JUNE 5, 2009:NWLP
6/2/09
Inside
10:18 AM
Page 1
MEETING NOTICES
See
Page 6
Volume 110
Number 11
June 5, 2009
Portland, Oregon
What happened
to retirement?
Unions say
Wyden’s
health care
bill is sick
Three of Oregon’s largest unions
launched a radio advertising campaign
in Portland and Eugene last month at-
tacking a bill that U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden
is pushing to overhaul the nation’s
health care system.
Leaders from the Oregon Education
Association, United Food and Com-
mercial Workers Local 555, Oregon
Council 75 of the American Federation
of State, County and Municipal Em-
ployees, and the Oregon AFL-CIO took
part in a national press conference May
19 opposing Wyden’s Healthy Ameri-
cans Act. Senate Bill 391 calls for tax-
ing workers’ health insurance benefits
as if it were income and eliminates tax
deductions for employers that provide
health insurance.
“One of the goals of health care re-
form is to make it more affordable,”
said Ken Allen, executive director of
Oregon AFSCME. “Taxing the value of
health care benefits would raise health
care costs for working families.”
Gail Rasmussen, president-elect of
OEA, said labor is pleased that Con-
gress is finally debating health care re-
form. “We’re just in opposition to this
proposed idea of capping or eliminat-
ing the tax exclusion for employer-
sponsored health care coverage.”
Rasmussen said many public educa-
tion employees have in the past traded
pay raises in exchange for a good health
insurance plan. “Telling them they’ll
now be paying more taxes would un-
fairly penalize them,” she said, adding
that such an act could discourage peo-
ple from entering the profession, or
drive today’s teachers out of the profes-
sion.
UFCW Local 555 President Dan
Clay said there are other, better ways to
fund health care: “Raising taxes on
those making more than $200,000 a
year, closing international loopholes,
and modifying state taxes.”
Clay said President Barack Obama
is on the right track. “The right way is
the way President Obama is leading us
— a choice of the plan you have, an-
other private plan or a public plan —
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Lady linemen at trades fair
Jenna Smith, Cecile Rieder, Kathryn Kennington, Bridget Reiser, Cristi
Dyami, Maria Vallalobos, Suni Miani, and Lorra Crumley pose for a photo
atop a power pole set up at the 17th annual Women in Trades Fair May 16
sponsored by Oregon Tradeswomen Inc. The women are linemen for
Portland General Electric, Bonneville Power Administration, Seattle City
Light, Oregon Trail Electric Consumers Cooperative, Eugene Water and
Electric Board, Tacoma Public Utilities, and the National Joint
Apprenticeship and Training Committee. They are members of Electrical
Workers Local 125 in Portland, Local 659 in Central Point, Local 77 in
Seattle, and Local 483 in Tacoma. The fair, held at the NECA-IBEW Local
48 training center in Northeast Portland, featured 72 exhibitors and, for the
first time, hosted a Dads and Daughters breakfast. More than 600 people
attended the fair May 16. On May 14 an estimated 415 middle school
students toured the fair, followed by 540 high school students on May 15.
“Every year I see again how important it is for girls to have the opportunity
to meet industry women role models like Steamfitter Marci Wichman,
Cement Mason Johnetta Abraham, and Electrician Jonni Ocejo; and for the
girls and women exploring trades careers to have a chance to try out various
trades at the hands-on workshops,” said Connie Ashbrook, executive director
of Oregon Tradeswomen Inc. “The fair is truly a labor of love for all the
apprenticeship programs and employers who present the workshops, as they
seek to reach out to the women and girls who attend. A huge thank-you to
workshop presenters for all their efforts.”
By DON McINTOSH
Associate Editor
A year after stock and housing
prices took a tumble, America’s work-
ers face a leaner retirement. Employer-
guaranteed pension plans are cutting
out frills. Individual savings accounts
like IRAs and 401(k)s have lost a third
or more of their value. And home eq-
uity — a form of personal savings that
many workers count on using in retire-
ment — has been hit hard by a 10 to
30 percent drop in home prices.
That leaves Social Security as the
only truly stable source of retirement
income. Despite all the politically mo-
tivated fear-mongering that Social Se-
curity might not be there for people
when they retire, it’s fully funded for
the next 28 years, and even in the un-
likely event that Congress does noth-
ing before 2037 to shore up its fi-
nances, Social Security wouldn’t
eliminate benefits entirely, but cut
them by 25 percent.
Most union members, however,
have something else they can count on
in retirement — the “defined benefit”
pension plan.
In these plans, employers promise a
retirement benefit, and make regular
contributions to a fund so that the
promises can be kept. The fund is in-
vested. If investments do poorly, em-
ployers have to increase the amounts
they contribute. Because of the finan-
cial crisis, most defined benefit plans
are under stress and have suffered seri-
ous investment losses. But for the most
part they will still be able to pay core
benefits that were promised.
Union bargaining after World War
II made this kind of guaranteed pen-
sion a standard benefit for American
workers. But since the 1980s, defined
benefit plans have increasingly been
replaced by the 401(k) “defined contri-
bution” retirement savings plans. Just
25 years ago, more than 80 percent of
large and medium-sized firms offered
a defined-benefit plan; today, less than
a third do. Unionized employers are
becoming the last bastion of the tradi-
tional pension.
Among defined benefit pension
plans, the most secure are the multi-
employer funds jointly overseen by
union and management trustees.
They’re sometimes called “Taft-Hart-
ley” plans, because they comply with
the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947. Before
then, unions ran pensions directly. But
an anti-union Congress, seeking to
separate unions from a source of eco-
nomic power, required that employers
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Labor deeply involved
in cap and trade debate
By DON McINTOSH
Associate Editor
Congress and the Oregon Legisla-
ture this year are looking at laws to
cut greenhouse gas emissions. Scien-
tists say greenhouse gases, chiefly
carbon dioxide and methane, are caus-
ing a rise in average global tempera-
tures that could total 10 degrees
Fahrenheit by 2100. The warming is
having dramatically disruptive effects
on the environment and the economy.
Representatives of organized labor
are involved in those discussions at
both levels. Their agenda is to maxi-
mize the creation of decently-paid
“green jobs” and to minimize eco-
nomic harm to workers in polluting
industries.
The proposal being debated by
Congress is HR 2454, the American
Clean Energy and Security Act of
2009, also known as the Waxman-
Markey bill after its sponsors, repre-
sentatives Henry Waxman (D-Calif.)
and Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) The
bill creates a “cap-and-trade” system
that would gradually reduce green-
house gas emissions, but allow emit-
ters to do so in the least expensive
way possible.
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