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Retirees Matter: We Need Our Union & Our Union Needs Us
The joy of retiring means no more time cards, no more ill-tempered bosses and no more petty rules about bathroom breaks. But it doesn't mean we don't need our union any more.
In fact, when it comes to protecting our pensions and medical coverage—which means protecting the quality of our retirement years—we need our unions more than ever.
Lots of retirees believe their pension and cost-of-living adjustments are guaranteed. They believe their checks will come every month for the rest of their lives, no need to worry.
Just ask our friends at the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA how that's working out. In May, a federal bankruptcy court let United Airlines scrap its pension funds. With that obligation shifted to the federal Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp., workers will only get a fraction of what they were promised for retirement. United executives must have been laughing all the way to the courthouse: They'll still get their multimillion-dollar retirement packages.
While federal law generally protects retirees at solvent companies from having their pensions cut, it doesn't require employers to adjust payments for inflation.
Verizon retirees know this all too well. They haven't had a pension increase since the early 1990s. At the company's annual shareholders meeting recently in Houston, I asked Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg, 'Why not?' He claimed it's because CWA won't back off the issue of protecting retiree health care and fights to keep employer-paid premiums. That's why our union is so important. CWA has forced Verizon to hold the line on health care. And don't believe for a minute that Verizon would suddenly raise our pensions if the union backed down. They're using the union as a scapegoat to try to mask their own greed. The fact that our union is strong and effective is the reason we have benefits worth fighting over in the first place.
We know there's a health care crisis in the United States and that employees and retirees across the country are being forced to pay more for health care. CWA works hard to maintain quality health care and fights against companies' demands for excessive cost shifting. Without a union, our retirees wouldn't have any protection at all.
At least we have Social Security and Medicare, right? Medicare is in deep financial trouble but you rarely hear about it because the president's too busy trying to dismantle Social Security. The White House is determined to spend trillions we don't have privatizing and restructuring Social Security to cut benefits, a move that may or may not affect those of us who are now retired but will certainly hurt our children and grandchildren.
America's unions are the reason we have Social Security and Medicare, which together have kept millions of older Americans out of poverty. Today, CWA and the rest of the labor movement are waging the strongest possible battle to save these vital and hugely successful programs. Unions are fighting not only for us but also for the tens of millions of workers and retirees across this country that have no voice.
So why does our union need us? Because we are the union. Our activism—our rallies and pickets and letter writing—bring our movement to life. It is essential to our union and to the political process in this country that we stand together and speak out.
Today, unions are literally fighting for their lives. The political leadership in Washington is determined to at least cripple, if not kill, our movement. From anti-union legislation at federal and state levels to years of backlogged cases at the National Labor Relations Board, we are under attack.
CWA needs us more than ever. And with our pensions, health care and the future of Social Security hanging in the balance, we need CWA more than ever, too.
In fact, when it comes to protecting our pensions and medical coverage—which means protecting the quality of our retirement years—we need our unions more than ever.
Lots of retirees believe their pension and cost-of-living adjustments are guaranteed. They believe their checks will come every month for the rest of their lives, no need to worry.
Just ask our friends at the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA how that's working out. In May, a federal bankruptcy court let United Airlines scrap its pension funds. With that obligation shifted to the federal Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp., workers will only get a fraction of what they were promised for retirement. United executives must have been laughing all the way to the courthouse: They'll still get their multimillion-dollar retirement packages.
While federal law generally protects retirees at solvent companies from having their pensions cut, it doesn't require employers to adjust payments for inflation.
Verizon retirees know this all too well. They haven't had a pension increase since the early 1990s. At the company's annual shareholders meeting recently in Houston, I asked Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg, 'Why not?' He claimed it's because CWA won't back off the issue of protecting retiree health care and fights to keep employer-paid premiums. That's why our union is so important. CWA has forced Verizon to hold the line on health care. And don't believe for a minute that Verizon would suddenly raise our pensions if the union backed down. They're using the union as a scapegoat to try to mask their own greed. The fact that our union is strong and effective is the reason we have benefits worth fighting over in the first place.
We know there's a health care crisis in the United States and that employees and retirees across the country are being forced to pay more for health care. CWA works hard to maintain quality health care and fights against companies' demands for excessive cost shifting. Without a union, our retirees wouldn't have any protection at all.
At least we have Social Security and Medicare, right? Medicare is in deep financial trouble but you rarely hear about it because the president's too busy trying to dismantle Social Security. The White House is determined to spend trillions we don't have privatizing and restructuring Social Security to cut benefits, a move that may or may not affect those of us who are now retired but will certainly hurt our children and grandchildren.
America's unions are the reason we have Social Security and Medicare, which together have kept millions of older Americans out of poverty. Today, CWA and the rest of the labor movement are waging the strongest possible battle to save these vital and hugely successful programs. Unions are fighting not only for us but also for the tens of millions of workers and retirees across this country that have no voice.
So why does our union need us? Because we are the union. Our activism—our rallies and pickets and letter writing—bring our movement to life. It is essential to our union and to the political process in this country that we stand together and speak out.
Today, unions are literally fighting for their lives. The political leadership in Washington is determined to at least cripple, if not kill, our movement. From anti-union legislation at federal and state levels to years of backlogged cases at the National Labor Relations Board, we are under attack.
CWA needs us more than ever. And with our pensions, health care and the future of Social Security hanging in the balance, we need CWA more than ever, too.