Pension concessions sell out young workers

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The tentative collective agreement reached between Gen­ eral Motors, Canada and Unifor on Sept. 19 thrust the pen­ sion issue, defined benefit (DB) versus defined contribution (DC) plans, back into the public spotlight.

Under a DB plan, workers are guaranteed a specific amount of monthly pension income based on employeeemployer contributions and the worker’s years of service. The employer is obligated to ensure the plan is fully funded to meet this pension promise.

On the other hand, DC plans are basically savings plans that do not guarantee a fixed amount of monthly income; they depend on the vagaries of the stock market. The em­ ployer has no future obligations with respect to security of retirement income for former employees, which is why bosses fight so hard to convert DB into DC plans. Recently, Canada Post Corp clashed with the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) in a high-profile, year-long and futile attempt to force the union to sell out future employees by accepting a much inferior DC pension plan. During tough negotiations, CUPW President Mike Pal­ acek wrote an inspirational letter to future employees of Canada Post, dated 2036. In it he “reminded” them of the sacrifices made by past generations of postal workers who fought for the good wages, benefits and DB pension plan that they enjoy.

His message was really addressed to his current member­ ship, urging them to be strong and not to sell out the future 10 SOCIALIST ACTION OCTOBER 2016 generation of workers. His members rose to the occasion. They preserved the DB pension plan for the workers of 2036 and beyond.

Palacek understood that if his union folded and accepted “two-tier bargaining,” where future workers are denied the same wages and benefits as current employees, that the can­ cer would spread like wild fire into every workplace in the country, across public and private sectors alike. Young workers will see this deal as the “boomer genera­ tion” pulling up the ladder behind them, selling out the next generation without a fight.

The arguments advanced by employers and right-wing lobbyists about the ongoing viability of DB plans are bo­ gus. RBC Investor & Treasury Services conducted a study of 120 DB pension plans in 2014. It found an average 14.2 per cent return on investments. DBRS, a Toronto-based rat­ ing agency, reviewed 64 major pension plans in 2014 and found they were funded at 94.7 per cent levels—well above the 80 per cent range viewed as the danger zone for pension funding.

When asked in April 2015 about General Motors’ push for new hires to accept the lesser DC pension plan, Uni­ for President Jerry Dias said, “This is a huge fundamental issue for us as an organization. ... defined benefit pension plans would come under pressure at all employers that have them.”

He added, “If you take a look at the profitability of the industry today, there is no need for them to make that kind of a request.” GM announced it is on track to meet its 2016 financial target of 10 per cent returns on investment. The “fundamental issue” Dias was wrestling with in his 2015 interview was this: if Unifor agreed to scrap DB plans for new hires in GM, it would result in the eventual end of DB plans for the entire auto industry and beyond. Despite the known consequences of such a move, he in­ explicably signed a tentative agreement with a profitable GM—providing what is arguably the biggest concession ever given to a major employer in Canada—which will have serious ramifications for every union collective agree­ ment in the country.

The Ford Motor Co. and FCA (formerly Chrysler) will now expect the same concession from Unifor. This is very bad news for public-sector unions. Right-wing propagan­ dists like the Fraser Institute will rush to cite this concession to push their agenda to end DB plans in the public sector. Clearly, young workers will see this deal as the “boomer generation” pulling up the ladder behind them, selling out the next generation without a fight. Two-tier bargaining di­ vides the membership and weakens the union from within. It makes it all the more difficult to organize young work­ ers when they see the older generation giving concessions to employers that previous generations fought so hard to gain—essentially screwing them out of a secure future. Will GM workers retiring in 2036 on poverty-level DC pensions look back at the deal struck in 2016 by their union and say we should have fought harder and used that 96 per cent strike mandate to protect our pensions? n Sid Ryan is past president of the Ontario Federation of Labour. This article first appeared in the Huffington Post. It is re-published with permission of the author.

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SOCIALIST ACTION OCTOBER 2016 11 ... Police (continued from page 1: “New wave of racist cop killings sparks outrage”) lot of the University City apartment complex in Char­ lotte, N.C. Police initially claimed that Scott posed an “imminent threat” to the safety of police officers.

Protests in Charlotte have been especially intense, as the African-American community is outraged by this killing on top of other instances of police violence against Black residents of the city. In 2013, a white Charlotte police officer, Randall Kerrick, was charged with voluntary manslaughter after the murder of Jonathan Ferrell, an unarmed Black man. Last year, a judge ruled a mistrial in the case, and Kerrick walked away a free man.

One Charlotte protester, Justin Carr, was fatally shot on Sept. 21 near the Omni Hotel. The police deny that they fired at him, and have arrested and charged someone else with the shooting. Within the commu­ nity there is widespread suspicion that the police are covering up their responsibility for this murder, es­ pecially since eyewitnesses reported that riot police fired a barrage of rubber bullets into the crowd at the time Carr fell to the ground after being shot.

Charlotte community activist B.J. Murphy told The New York Times: “Everybody in Charlotte should be on notice that black people, today, we’re tired of this bull. We’re tired of being killed and nobody saying nothing. We’re tired of our political leaders going along to get along; they’re so weak, they don’t have no sympathy for our grief. And we want justice.”

On the day of the killing of Keith Lamont Scott, po­ lice had been waiting at the University City apartment complex to serve a warrant on another person, pre­ sumably a resident in the apartment complex. Scott’s family reports that he was reading a book in his parked car in the building’s parking lot while waiting for his son to arrive home from school.

After the killing police were quick to develop a story that Scott had a gun in his possession, even though family and some at the scene insisted he was carrying a book when he was shot, and not a gun. According to the initial police story, Officer Brentley Vinson, a Black undercover cop, fired the shot that killed Scott after Scott opened the door of his car and got out while threatening police with a gun. Family and many who witnessed had an entirely different story. Vinson was not wearing a body cam, and was placed on adminis­ trative leave immediately following the shooting.

Police finally responded to intense public pressure by releasing two short videos on Sept. 24, only a por­ tion of the videos that they have in their possession. The released videos prove conclusively that Scott’s hands were at his side as he backed out of his car and was in no way acting in a threatening manner.

The New York Times reported: “It was clear from the two angles that he had nothing in his right hand. It was unclear what, if anything, Mr. Scott, who was right-handed, had in his left hand.” The Sept. 24 video belies the original police story that Scott was threat­ ening them as he got out the car.

One question has been what exactly prompted the police at the scene to target Scott in the first place, since their stated mission was to serve a warrant to someone other than Scott. There had been no com­ plaint to police of any illegal activity at the apartment complex. On Sept. 24 the police responded that they targeted Scott because they saw him rolling a mari­ juana cigarette and also saw he was in possession of ... Trudeau (continued from page 10: “For Trudeau Teletubbies, the jig is up!”)

This deployment adds to the hundreds of Ca­ nadian troops already playing war games in the Ukraine, where Trudeau took his nine-year-old son in July. The Liberals kept their promise to remove Canada’s fighter planes from the war in Iraq, but compensated by tripling the number of Canadian “military advisers” on the ground there.

When Trudeau spoke to the United Nations Assembly in September, he sweetly intoned, “We’re Canadian and we’re here to help.” He showed what he meant by that, in practice, when he recently approved the export of $15 billion worth of armed vehicles to Saudi Arabia, a coun­ try which is occupying parts of Yemen, and is the beheading capital of the world, widely con­ demned for its horrible human rights record.

Not to be outdone by Harper, Justin Trudeau’s Canada now ranks second in arms ex­ ports to the Middle East for the first time in his­ handgun while sitting in his car. This led the police to assume that he was a “threat” to public safety. Earlier, Scott’s wife, Rakeyia released a short cell­ phone video of some of what transpired. She had come to the parking lot to give Scott a battery charger and found the police around his car. During the video, which did not capture the shooting of her husband, she repeatedly shouted, “Don’t shoot him!” “He has no weapon!” and “He didn’t do anything!” She also shout­ ed to police that he has Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), a result of a recent motorcycle accident.

After stonewalling for about two weeks, and after widespread community outcry for public release of all videos records, the city’s police chief finally released 6 minutes and 45 seconds of additional video on Oct. 4. The police had claimed that releasing this video would “compromise” an investigation of the shooting. The new video shows Scott handcuffed and dying on the pavement while police look on. Again, this new video clip shows no evidence that Scott had a gun in his possession, or that his behavior was in any way a threat to anyone.

The district attorney in Charlotte has asked for a state inquiry into Scott’s killing. In most cases of po­ lice shootings, of course, so-called “impartial” investi­ gations by state authorities take months and years to complete. In many cases, no charges at all are brought against racist cops. In others, as took place in July in regard to the death of Freddie Gray in Baltimore, the judicial process ends up in a sequence of acquit­ tals and dismissals of charges. In Chicago, one cul­ mination of all the investigations into the murder of Laquan McDonald is the recent decision to hire nearly 1000 more cops!

Police killing of Terence Crutcher In Tulsa, on Friday, Sept. 16, four days earlier, a po­ lice video provides conclusive evidence that 40-yearold Terence Crutcher, unarmed and a threat to no one, was gunned down for no reason. The fatal shot rang out while Crutcher had his hands in the air, standing next to his SUV, which was stalled in the middle of the road. A father to four children, Crutcher was on his way home from a class at a local community college. Betty Shelby, the white cop who fired the fatal shot, was responding to a complaint of an abandoned car, and justified the killing by saying she “felt threatened” and that Crutcher had failed to respond to police com­ mands, despite the fact that the video shows absolute­ ly no evidence of threatening behavior.

It’s hard to understand how Shelby could have felt threatened, with three additional police officers tory, behind only the United States.

But why stop there? We could examine the government’s failure to amend, let alone rescind the intrusive and repressive Bill C-51 that gives Canada’s spies and police unprecedented pow­ ers, money and resources. We could look to Trudeau’s broken promise to restore home mail delivery where it was curtailed. We can reflect on Ottawa’s paltry planned increase in Canada Pension Plan payments to seniors, or its undi­ minished allegiance to the so-called free trade deals, the TPP and CETA. The list seems almost endless.

But the point is this: When the fresh coat of paint called Justin Trudeau is stripped away, one sees basically the same austerity agenda de­ signed to perpetuate capitalist rule, to maintain the dominion of the 0.1 per cent over the rest of us.

To end the pernicious cycle of capitalist politi­ cal fakery and abuse, it is necessary to terminate the socio-economic system itself. The break-up of the Liberal political honeymoon is a welcome step in that direction. n standing by her side as she shot and killed Crutch­ er. Initially, Shelby claimed that Crutcher was reaching inside the car for a weapon, but later video evidence confirmed that the car window was closed and splat­ tered with Crutcher’s blood, proving that Shelby’s claim was false.

Not surprisingly, as has become typical in many cases of police violence, Shelby’s body camera was turned off at the time of the shooting. Shelby, who was also carrying a stun gun, chose to use live ammunition instead.

None of the police at the scene made any attempt to revive or provide medical assistance to Crutcher, as he lay dying on the ground. On Sept. 22 Shelby was charged with “felony manslaughter in the first de­ gree” by the Tulsa County District Attorney.

Benjamin Crump, an attorney for the Crutcher fam­ ily, remarked: “When unarmed people of color break down on the side of the road, we’re not treated as citizens needing help. We’re treated as, I guess, crimi­ nals—suspects that they fear,”

Adrian Colbert, a Black resident of Tulsa who lives near the scene of the shooting, told The New York Times: “He had his hands up, and they popped him. But that’s something we’re used to. It goes back to 1921. What happens here usually gets swept under the rug.” Colbert was referring to Tulsa’s 1921 racist rampage by white residents, in which roughly 300 Af­ rican Americans were massacred.

Jeff Mackler, Socialist Action candidate for U.S. presi­ dent, in a recent statement condemned the so-called U.S. “justice” system as a source of the problem: “It’s outrageous! In city after city we see the same rotten features of U.S. capitalism that foster and promote en­ trenched institutionalized racism. “It’s a system that truly breeds racism and profits from it. It will never, of its own accord, put a stop to these horrors unless forced to through massive pro­ test and struggle of working people and oppressed. Ultimately, this means independent political struggle directed squarely against the capitalist government, and the twin parties of capitalist rule, the Democratic and Republican parties. “We support protests to end racist violence in the streets of Tulsa, Charlotte, El Cajon and Los Angeles —as we did in Ferguson, Chicago, Baltimore, Milwau­ kee and so many other cities across the U.S. We stand with all who rise up against racist injustice. We de­ mand an immediate end to cop violence in minority and working-class communities across this country. Prosecute and jail killer cops!” n Speakers include: David Farrell (YSA), Hannah A. Holleman (Ecological Marxism), Charles Post (Origins of U.S. Capitalism), Alan Sears (Marxism and LGBTQI Liberation), Wendy Z. Goldman (Women, the State, and Revolution), Edmond Caldwell (Culture of the Paris Commune), Johnny E. Williams (State as a Social Con­ trol), Juan Cruz Ferre (Electoral Strategy in Argentina), Jeff Mackler, Socialist Action candidate for President.

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SOCIALIST ACTION

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Oct. 22: A one-day conference Central Connecticut State University New Britain, Conn. Sponsored by CCSU Youth for Socialist Action Information: https://www.facebook.com/ events/211030272631856/