PAGE 8 | March 17 , 2017 | NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
... PERS under threat … again
From Page 3
vs. The State of Oregon, a 2015 case in
which the Oregon Supreme Court ruled
once again that public employers can’t
renege on their pension promises.
Why business wants pension cuts
Why are Oregon business leaders so in-
terested in cutting pensions for teachers
and firefighters? They’ve said it’s be-
cause they’re concerned the cost will be
a drag on public services. But Professor
Gordon Lafer of the Labor Education
and Research Center (LERC) at the Uni-
versity of Oregon thinks there’s some-
thing else going on. Lafer is about to
publish a book based on five years of re-
searching corporate legislative agendas
in 50 state capitols. Lafer found that
business lobbies have been going after
public employee pensions all over the
country, regardless of how well the pen-
sions are funded. In fact, Lafer says, the
corporate-funded legislative clearing-
house known as ALEC has standing
cookie-cutter legislation to do away with
defined benefit pension plans for public
employees, a proposal they push in
every state, regardless of its fiscal con-
dition.
“Very often people who are against
public employee pensions say, ‘This
isn’t fair because these people have bet-
“I think they
want to disap-
pear the idea
of a defined
benefit pen-
sion so that
nobody re-
members that
it’s something
we can aspire to. “
— Professor Gordon Lafer,
University of Oregon
ter pensions than the working people
whose taxes pay their salary.’ But instead
of the answer being, ‘Damn it, we need
to provide all private sector employees a
way to retire in dignity,’ their answer is
to pull down the standard,” Lafer says.
“I think they want to disappear the idea
of a defined benefit pension so that no-
body remembers that it’s something we
can aspire to. It’s the idea that when
you’re old and tired, if you stop working,
you can have security and not be afraid.”
PERS MYTH-BUSTING
For updates about the PERS fight, visit the union
coalition web site at KeepOregonsPromise.org
NATIONAL
Union march at Nissan in Mississippi
On March 4 more than 5,000 auto
workers marched with their families and
supporters from local park to the gates
of the Nissan assembly plant in Canton,
Mississippi. Their demand: that the
company respect its workers’ right to
vote for the United Auto Workers
(UAW) free from fear and intimidation.
Of 43 Nissan plants worldwide, the only
nonunion plants are in Canton and at
two locations in Tennessee.
Nissan is trying to keep it that way,
waging an anti-union campaign and air-
ing anti-union ads on local television.
UAW says the company has violated
federal labor law in its effort to keep the
union out. In one complaint, UAW says
the company told staff that if they
unionize, the plant will move to Mexico
— an illegal threat. Then, two days be-
fore the march, a company security
guard stopped workers outside a gate of
the Canton plant from handing out lit-
erature and asking fellow employees to
sign cards authorizing a union vote.
Supporters at the march included Ver-
mont U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, actor
Danny Glover, and NAACP President
Cornell William Brooks, as well as a
dozen unionized Nissan workers from
Brazil.
The Canton plant employs about
6,400 workers. Over 80 percent are
black, and most make less than $15 an
hour, with starting wages for some at
$13.46 an hour.
Workers have been campaigning to
join the United Auto Workers for 13
years, and have formed a community
coalition with civil rights and commu-
nity groups — the Mississippi Alliance
for Fairness at Nissan.
Union electrical contractor stiffed at
Trump Hotel
President Donald Trump is still stiffing
contractors who work on his construc-
tion projects. At the Trump International
Hotel in Washington, D.C.’s Old Post
Office Building, IBEW-signatory
Freestate Electric has filed a lien for
more than $2 million for nonpayment.
Hundreds of union electricians worked
on the project. Freestate is one of five
contractors suing for nonpayment, to-
talling nearly $5 million.
“I want to make clear that this is not
political,” said company executive Tim
Miller. “Whether it is Trump, or some-
body you never heard of, we did a good
job, at an agreed upon price and we
want to be paid for it. ”
The general contractor nominated
Freestate for an award for the lighting
they installed, and they won, so there’s
no question about the quality of the
work they did, just whether they should
be paid for it, Miller said.