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January 5, 2018 | NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
... the GOP tax bill
From Page 1
The federal top marginal tax
rate decreases from 39.6 to 37
percent — for taxable income
above $500,000. That amounts
to a $32,500 a year tax cut for
the top 1 percent, and a
$148,000 a year cut for richest
one tenth of a percent of in-
come tax payers.
The law schedules the indi-
vidual tax cuts to expire after
2025, but not the corporate tax
cuts.
Lowering the rates of in-
come taxes on the rich is
likely to worsen the rising in-
equality in the United States.
The 500-page tax package
contains other notable ele-
ments:
■ Lowers the tax on millionaire
estates Under current law, Americans
can pass up to $5.5 million to their
heirs tax-free. The new law doubles the
threshold, so now the first $11 million
of property, stocks and other assets
won't be taxed ($22 million for
married couples).
■ Limits deductions for state and
local taxes Americans formerly could
deduct all of what they paid in state
and local taxes from the taxable income
they report to the IRS. Going forward,
those deductions will be limited to
$10,000 per tax filer.
■ Doubles child tax creditThe child
tax credit will now be $2,000 per child.
■ Ends the individual health
insurance mandate Starting 2019,
the new law ends the $695 per adult
tax penalty that the Affordable Care Act
imposed on uninsured individuals.
■ Eliminates the corporate
alternative minimum tax.
Lawmakers long ago realized that some
tax filers had become so skilled at
milking tax breaks that they paid no tax
at all even when highly profitable, so
Congress passed an alternative
minimum tax formula to rein that in.
That goes away in the new law.
■ Raises the alternative minimum
tax threshold for individuals. Last
year, the alternative minimum tax for
personal income tax payers kicked in for
Labor leaders react
individuals earning over $120,700 and
married couples earning over
$160,900. Under the new law, that
threshold is lifted to $500,000 for
individuals and $1 million for married
couples.
■ Doubles the standard deduction
The standard deduction will now be
$12,000 ($24,000 for couples.) That
means many fewer households will
have to itemize deductions. It also
means lower taxes for lower-income
taxpayers. But a separate change —
eliminating the personal exemption of
$4,050 per taxpayer, will limit the
benefit of this, especially for those with
lots of children.
■ Ends the tax deduction for union
dues. Corporations can deduct
payments to lawyers to fight unions,
but union members who itemize
deductions can no longer deduct their
union dues under the new law.
“Instead of giving a gigantic tax cut to
the rich, Congress should focus on
funding our domestic priorities.”
— AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka
“At a time when big
business is already pocketing sky-high
profits and the top one percent of
earners are seeing their incomes signifi-
cantly grow, it is confounding why
Congress would focus on increasing
their wealth at the expense of the
country’s workers.”
— Teamsters general president James Hoffa, Jr.
“America was the victim of a heist. The
culprits were the world’s richest people
and corporate America, and behind the
wheel of the getaway car sat the Re-
publican Congress. Rest assured they
will be held accountable for their grand
larceny come election day in Novem-
ber 2018.”
— Amalgamated Transit Union president Larry Hanley
...Retirees return to truck plant for the first time in decades
From Page 1
worked 30-plus years, and re-
tired with a pension.
“The retirees are the guys
that built this plant and gave
up a lot over the years to get
where we’re at now,” said ma-
terial handler Matt Milburn, a
member of Teamsters Local
305. Matt, together with his
brother Luke, walked their fa-
ther Rick through the plant
during the visit; he retired
from Freightliner in 2005.
“My dad’s been talking
about it for days,” Milburn said
by phone Dec. 15. It meant a
lot, seeing former coworkers
for the first time in over a
dozen years. Seeing retirees
was a boost to the spirits of cur-
rent employees too. “You
won’t find one union member
down here that didn’t think that
was cool that they let them
down here,” Milburn said.
Seeing retirees looking
healthy and happy also
showed active members that
there’s a light at the end of the
assembly line tunnel, and a re-
ward for long years of hard
work, said former Machinists
Lodge 1005 shop steward Dil-
bert Greer. In 2013, after 35
years on the job, Greer became
ONE OF MANY SHOP FLOOR REUNIONS: Retirees Tam Vo, Scott Mills, and Greg Fast visit Robert Morris (in back).
the last of his family members
to retire from the plant.
“We’re all happy as clams be-
cause we have good pensions,”
Greer said. “It just tickled the
hell out of all of us to be able to
walk through and see Mother
Freightliner again. It was our
bread and butter forever.”
Greer credited plant man-
agement for the trust placed in
employees and visitors.
“The thing that shocked me
the most was they said, ‘Well
you guys go on out and enjoy
yourself, go wherever you
want.’ I was expecting they
were going to take us around
in groups, shackle us all to-
gether, go where they wanted
you to go and talk to who they
wanted you to talk to. This was
very free. And it went off with-
out a hitch.”
Though employees were at
work on the shop floor, visit-
ing retirees didn’t get in the
way of making trucks, said
Lloyd Tolar, who’s still on the
job after 31 years. “Retirees
were mindful that we were in
production,” Tolar said, and
kept visits short.
Even just for a few minutes,
it was a very positive experi-
ence to see old and familiar
faces, Tolar said.
“Retirees need to know that
we appreciate them,” Tolar
said.
“I went down there to see
my work brothers,” said
Painters Local 1094 member
Greg Fast, who retired in 2016
after 39 years. “You see them
on Facebook but it’s still not the
real McCoy… Everybody was
surprised and had a smile on
their face. They were glad to
see us.”
The idea for the walk-around
event originated on a private
Facebook group that Carol
Hassebroek set up last year for
current and former truck plant
workers and their families.
“The intent was to bring peo-
ple together that hadn’t seen
each other in a long time,” Has-
sebroek told the Labor Press.
Hassebroek retired last Feb-
ruary after 37 years, and at the
retiree walk-around, she saw
former coworkers she hadn’t
seen since 1981.
“Everybody was just smiling
and happy. I have never been a
huggy person, but I was hug-
ging everybody,” Hassebroek
said.
Hassebroek said Machinists
chief steward Mike Housley
helped make the visit happen,
together with office support staff
Ferrol Walton and Brenda Ren-
don, and of course, plant man-
ager Mike Foley. There’s talk of
doing another one next year.
“It gives the people on the
shop floor hope,” Hassebroek
said, that there’s life after
work, even after physically de-
manding work, on concrete, in
steel-toed boots. “You see
someone that’s been out of
there 30 years, and they still
look okay, they can still walk.
It gives you hope.”