By The PA. AFL-CIO
– President Bloomingdale and Secretary-Treasurer Snyder hosted a very interesting and educational forum on Pensions which was live – streamed by Pennsylvania Cable Network, and is being broadcast statewide on PCN’s cable stations. Check PCN’s daily schedule on their web site for repeat broadcasts.
The Forum was held at the AFSCME Conference Center in Harrisburg on the evening of the Harrisburg Region Central Labor Council which gave the delegates the opportunity to attend the Forum at the conclusion of their meeting. President Bloomingdale and Secretary-Treasurer Snyder express their gratitude to CLC President Dave Gash in his efforts and cooperation in making the forum a success.
Members of the panel did an outstanding job in dispelling the myths and the misinformation about the so-called pension crisis. Joyce Culpepper, an AFSCME retiree who worked for the Commonwealth for 40 years, provided a convincing account of the importance of having a good pension. Without a good defined benefits pension she would have kept working, because retirement would not be affordable for her and thousands upon thousands of other state and school employees, she said.
President Bloomingdale noted that 401 (k) – type pensions that are now predominating the landscape, were never meant to replace employer provided defined benefit pensions. It’s is the primary reason why older workers cannot afford to retire and are still working at McDonalds and Burger King, he observed.
Secretary-Treasurer Snyder added that closing off the defined benefit pensions to younger workers is nothing more than a scheme of Wall Street to siphon off the retirement savings of workers. It will end up destroying good pensions and costing the taxpayers of Pennsylvania even more – an additional $42 billion over 30 years.
Steve Nickol, a retirement consultant for PSEA, estimated the retirement earnings for a worker, who, just like Ms. Culpepper, had worked for 40 years for the Commonwealth, to be a little more than $10,000 per year under the 401 (k) plan proposed in Senate Bill 1. That is more than two-thirds less than the $33,000 per year Ms. Culpepper receives.
Where did the money go, Aronson asked the audience, neither to the taxpayers nor to the workers? It went in the pockets of Wall Street risk takers gambling away your retirement savings. Aronson believes the proposal to make current employees pay more or have their pension benefits reduced is unconstitutional.
The real crisis is too many workers do not have good pensions and cannot afford to retire. Our elected officials shouldn’t be sidestepping their responsibility and making the problem much worse than it is. They should be finding ways to make it easier for workers to have good pensions, retirement security, good jobs, and decent wages, Bloomingdale said.
