only source left was workers'
pockets.

While Rhode Island teachers had always paid into the
fund at rates of 9.5 percent of income, and state
workers at 8.75 percent, the same was not true of the
state. Rhode Island had raided the fund in the 1990s
and never made up the difference.

Further problems came with Republican Governor Donald
Carcieri in the 2000s. He cut state agency staffing
levels and forced state workers into retirement early,
thus reducing the base of workers paying into the fund.

The real tipping point came in April 2011, when the
state Retirement Board voted to lower the projected
rate of return on investment from 8.25 percent to 7.5
percent. By one change in accounting, the board
suddenly increased the unfunded liability by $1.4
million and doubled the burden on state agencies and
local school districts.

Said pension policy analyst Tom Sgouros, "It's the
triumph of the technocrats who make tremendously
value-laden judgments and disguise it as technical
details."

The now-inevitable move to cut benefits sped forward in
August, when the city of Central Falls went bankrupt
and retirees there saw their pensions cut in half. WHAT
WAS LOST

Chafee and Raimondo pushed a plan aimed at cutting
benefits for all retirees while forcing current workers
to pay more into the system.

Most important, they started the shift from the
traditional defined-benefit pension toward a
defined-contribution, 401k-style plan. The hybrid plan
effectively puts more risk onto workers and retirees.
If the market does not perform well, they'll absorb the
losses.

The hybrid would pay benefits to future retirees at
40-57 percent of the average of the last five years of
pay from the defined-benefit side of the plan, plus a
portion from the defined-contribution side to lift the
overall benefit to around 70 percent of pre-retirement
income.

This is a decrease from the current 75 percent rate. Of
course, if the market crashes again, it could be much
lower.

The plan also eliminates any cost-of-living adjustments
for the next 19 years for everyone, including current
retirees already receiving benefits. The result is a
direct impoverishment of Rhode Island's public sector
workers in retirement. RESISTANCE

As the vote on the legislation neared in November,
unions mobilized to fight the impending disaster. They
launched an information campaign among members,
including a widely circulated YouTube video, brochures
in the mail urging workers to contact legislators, and
meetings around the state.

A rally drew up to 5,000 union workers to protest the
assault. Unfortunately, the unions' message came down
to "save our pensions" for the roughly 25,000 current
teachers and state workers and roughly 22,000 retirees.

At the same time, business groups poured more than
$500,000 into television ads supporting the pension
cuts. The same groups also contributed the maximum
amount to major legislative leaders, all Democrats,
after the legislation was approved.

It passed overwhelmingly, with 77 of 94 legislators
approving. A Brown University poll released shortly
after showed 60 percent support for the bill among the
voting public, a clear indication that the business
campaign had succeeded in vilifying public workers.

Ironically, just as the overhaul was being pushed
through, the Occupy movement was refocusing the public
discussion around "we are the 99%." It was not enough
to stop the attack on public workers. PRECEDENT SET

According to the Pew Center, Rhode Island was one of 35
states to enact pension changes in 2010 and 2011. But
while most of those attacks affected only employees yet
to be hired, Rhode Island's was unprecedented in its
scope and depth--hitting both current employees and,
through the COLA freeze, current retirees.

Chillingly, Fitch Ratings, a major credit rating
agency, speculated that "the sweeping nature of the
reform may inspire similar efforts in other states
grappling with large unfunded pension obligations."

In the aftermath, Raimondo has garnered national
attention. She has the highest approval rating of any
Rhode Island politician. Her campaign fund grew by over
$200,000 last summer, to over $500,000 total, during a
time in which she did not organize any fundraisers.

Like Andrew Cuomo in New York and Deval Patrick in
Massachusetts, she emerges as a well-known pro-business
Democrat, the sort of politician who can get the job
done for the corporations--without the clownish rhetoric
of a Tea Party Republican. GOING LOCAL

The battle now moves to the field of municipal
pensions.

The state's cities and towns face massive budget
crises, precipitated by a systematic and catastrophic
decrease in state aid to municipalities over 20 years.
Chafee announced a plan in March that would shift city
governments' financial pain to workers, driving down
their compensation and eliminating jobs while cutting
services, such as trash collection and care for the
elderly.

While the number of workers affected will be smaller,
the effects will likely cut deeper.

The plan would give municipalities the freedom to
freeze COLAs for current retirees, as well as reducing
the amount of tax-free benefit on accidental disability
pensions. It would hand municipalities power to
disregard an expired contract and impose conditions, or
refuse to pay newer teachers their step raises.

The story of pension "reform" in Rhode Island is a
cautionary tale for the labor movement. While the
state's unemployment rate is now 11 percent--the
second-highest in the country--94 percent of
corporations here pay nothing in taxes. The name of
this game is austerity, and it's supported by both
parties as well as the sometimes "independent"
governor.

In order to fight it, our unions will have to demand
the real solution to this crisis: tax the corporations
and the rich!


Brian Chidester is a teacher and member of the
Bristol-Warren Education Association. He blogs at
riredteacher.wordpress.com.






Illinois governor proposes raising employee pension contributions, retirement age 

By: Rob Kozlowski

http://www.pionline.com/article/20120420/DAILYREG/ 120429988

April 20, 2012

Pensions and Investments Online

Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn on Friday announced a reform
proposal for the state's five retirement systems that
includes increases in employee contributions and the
retirement age.

The Public Pension Stabilization Plan, which maintains
the existing defined benefit plans, would replace the
current statutory funding schedule, with a 30-year
"closed" actuarially required contribution.

The five pension plans have a combined unfunded
liability of $83 billion, according to the governor's
office.

Other parts of the proposal include a three percentage
point increase in employee contributions and an
increase in the retirement age to 67, to be phased in
over several years.

"Unsustainable pension costs are squeezing core
programs in education, public safety and human
services, in addition to limiting our ability to pay
our bills," Mr. Quinn said in a prepared statement.
"This plan rescues our pension system and allows public
employees who have faithfully contributed to the system
to continue to receive pension benefits. I urge the
General Assembly to move forward with this plan, which
will bring a new era of fiscal responsibility and
stability to Illinois."

The plan also would phase out the state's
responsibility for pensions paid to retirees from local
school districts, community colleges and public
universities, which the governor's office says now
accounts for 78% of the state's pension costs.

Mr. Quinn on Feb. 22 committed to making the statutory
$5.2 billion contribution to the five state retirement
systems for fiscal 2013, beginning July 1, which makes
up 15% of the state's general revenue fund spending for
that year, according to a news release.

The five pension plans are the $36 billion Illinois
Teachers' Retirement System, Springfield; $13 billion
Illinois State Universities Retirement System,
Champaign; and the three retirement systems whose
combined $10.3 billion in assets are overseen by the
Chicago-based Illinois State Board of Investment --
Illinois State Employees' Retirement System, Illinois
Judges' Retirement System, and Illinois General
Assembly Retirement System, all based in Springfield.

Mr. Quinn said in a news conference Friday that he
wants the General Assembly to consider his proposal
before it adjourns on May 31.

A phone call to Kelly Kraft, spokeswoman for Mr. Quinn,
was not returned by press time.

____________________________________________

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