By Mike Elk

– On Friday, yet another nail was put in the coffin of the defined-benefit pension in America. According to the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), the percentage of U.S. private-sector retirement plans with defined benefits fell by half between 1989 and 2010, from 42 to only 22 percent. Yet this type of plan is much preferred by unions and worker advocates over defined-contribution plans such 401(k)s, because if a company makes bad investment decisions, workers’ retirement benefits don’t suffer.

Boeing is one of the few remaining major corporations in the United States that still offers defined-benefit pensions. But on Friday, 30,000 union Boeing workers in Washington state voted to give up the pensions for new hires and to let the company freeze the plans for all workers in 2016.

“I don’t see a way forward on pensions. I don’t see what it is that we can do,” says Ross Eisenbrey, vice president of EPI, which advocates for low- and middle-income workers. “Retirement security right now is wishful thinking.”

The vote by members of the International Association of Machinists (IAM) Lodge 751 came after Boeing threatened to move production of the 777X jet line, along with potentially thousands of jobs, out of Washington state unless workers agreed to the contract. The workers voted down a similar contract in November, but Boeing refused to budge—even though the company is doing well, with over $400 billion dollars in back orders and a program to buy back more than $10 billion in its own stock.

In December, the international stepped in and forced the local, which opposed the deal, to hold another vote. In a bid to keep their jobs, the workers voted 51-to-49 percent on Friday to ratify the slightly revised contract, which ends defined-benefit pensions and bans workers from striking for eight years.

“Boeing is one more point in a long trend of employers shedding their pension liability,” says Eisenbrey. “Looking ahead, they don’t want to be in a situation where we go through another stock market plunge and they wind up having to put a lot of money in the pensions’ problem. From an employer’s point of view, a defined-contribution plan is the easiest thing, you just put in 3 percent from an employee’s paycheck and they invest. If the employee invests badly, then it’s their tough luck. Its just simpler.”

The loss of pensions at Boeing marks a major setback for unions, as employers typically follow the example of other employers at the bargaining table in terms of what constitutes a reasonable demand. Since the financial crash, unions have given up pensions for new hires at large, profitable, industry trendsetters such as General Electric, Verizon, Honeywell and now, Boeing.

Though this marks a sea change toward retirement insecurity for tens of thousands of U.S. workers during Obama’s tenure, thus far the president has said nothing about the trend.

Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, says the president could use his bully pulpit on the issue. “Certainly he could say something about preserving DB pensions,” says Baker. “That wouldn’t cost him anything, but apparently it is not even on his radar screen.”

Indeed, U.S. presidents have occasionally weighed in on or intervened in labor struggles, as when President Richard Nixon stepped into mediate the 1971 Bituminous Coal Strike. In 2008, then President-elect Obama spoke in support of the laid-off workers who occupied the Republic Windows and Doors plant in Chicago. Obama also publicly praised the United Auto Workers for making concessions as part of the auto bailout.

So why hasn’t the Obama administration said anything about an issue that affects so many Americans?

“They don’t give a damn and don’t want to piss anyone off over it,” says Baker. “It’s pretty obvious that Obama doesn’t feel the same obligation towards supporting unions as he does towards pushing the agenda of major corporations.”

While President Obama did not speak out on behalf of Boeing workers, the President is quite open about being a major public advocate for Boeing.

Speaking to the Export Council last September, President Obama said, “I think Jim [McNerney, Chairman and CEO of Boeing], at least, will confirm that I’m happy to go out and make sales. I’m expecting a gold watch—(laughter)—from Boeing at the end of my presidency, because I know that I’m on the list of top salesmen at Boeing. And that applies to all of you.”

EPI’s Eisenbrey says that the Obama administration has been much more focused on cutting Social Security than shoring up American’s retirement security. Last spring, the Obama Administration announced its support for a proposal to amend Social Security known as “chained CPI,” which the AFL-CIO opposes because it entails lower benefits for retirees. “We should be increasing benefits and their proposal was to have a technical adjustment which was a benefit cut,” says Eisenbrey.

Working In These Times reached out to the White House for a reaction to the Boeing vote, but did not receive a response. As with many labor issues, the President has once again remained silent while union workers have taken a hit.

Meanwhile, Boeing workers are adjusting to less secure retirement futures. John Kleiboeker, a Boeing worker of 16 years and the president of the Machinists Local Lodge 63, told The Oregonian, “I’ve got 15 years to retirement. … I’m looking at a loss of $250,000.”

Source: http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/16068/obama_administration_stays_quiet_as_boeing_strikes_major_blow_to_pensions/

By Bryce Covert

Wisconsin state Sen. Glenn Grothman (R) is pushing to undo the state’s law that employers have to provide their employees with at least one day off a week, the Huffington Post reports.

The Huffington Post obtained an email Grothman sent to other state lawmakers on Friday in which he proposes legislation that “would allow an employee to voluntarily choose to work without one day of rest in seven.” State Rep. Mark Born (R) is sponsoring the legislation in the state Assembly.

Wisconsin is somewhat unique in having the law on its books. “Right now in Wisconsin, you’re not supposed to work seven days in a row, which is a little ridiculous because all sorts of people want to work seven days a week,” Grothman told The Huffington Post. But workers don’t have to get a day off every seven days, as they could work for up to 12 in a row “if the days of rest fall on the first and last days of the 2 week period,” according to the law. Grothman called the law “goofy” and called undoing it a matter of “freedom.”

While he argues that the law would ease workers’ ability to work overtime, it’s possible that employers would force their employees to work the extra time, making it less than voluntary. “It’s a very hard thing to know whether something is truly voluntary or not,” Vice President of the Economic Policy Institute Ross Eisenbrey told the Huffington Post. “If the employer puts pressure on people and lets them know they will be unhappy if workers exercise their right to have a day off, that might be enough so that no worker ever does anything but volunteer to work seven days a week.”

In fact, the power usually lies with employers and instances of them abusing labor laws are already on the rise. In 2009, two-thirds of low-income workers said they had experienced a wage law violation in the previous week alone. Wage theft, where an employer illegally withholds overtime pay or makes its employees work off the clock, robs low-wage workers of more money than is stolen from banks, gas stations and convenience stores combined. Actions filed in federal court alleging wage and hour violations increased by 400 percent between 2000 and 2011.

And the law doesn’t always come to workers’ rescue. In California, workers recovered less than half of what was taken from them from 2008 to 2011, and, worse, 83 percent of those who actually proved a case of wage theft still never got what they were owed.

American workers already put in more hours and are guaranteed less time off than most other developed peers. We work more than in any other industrialized countries. Unlike in the United States, it’s illegal in six of the 10 most competitive countries in the world to make workers put in more than 48 hours a week. The United States also lacks laws guaranteeing that workers can take time off if they or their family members are sick, will get vacation or holiday time off, or can take paid time off for the arrival of a new child. Many other developed and competitive countries, on the other hand, do guarantee these things.

Grothman would also go further and take away the national holiday for government workers on Martin Luther King, Jr., day. He was a sponsor of the country’s first preemption bill that blocked cities and local communities from enacting paid sick days legislation in Wisconsin.

Source: http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2014/01/05/3120741/grothman-weekends/

From The PA. AFL-CIO

– We Look Forward To Working Together In 2014 To Achieve More Prosperity For Pennsylvania’s Working Families

Rick, Frank, and the entire (PA. AFL-CIO) staff express their thanks and appreciation to all of you who joined us in helping meet the many challenges we faced in 2013. Your activism and support helped defend and promote good jobs, decent wages and benefits for all of Pennsylvania.

As we begin a new year we wish you peace and prosperity. We are optimistic about the future and our continued success as we work together to defend and improve the living standards and quality of life for workers, and as we bring more good jobs back to Pennsylvania.

Once again we will face many of the same challenges we faced in 2013 – attempts to privatize valuable public assets and services including the wine and spirits stores; additional attacks on good pensions and on good wages.

This new year also gives us the opportunity to secure gains by increasing the minimum wage, by expanding quality affordable health care for all, and by promoting union made products and services that are made and provided in Pennsylvania and the U.S.A.

We look forward to working together in meeting the challenges and in achieving more progress for the working families of Pennsylvania.

Thank You Again From All Of Us.

Source: http://www.paaflcio.org/?p=3343

By Chris Arnold

When members of Congress return to work next week, at the top of the “to-do” list is whether to renew emergency unemployment benefits. An extension of the benefits , which means 1.3 million out-of-work Americans are no longer getting unemployment checks.

But whether or not benefits are extended, conservative and liberal economists alike want to see the government improve the underlying program: They’re proposing changes that might help more people find jobs more quickly.

Helping the unemployed get training while they’re collecting benefits is one suggestion.

“Community colleges have been a good investment that have enabled people to get skills to get somewhat better paying jobs,” says Dean Baker, co-director of the liberal-leaning Center for Economic and Policy Research. But he says many states don’t do enough to support unemployed people getting that sort of training.

He’d also like to see more of what’s called work sharing, where instead of laying off people, a company reduces hours for most workers. And for time they’re not working, the government uses unemployment money to pay them. It’s something that’s reduced unemployment in Germany.

Some conservatives like this idea, too.

“I would like for Congress to make it mandatory,” says Michael Strain, an economist with the American Enterprise Institute. He says Congress authorized this German-style work-sharing option for employers in 2012, but it’s only up and running in some states. He says all states should give companies a work-sharing option and, like Baker, thinks the program hasn’t been well-publicized.

Strain has other ideas, too. Some involve helping workers get to areas where there are more jobs.

“In some of the states, the labor market is booming and healthy, and unemployment is really low, so I’ve suggested that we offer relocation vouchers to the long-term unemployed — only to the people who want them, so no one is being forced to move or anything — but we say, ‘Hey look, you’ve been looking for work for seven months and you haven’t found one yet. Do you want us to cut you a check and you can move to North Dakota, or move somewhere where the labor market is much healthier, and where you may have a much better shot at getting a job?” Strain says.

He says he’d also like the government to pay for busing to help unemployed lower-wage workers who live way outside urban centers (in distant suburbs sometimes known as exurbs). He says free busing would help such job seekers afford to take jobs with farther commutes and closer to the hustle and bustle of major metro areas where they’d be more likely to find work.

But should lawmakers extend benefits when they come back next week? Strain says yes.

For one, he says, long-term unemployed workers are more likely to drop out of the workforce and give up if they get cut off — and there are still three times as many people looking for work as there are job openings. So that means hundreds of thousands of Americans just won’t be able to find a job anytime soon.

“Society is failing for them, really through no fault of their own,” Strain says.

Still, other conservatives oppose extending benefits again. They’re worried about the cost, and say that workers would be looking more aggressively without the extended benefits.

TO LISTEN TO AN AUDIO OF THE STORY, GO TO: http://www.npr.org/2014/01/02/259222365/for-the-unemployed-ideas-to-help-bridge-the-gap-to-work

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Twenty-five states, (including Pennsylvania) and Washington, D.C., have work-sharing options:

Arkansas, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Hampshire, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Texas, Vermont, Washington

TO FIND OUT MORE ABOUT HOW THE PROGRAMS WORK, GO TO: http://www.clasp.org/resources-and-publications/publication-1/Work-Sharing-An-Alternative-to-Layoffs.pdf

To the Philadelphia Area Labor Community,

Have a Safe and Happy New Years Together With Your Families, Friends and Union Brothers and Sisters!

Here’s to a Happy and Prosperous 2014!

In Solidarity!

PhillyLabor.com