Posts tagged pensions
Government Unions Target Fiscal Sanity in Connecticut
February 14, 2024 // Now, state unions under the umbrella of the State Employees Bargaining Agent Coalition are clamoring for the removal of the fiscal guardrails that were constructed to prevent the same unions from driving taxpayers over the cliff. The staggering state debt of more than $80 billion, including unfunded pension debt from the state workers’ and teachers’ pension funds, bonded debt, and health-care liabilities, was the result of years of irresponsibility and political horse-trading with state unions that were all too eager to negotiate benefits without a sustainable funding plan.
UAW President: If corporations won’t pay for pensions, taxpayers must
January 23, 2024 // "We have to take the issues that matter to the working class and poor, and we have to make our political leaders stand up with us," Fain said during his opening remarks. "Our message in doing this is simple: Support our cause, or you will not get our endorsement." Fain described political activism as an extension of the gains the union obtained this fall in its new contracts with the Detroit Three automakers. The new pacts delivered record wage hikes, resumed cost-of-living adjustments, obtained improvements to retirement packages and other benefits and secured billions of dollars in investments. The union, however, was unsuccessful in delivering its demand to secure pensions and post-retirement health care for all 146,000 autoworkers. Those hired after 2007 have 401(k)s with matching contributions that were upped in the latest round of negotiations. Analysts have estimated the union's demand would cost billions of dollars.
Dem Demands On Automakers Could Backfire On Their Own Climate Agenda And Americans’ Wallets, Experts Say
January 17, 2024 // “EV cars require fewer workers to build,” Higgins told the DCNF, noting that greater union membership in the auto industry is probably not possible with a corresponding transition to EVs. “That’s just a fact. But that may not matter as much as you might think to the UAW. Believe it or not, only about 150,000 of the UAW’s 400,000 or so members actually work for Detroit automakers. The union has branched out into other areas, such as education, and those areas are growing… So fewer auto workers will hurt the union but not kill it.”
Video: This is just bailing out the pension plans: Diana Furchtgott-Roth
November 28, 2023 // How come the Teamster bosses put enough money in the union bosses" pension plan, but the plan for their worker members went bankrupt? Former Labor Department chief economist Diana Furchtgott-Roth discusses the report that teamsters pension allegedly took $127M from U.S. taxpayers for nearly 3,500 dead people on ‘The Evening Edit.’
‘Battle royale’: Tesla and anti-union Musk make enticing targets for UAW’s next push
November 5, 2023 // Some current UAW members are already fired up to take on Tesla. “Go out west to California? Absolutely, I would go,” said John Jake Kincaid, a Stellantis employee in Michigan. “Show them our strength.” Still, fighting for a contract at companies with established relationships with union workers is a far different effort than starting from scratch. Several workers who were key to Tesla’s earlier union effort are no longer at the company. The Fremont plant’s history with the UAW predates the electric vehicle maker. For about 25 years, Toyota and GM operated the facility together in an unusual joint venture. It was a union shop. In 2009, GM pulled out of the partnership as part of its bankruptcy proceedings and in 2010 Toyota shut the operation down, throwing 4,700 people out of work. A month later, Tesla bought the sprawling 5.3 million square foot factory; the union didn’t come with the purchase.
UAW and Stellantis reach tentative contract deal as union adds strike at Tennessee GM factory
October 29, 2023 // Under the deal, the union said it saved jobs in Belvidere as well at an engine plant in Trenton, Michigan, and a machining factory in Toledo, Ohio. “We’ve done the impossible. We have moved mountains. We have reopened an assembly plant that was closed,” Fain said. The deal includes a commitment by Stellantis to build a new midsize truck at its factory in Belvidere, Illinois, that was slated to be closed. About 1,200 workers will be hired back, plus another 1,000 workers will be added for a new electric vehicle battery plant, the union said. “We're bringing back both combustion vehicles and electric vehicle jobs to Belvidere,” Fain said.
Unions push to represent more workers, but organized labor’s share of jobs is declining
October 24, 2023 // For all the sound and fury on the labor front, its net effect is unknown. Unions’ overall share of the workforce was 10.1% in 2022 and declining, about half the rate of 1983, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That percentage is swelled by union predominance in government work. In the private sector, the share of union jobs was 6% in 2022. The number of union members overall has grown but not as fast as jobs in the rest of the economy. “It takes a lot of new members to raise the union density,” said Robert Bruno, a professor of labor and employment relations at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
Workers at Mack Trucks set to strike after rejecting tentative contract deal
October 9, 2023 // Union workers at Mack Trucks have voted down a tentative five-year contract agreement reached with the company and plan to strike at 7 a.m. Monday, the United Auto Workers union says. Union President Shawn Fain said in a letter to Mack parent company Volvo Trucks that 73% of workers voted against the deal in results counted on Sunday. The UAW represents about 4,000 Mack workers in three states. Union leaders had reached a tentative agreement on the deal on Oct. 1. The deal included a 19% pay raise over the life of the contract with 10% upon ratification. There also was a $3,500 ratification bonus, no increase in weekly health care contributions, increased annual lump sum payments for retirees and a $1,000 annual 401(k) lump sum to offset health care costs for employees who don’t get health insurance after retirement. Fain said in his letter to Volvo Trucks’ head of labor relations that employees working early Monday will exit the factories after performing tasks needed to prevent damage to company equipment.
What plants could be targeted next for a strike by the UAW?
September 20, 2023 // David Zoia, an auto expert with Ward's Automotive, believes the next group of plants could include where mid-size SUVs are made. "The GM plant in Lansing where they make the Traverse and Cadillacs, Ford Chicago where they make the Explorer and possibly the Jefferson Assembly in Detroit where they make the Grand Cherokee," Zoia said.
Opinion: Bernie Sanders to Big 3 CEOs: “It is time for you to end your greed.”
September 19, 2023 // Bernie Sanders: "the average American worker is worse off today than he or she was 50 years ago."